Archive for 2012

HTC Desire C now available on Three

The second announcement from Three today, this time featuring the HTC Desire C and some rather sweet prices.

The new smartphone combines all-round performance and the latest technology at an affordable price. With features to make everyday tasks easier and more enjoyable, the HTC Desire C has a five megapixel camera to capture special moments, a large 3.5″ screen for viewing the latest YouTube clips and a 600MHz single-core processor for seamless internet browsing and switching between apps.
Plus, with built-in Beats Audio technology, the HTC Desire C provides the best, most authentic music quality straight out of the box.

Sylvia Chind, head of handsets at Three said, “The HTC Desire C is a great all-rounder with a really powerful battery life, meaning that people can stream videos and music to their heart’s content over Three’s fast network.”

The HTC Desire C is available from £13 a month with no upfront cost on the Ultimate Internet 100 plan. Both the Essential Internet and Ultimate Internet plans offer a fear-free mobile internet experience, with a guarantee of no surprise out-of-bundle data charges.
The smartphone is also available on Pay As You Go for £149.99 All in One 15 costs £15 and gives 30-day access to all-you-can-eat data along with 300 any-network minutes and 3,000 texts. Or All in One 25 costs £25 and offers 500 minutes, 3,000 texts and All-You-Can-Eat data for a 30-day period.

Key features:
. Beats Audio technology
. 25GB online storage with Dropbox (free for 24 months)
. Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
. 4GB internal memory
. 600MHz single-core processor
. 5 megapixel camera

Posted by: James

New budget MiFi goes on sale today at Three

From today, Three customers can get their hands on a new value-model MiFi on pay as you go or contract from all Three stores or online at Three.co.uk.

The Huawei E5331 Value MiFi offers affordable fast, secure Wi-Fi access, for up to 5 of your Wi-Fi gadgets at once, making it the perfect accompaniment to tablets, laptops and handheld gaming consoles wherever you are so you don’t need to rely on public hotspots or expensive coffee shops to get online. Fast and secure just for you; no waiting and no need to share unless you want to.

Mark Brewer, Head of Mobile Broadband Devices at Three said, “As the leading network operator in mobile broadband, we’re delighted to be able to offer our customers a cheaper alternative to getting online, without having to compromise on speed.”

Mark Mitchinson, Executive Vice President at Huawei Device UK & Ireland, said: “Huawei’s family of mobile WiFi products are among the best kept secrets in the wider consumer market; gadgets which offer portable and personal WiFi connectivity that can be shared across multiple devices and people. The Huawei E5331 Value MiFi brings these benefits to a much wider market, supported by Three’s exceptional 3G data network.”

The Huawei E5331 Value MiFi is available for a one-off upfront cost of £29.99 on a one-month rolling contract at £15.99 per month for 5 GB of data or from £49.99 on Pay As You Go with 1GB of data.

Key features:
. LED screen with clear icon display
. One button connection
. Up to 21.1 Mbps technical standard Download (HSPA+)
. Up to 4.5 hours battery life

Posted by: James

Samsung Galaxy SIII – best selling handset of 2012 at Phones 4U

The Samsung Galaxy SIII has become the biggest selling handset of 2012 at Phones 4u, based on both pre-orders and first day sales across all 600 of the retailers’ stores. This also includes sales from the Samsung PIN experience pop-ups in Westfield Shepherds Bush and Old Spitalfields Market, which Phones 4u is the official UK retail partner for.

Prior to this the handset had also broken the record for Phones 4u’s most pre-ordered handset ever. 

The Samsung Galaxy SIII is available to all Phones 4u customers on the new ‘Just Update My Phone’ or ‘JUMP’ contract, which enables consumers to upgrade their mobile phone from a selection of the latest smartphones on the market, from partners Vodafone and Orange, as often as every 6 months.

Scott Hooton, Chief Commercial Officer at Phones 4u commented: ‘The demand for the Samsung Galaxy SIII has been truly phenomenal both in the pre-order period and on launch day. First day trade was exceptionally strong in all stores and at the Samsung PINs. A high proportion of the sales made were via JUMP, with new customers starting up contracts and pre-existing JUMP customers also coming in store to take advantage of the flexible upgrade and get their hands on the Galaxy SIII.’   

Available free on contract from £36 a month, the Samsung Galaxy SIII is available in-store and online at Phones 4u now.

Posted by: James

Vodafone launch the Smart II – budget Android

Another reasonably priced Android device launches today, the Vodafone Smart II. Priced at just £70 on Pay as you go price plans the handset may well be perfect for first time smartphone users.

The Smart II outperforms its predecessor in every way, while still retaining its low price point to appeal to people thinking about picking up their first smartphone. It runs on Android 2.3, offers a bigger display, better camera, longer battery life, a more powerful processor and more memory than the original Smart, making for an even better user experience.

The Smart II gives users great connectivity and provides access to Google Android services such as Gmail, VoiceSearch, YouTube and Google Talk. Combined with a large collection of embedded apps such as Facebook and Twitter – plus access to SWYPE for quick and easy typing, and Vodafone AppSelect to discover even more great apps – the Smart II offers a high quality, affordable option in the smartphone arena.

Available in dark grey and white, customers can make the most of their new Smart II with our great value Freebees, which include a choice of free minutes, text and web access or international calls – www.vodafone.co.uk/freebees. Every pay as you go customer is also automatically opted-in to Freebee Rewardz.

Every time a pay as you go customer tops up as little as £5, they’ll receive a text giving them a voucher code. They can then go online to ‘grab’ an instant reward or bank them as ‘grow’ points, to save up for something bigger. www.vodafone.co.uk/rewardz

Customers can choose from a wide selection of rewards including big name discounts from brands such as Thorntons and BLOCKBUSTER, music downloads and free minutes or choose to take a mystery reward, which could be anything from a smoothie maker to an iPhone. Alternatively, customers can collect points towards vouchers and experience days.
For further details please visit the Vodafone online shop.

You can see a video of the Smart II in action below:

Orange announce the Intel powered San Diego

Today unveiled the San Diego, a new high-performance Android smartphone powered by Intel Inside®, which will be available exclusively on Orange from 6th June nationwide. 

The San Diego (previously codenamed ‘Orange Santa Clara’) is the first Intel powered smartphone to launch in Europe and will deliver users the latest in innovative smartphone capabilities at an affordable price point.

The handset  is powered by the Intel® Atomo processor Z2460 and supports HSPA+ with the Intel® XMM 6260 Platform.  Together, these Intel solutions deliver users a fast and responsive browsing experience. 

The San Diego features High-definition (HD) video, helping it to support a rich entertainment offering along with 1080p video capture, image stabilization and HDMI out. What’s more, the handset boasts an 8 mega-pixel camera which features ‘Burst’ mode allowing it to take 10 pictures in under a second to ensure you capture all the action and can choose the very best pictures to keep and share.  The San Diego also comes with mobile HD voice for outstanding audio quality, and features a 4.03″ capacitive display, A-GPS and Bluetooth 2.1.

RIM provide Business Update

Last night Thorsten Heins, CEO of Research in Motion released the below statement detailing what is what in the BlackBerry camp at present. As you can expect it is not plain sailing at RIM currently and although there have been some staff changes and rumored staff cut backs this really isn’t surprising.

While financially the company are still focusing a rough couple of quarters this year it isn’t all bad as you will see. The BlackBerry subscriber base worldwide has grown again, now up to 78 million and both developers and RIM themselves are still positively focused on BlackBerry 10 which is still planned to roll out in Q4 this year.

You can read in full what Thorsten had to say below: