News

Tesco shelves VoIP

Tesco has announced that it will be shelving its VoIP phone service due the lack of customer use.  Their customers have until 27th April to find an alternative and the decision includes both the Internet Phone and Talk Wi-Fi products.

Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) lets people make cheap calls via their broadband connection and has been tipped for years to be a serious replacement for standard home phone lines.  Nevertheless VOIP has failed to capture the mainstream UK consumer who has focused their attention on the mobile phone market in last few years.

Tesco is a big player, with a huge mainstream marketplace and if they have found it difficult to find success in VOIP it is likely a sign that the average consumer is not ready for this type of service yet.  This is a significant blow for other providers.     

Leon Perry of SynergyOne, a business telephony supplier that specialises in VOIP for business, told us:

"VOIP simply hasn’t found its feet in the consumer market.  Regardless of the cost upsides, the average homeowner just can’t get past the idea that they may need to ‘switch on their computer’ or ‘plug in the VOIP phone’, and picking up their landline or mobile is just so much easier.  It’s a different picture with business VOIP solutions. Businesses are more clued up and prepared for the set up, given the significant cost cuts they could make on their business calls."

Clearly the UK consumer is a long way from accepting VOIP, and in the meantime businesses are driving forward this technology.  We’ll have to watch this space for the future of consumer VOIP.

Posted by: Matt

Apple to hold iPhone OS 4 event

Only days after the release of the iPad Apple are keeping us on our toes with the announcement of an iPhone OS 4 event this week on Thursday, 8th April.

Although I’m not an iPhone user this maybe the event that changes my mind. Could we see multi tasking in 4.0? It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.

I would love to say I will be at the event but its taking place in the USA so we will have to reply on press releases. We will be sure to keep you in the picture though.

Posted by: James

Xperia X10 goes on sale in Japan, Japanese go nuts for it!

We’ve been talking about the Xperia X10 over the past few, erm, months I suppose but things finally seem to be hotting up, I got my Xperia X10 review unit a few days ago and the X10 has now gone on sale in Japan. Apparently the Japanese have gone mad for them and have been queuing for literally hours to get their hands on the brand new device.

The X10 was released earlier this week on NTT DOCOMO, one of the worlds largest mobile phone carriers.

I’ll be posting my video of the X10 over the next day or two before I go ahead and dive in to the full review. Don’t forger to fire over your comments or questions on the X10 and we’ll do our best to answer ya!

Posted by: Matt

Apple iPad on its way!

I’m sure that you are only too aware that as of this morning, 3rd April, the Apple iPad went on sale in the US. Still no word on the actual launch date here in the UK or when we’ll even be able to pre-order.

We were keen to review the iPad as soon as possible so appealed to our US followers on Twitter to see if anyone could help us out and get one for us. I’m really pleased to say that we had a few offers of assistance and thanks to Ching-Yao Yu we’ll have an iPad to review within just a few days, as soon as it gets here from Maryland via FedEx!

Massive thanks to Ching-Yao Yu for helping us out.

Please head over to the forums to start submitting your comments and questions and we’ll do our best to answer your questions and it’ll give me some ideas as to what to cover in the videos that I shall undoubtedly be recording!

Posted by: Matt

RIM Announces 4th Quarter Earnings

As the title of the post states, RIM (makers of BlackBerry Smartphones) have released their Q4 earnings for Fiscal 2010.

As you will see in the press release below, although market share for the iPhone and Android is growing, BlackBerry users are growing too and by quite a lot!

WATERLOO, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – March 31, 2010) – Research In Motion Limited (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM), a world leader in the mobile communications market, today reported results for the three months and fiscal year ended February 27, 2010 (all figures in U.S. dollars and U.S. GAAP).

Annual Highlights:

HTC Desire OTA ROM update

Just getting news in from a few tipsters that the HTC Desire has seen it’s first OTA update. You may recall James covered the news on the HTC Desire ROM situation last week and we’ve had a few updates status updates throughout the week.

My understanding is that the OTA ROM update takes us from 1.15.405.3  to  1.15.405.4

No I am guessing that this is to mop up any Desire units that made it out before Google approved the latest ROM on the 26th as the build we had on the review devices was already 1.15.405.4. I’m also guessing this will do nothing for T-Mobile or other carrier branded handsets as we know that the T-Mobile version was an earlier 1.15.110.10 on those.

What’s changed in this ROM update then? I’d say very little given its minor revision number but if anyone out there notices anything then please let me know!

Posted by: Matt

[ Post Tags: HTC Desire, Android 2.1, unboxing video, tracyandmatt.co.uk ]

Vodafone UK Exclusive: HTC Legend Pre-Order Opens

Vodafone UK’s Android April is fast approaching and customers can now pre-order the HTC Legend Smartphone, which will launch exclusively on the UK’s best network.

The HTC Legend handset will be pre-loaded with Vodafone 360 apps, giving customers access to services like Vodafone Music and MyWeb, in addition to full access to the Android Marketplace with over 30,000 applications and the Android operating system.

The HTC Legend boasts a unique design with a smooth, continuous surface, sculpted from a single aluminium block into a seamless compact frame.  The advanced technology featured in the HTC Legend is cleverly hidden to ensure the phone is lightweight and the battery and SIM card slide perfectly into place within the unibody design.

HTC Legend arrives tomorrow with Devicewire

As the title states devicewire.com will be receiving there HTC Legend stock tomorrow and this means that if you would like one they can have it to you before 1PM on the 1st April. If the Legend is up your street you had better get a pre-order in sharpish as these will be flying out the door me thinks!

Follow this link to get your order submitted.

Not sure which to buy, Legend or Desire? Check out our full reviews of both devices. Make yourself comfortable though. They are quite a read!

Posted by: James

Post Tags: tracyandmatt.co.uk,devicewire.com,HTC Legend

Orange to get the HTC Desire – in black!

I’m pleased to let you know that Orange are jumping on the band wagon and will be stocking the HTC Desire soon. As you will see in the tweet sent by Orange PR manager and Xmas karaoke star (sorry Conor!) Orange will also be offering a Black version of the device.

This now gives Orange a fantastic line up of smartphones as the HTC Desire joins the iPhone, BlackBerry Bold 9700 and the forthcoming Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.

The Desire is not yet showing on the ‘coming soon’ page on the Orange website but if Conor says its coming, it is! For those of you that are due an upgrade or thinking of switching to Orange the dilemma you now have is which phone to get. It may be a hard decision.

Nice choices Orange 🙂

Posted by: James

HTC Desire supply issues

What’s going on with these HTC Desires. One minute we are being told they will be available on a certain day and five minutes later we are told they will not be. Frustrating or what?

Yesterday Clove Technology released the following statement:

We have heard this afternoon, 26 March, that the launch of the HTC Desire is likely to slip back to the 7^th April.

This is of course not the news ANY of us wished to hear and we as a reseller are as frustrated as you the customer about this delay.

This will affect ALL UK unlocked stock of these devices, so no other reseller will receive their shipments any quicker. Please be aware some may simply not update their website as quickly about this issue, so do not let this confuse you.

We will be working with HTC and their UK distribution to keep you informed of progress on the situation and will of course be pushing to get the stock as soon as we can.

We are already receiving a huge number of emails to clarify the status on individual orders, which is putting a huge strain on our resources, so please do not unless essential email for updates. We will endeavour to give everyone updates as soon as we get them by emails such as this.

This is the reason I think it’s all gone belly up (unless I have got it wrong)!

It would appear that it wasn’t until Friday morning (26th) that the final ROM was confirmed by Google. The HTC Desire review units (of which we have one) were re-flashed and then despatched Friday afternoon to bloggers and reviewers.

This means that all the HTC Desires that are currently sitting in a warehouse somewhere in the UK waiting to be sent to distributors etc need re-flashing. These were due to be on sale on Monday 29th but its going to take a few days to get the new ROMs on all the units.

T-Mobile however have the HTC Desire for sale now as they have their own ROM on the device and this was authorised by Google clearly at an earlier date.

I just tried to buy a Desire from the T-Mobile website and I got as far as paying for it and there was no mention of any supply issues.

So if you want a HTC Desire over the next few days you only have two options. Option one is to get it on T-Mobile. Option two is to beat up Matt and nick his one!

If we do get any developments we will be sure to let you know.

Did you like the Unboxing video? If you would like to discuss the device with us please feel free to join us on the forum.

Posted by: James