Phones

Clove get in a load of HTC accessories

Clove have today received into stock a number of lines from HTC which you may have eagerly been waiting for.

After much today the following items are now available for purchase:

HTC Desire PO S520 Pouch Case – £12 + VAT – NOW IN STOCK

HTC Desire SP P360 Screen Protector – £7 + VAT – All sold – more stock due in 10 days. Backorder advised.

HTC Desire Alu-Leather Flip Case – £20 + VAT – All sold – more due next week. Backorder advised.

HTC Legend SP P340 Screen Protector – £7 + VAT  – NOW IN STOCK

HTC Legend Alu-Leather Flip Case – £20 + VAT – NOW IN STOCK

HTC HD mini SP P350 Screen Protector – £7+ VAT – NOW IN STOCK

HTC HD2 CU S400 Car Kit – £55 + VAT – All sold – more stock due next week. Backorder advised.

HTC HD2 BP E400 Battery – £35 + VAT – All sold more stock due next week. Backorder advised.

Stock are limited on many lines so we do advise acting quickly to avoid disappointment.

HTC want immediate ban on Apple’s US sales!!

The bad blood between Apple and HTC continues.

On Wednesday, HTC Corp filed a patent infringement case against Apple. In doing so, HTC also requested from the U.S. International Trade Commission an “immediate ban on U.S. sales” of iPhones, iPads and iPods.

Clearly, the move by HTC comes is the latest counter-punch against Apple, which filed a patent infringement suit against HTC in March. At that time, Apple accused HTC of violating twenty patent infreingments.

HTC, however, is now accusing Apple of “infringing five HTC patents,” although HTC did not announce which patents Apple violated in particular. Much clearer, of course, was HTC’s request that the importation and sales of iPods, iPhones, and iPads be halted.

“We are taking this action against Apple to protect our intellectual property, our industry partners, and most importantly, our customers that use HTC phones,” Jason Mackenzie, HTC’s VP for North America pronounced in a statement.

Apple has not yet offered comment on the matter.

[Source Mobile Marketing Online]

O2 announces data plans for iPad Wi-Fi + 3G in UK

O2 today announced further details of its dedicated data tariffs for iPad with Wi-Fi + 3G. All iPad data tariffs will be available without a long contract and include unlimited access to BT Openzone and The Cloud Wi-Fi hotspots at no additional cost. Apple and O2 have worked together to provide a breakthrough way to easily activate, manage and monitor an account right on iPad. Customers will be notified as they approach their data limit with a direct link to iPad settings to check data usage, top up the account and upgrade or cancel their tariff.

Palm Pre wasn’t a disaster (according to Palm)

Palm has countered claims made by Carphone Warehouse and O2 staff that sales of the Pre were a “disaster.”

The Palm Pre is exclusive to O2, and has recently been made free on all 18-month tariffs from £30 upwards.

A Palm spokesperson said: “We acknowledge a few minor quality issues with in-store demos at launch, but these were dealt with quickly. Sales are in line with expectations.”

Palm has since been purchased by IT manufacturer HP for $1.2 billion (£788 million).

Orange 3G Blackouts

Orange customers have complained of being unable to receive 3G coverage in locations where signal was previously good.

Most customers said their handsets would not automatically switch to 2G in those areas, and had to manually shift onto the slower connection.  Areas affected include parts of Hatfield, Ipswich, Colchester, North Lanarkshire, Glasgow, Dumbarton, Alexandria and London, customers claimed.

Orange was unable to confirm 3G problems in all sites, but admitted to problems in London, Colchester and Ipswich.

An Orange spokesperson said: “Unfortunately [EC1Y 2BJ] lies half way between two mast sites of our current [locations]. We are currently in the process of updating these sites to improve coverage and also looking at opportunities for new masts in this area to ensure customers in this area receive an improved service.

O2 are the BEST (according to O2)

O2 last week defended its UK 3G network, going so far as to suggest it provided a superior customer experience in much of the UK, and in London in particular.

Tension is high among operators over network quality, and O2, considered by many watchers to have the weakest 3G network in the land, was asked to respond to claims by Vodafone in recent advertising that its 3G network offered the best quality of service.

O2 UK chief technology officer Derek McManus said: “Is Vodafone best for 3G quality? Not in my opinion, no. Overall, O2 has a better network – although, there are also parts of the country where we don’t. But we’d rather be honest, and talk to customers in a language they understand.”

iPhone HD (4G)in pieces

Shown here in this brief video are the different parts making up the housing of the upcoming iPhone which is expected to be announced early next month at WWDC 2010. The guy then proceeds to piece together the 4G iPhone’s digitizer LCD and its middle metal plate. For those doubting its make, if you listen closely to the video, you can actually hear that it’s really metal and not just some cheap plastic made to look like it. Missing here, however, is the backplate to complete the case iPhone 4G (HD), but we’re not exactly that disappointed given that we’ve seen it as a whole already thanks to Gizmodo’s controversial posting and video of the leaked iPhone 4G.

Apart from its redesigned aesthetics, the iPhone 4G (HD) is expected to come equipped with a front-facing camera, flash for the rear camera, support for 720p video recording, high-resolution display, and will ship with iPhone OS 4.0 on-board.

The Microsoft Kins get reviewed

Phonearena has put together a nice review and comparison of the Microsoft Kin One and Kin Two. The honest seem to be quite tight devices with a pleasant user interface. Whilst they do seem to be somewhat unremarkable the Windows Phone operating system gives us a nice insight into the working of this cut down version of what to expect later this year. After watching the video I’m a lot more excited about these devices and will look forward to having a play with this at some point in the future. Check out the video after the break:

Blackberry tablet thoughts

Here are some interesting points from Berryreview regarding the recent rumblings about RIM considering a Blackberry based pad.

Scott Moritz of The Street had the following to say (summarized):

• RIM is rethinking its tablet strategy
• They originally planned on releasing a Android based tablet by the end of this year but decided instead to base it on the BlackBerry 6 OS they showed of at WES
• This decision to use BlackBerry 6 has pushed off its release date to early next year
• RIM will market the tablet to the consumer market instead of their usual enterprise approach
• The device will supposedly use the Marvell Armada processor instead of Intel or other offerings

Take all of this with a grain of salt since it is coming from analysts who are paid to speculate. Still its disheartening to see that once again RIM is playing the catch up game with Apple.

Updated: Vodafone are about to rip you off.

Some interesting news which was just found tonight and is sending shockwaves through gadget fans in the UK is that from 1st June 2010, Vodafone will change the conditions on charging for data use on mobile phones.

At present all phones with exception to the iPhone and Nexus One can have a data package of 500MB Fair Use added for £5 a month but until now you could go over that mark without fear of running up a bill.  This will change from June with Vodafone charging another £5 for 500MB of internet use which has had people on Moneysaving Expert & Vodafone eForum fuming.

To compare, T-Mobile offer 3GB data with ALL Android phones as a free part of your package, the same 3GB on Vodafone will now cost you £30!

Update:

Our roving report Chris hassled Vodafone and they confirmed it all: