In the last decade, mobile phone use has outstripped the use of landlines in a similar manner to email’s conquest of physical mail. However, the advantages of mobile phones over landlines are not as clear cut as one might imagine.
Mobile Benefits
The most obvious reason that mobile phones have surged ahead is their convenience. The ability to make or receive calls wherever you are, using a dedicated handset and payment plan, removes the need to wait by the phone, use expensive payphones or share a line between a whole household or business.
Other benefits of mobiles tend to come in the form of non-vocal functions. Although some landline-based phones can process text-based communications, mobiles are streets ahead in this field. Texting is one of the most widely-used forms of communication in Britain, particularly among the under-25s, and the ability to send and receive emails and social networking communications instantly is also a huge bonus, as well as being particularly vital for those who are deaf or have other issues with standard telephones.
Landline Positives
There are still several reasons why it is useful to have a dedicated landline in your home or office. Being able to plan to calls with the appropriate materials to hand to make notes, reference previous communications, or access a calendar or clock during a call when making arrangements for meetings or deadlines are all useful arguments for having a dedicated phone line. You can also arrange to have your landline in a quiet space, something that is often sadly missing when making or taking mobile calls on the move.
In addition, fixed phone line costs are now generally very low, especially if deals that include evening and/or weekend calls are taken into account, so a landline can be a money saver for people who make lots of voice calls. Landlines are also more likely to allow free or low-cost use of numbers with special prefixes such as 0800 or 0870, allowing companies to subsidise clients’ contact with them. Companies who utilize a business phone service have reported lower business costs than those who didn’t.
Because landlines are not usually accessible 24/7 in the same way as mobiles, they can free you from some of the tension that many people have of being “on call” all day, every day. Answering machines for landlines are usually relatively inexpensive and can be customized in terms of allowing various types of messages or callbacks. They are also very reliable, because they are not dependent on your service provider forwarding messages.
In short, landlines are by no means redundant; rather, they have become useful for specialist tasks for which mobile phones are not so effective and for those occasions when economy is more important than ubiquity.
Posted by: Matt
With screen sizes ranging from 5 inches through to 10.1 inches Samsung, thanks to it’s Note and Tab range, seem to have a tablet size to suite everyone.
This week Samsung sent me over their new 10.1″ Note to have a look at. Unlike the Tab range, the note come with a stylus-like S-PEN allowing handwriting and drawing on screen.
The specification looks decent overall. a 1.4GHz quad core CPU and Mail GPU coupled with 2GB RAM and either 16, 32 or 64GB of internal storage. The screen res is also pretty decent at 1280 x 800 pixels which may be far less than the iPad, with the same size screen, but is high enough for 720p video playback.
Check out the video below to see more.
This week, the super money saving “Smart Deal” from Carphone Warehouse is the fantastic combination of the Samsung Galaxy Y and Samsung Tab 2 7″ W-Fi enabled 8 GB tablet.
The Samsung Galaxy Y and Samsung Tab 2 7.0 are available for free on a tethered deal to new customers and upgrades from today until Thursday 23rd August, for the incredible price of just £15.50 a month*. This deal is exclusively available with Carphone Warehouse on Orange and T-Mobile networks.
The compact and neat Samsung Galaxy Y is a full-featured smartphone with a sharp 3″ touchscreen display and a 2MP camera. The Samsung Galaxy Y’s Social Hub lets you access all your social networks, instant messengers and emails together in a single place, making sure you can keep an eye on your updates all at once.
Weighing just 345g and with a screen measuring just 7 inches, the Wi-Fi Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 is a perfectly portable tablet, great for watching your favourite films, catching up with friends on Skype, social networking, web browsing and playing your favourite games.
Powered by the latest Android software, the Samsung Galaxy Y and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 will give you access to 600,000 + apps in the Google Play store and a huge selection of exclusive Samsung-only apps. You’ll also have access to movies, music and the world biggest e-book collection.
The Carphone Warehouse Smart Deal of the Week is available in store, online at www.carphonewarehouse.com or by calling 0870 087 0870.
*24 month contract applies
Posted by: Matt
Phones 4u today announces the success of its nationwide roll-out of JUMP (‘Just Update My Phone’), with one quarter of overall sales on the top selling handsets taken out on the flexible contract, which enables consumers to upgrade their mobile phone as often as every 6 months.
After an initial trial period, JUMP has been available in all 640 stores nationwide since 1st June 2012. The response from consumers has been extremely positive: one quarter of all sales on the latest handsets are JUMP contracts; one in five eligible consumers have already ‘JUMP’ed and upgraded their handsets to newer devices; and 98% of these traded-in older devices at the time of upgrade.
Alistair Firth, Director of Customer Experience at Phones 4u, said: “We’re delighted at the initial response to JUMP. In some stores, JUMP contracts account for up to two-thirds of all contracts being sold, with uptake around London, Birmingham and the surrounding areas doing particularly well.”
So far the highest selling handsets on JUMP contracts are the newly launched Samsung Galaxy SIII (51%) and the iPhone 4s (40%) validating the research that indicated that for customers looking for the very latest devices on the market, flexibility around being able to upgrade to the next latest device when its available is very important.
Firth continues: “The initial results support research conducted prior to our trial, which found that some people have been frustrated by 18-24 month contracts and want to get their hands on the latest devices sooner. We’ve found this particularly true with early adopters from the younger age ranges, with results revealing a peak for customers aged around 21 taking out JUMP contracts. We will continue to work hard to ensure that we always have the very latest smartphones available within our JUMP range for this particular audience”.
Differing from other flexible offerings on the market, JUMP doesn’t require any upfront fees at the point of upgrade and customers own their handsets rather than lease them. For the added flexibility of being able to upgrade as often as every six months, customers will only need to pay an average added monthly cost of £2.99 – £3.99, dependent on the original JUMP contract chosen.
Posted by: James
HTC Corporation, a global designer of smartphones, today announced that its acclaimed HTC One S has been named ‘European Social Media Phone of 2012 – 2013’ by The European Imaging Sound Association (EISA). This is the second time that HTC has received this accolade after winning the same category last year with the HTC ChaCha.
Florian Seiche, President of HTC EMEA said, “Delivering the most personal consumer mobile experiences is a primary focus for us as at HTC – the ability to connect people and enable them to share content socially via their smartphones quickly and easily is something that consumers want to enjoy everyday. We’re delighted to be honoured with this award for a second time and would like to thank both EISA and our customers for their continued support of HTC.”
A unique association of 50 special interest magazines from 19 European countries, EISA is the world’s most prestigious multimedia magazine group. Every year, the editors-in-chief from all EISA members meet to decide which products analysed in their publications during the year deserve the coveted EISA Award.
The ‘European Social Media Phone 2012-2013’ recognises ingenuity in social media integration, networking and a handset’s ability to connect multiple social networks simply, while making sharing content and social interaction just as easy.
For more information on HTC One S please visit: http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-s/. For more information on EISA and the award selection process please visit: http://www.eisa.eu/.
Posted by:James
Gareth and James talk about major high end phone news. James plays with a new bit of hardware from Blackberry and Gareth finds a good value Nexus 7 alternative.
If you have been waiting for the LG Optimus 4X HD it is now time to get your orders in with Phones 4U. In addition the first 50 people to preorder the 4X HD from Phones 4u, including upgrades, will also be given a pair of tickets worth £100 to see Cheryl perform live this Autumn
The 8.9mm slim Optimus 4X HD includes 16 GB internal memory, runs on the latest version of Android OS, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and comes in both black and white. Besides the smooth and fast performance, the Optimus 4X HD boasts an 8 megapixel BSI (Backside Illumination) Sensor camera with LED flash.
Advanced multimedia features are delivered with LG’s new User Experience (UX), Optimus UI 3.0, which includes QuickMemo. QuickMemo allows users the ability to jot their thoughts and ideas on any screen and share it instantly with friends and family, without having to open a separate application. The Optimus 4X HD comes with Media Plex, which combines a range of functions to enhance image and video playback such as Fingertip Seek and Live Zooming. Media PlexT also includes Time Catch Shot this allows the user to select and save the best shot among the images taken just before the shutter button is pressed.
Available to preorder from Phones 4u today, the LG Optimus 4X HD will available in black at Phones 4u stores and online from 27th August, FREE from £26 a month on a choice of networks. The white colour variant will follow shortly after.
You may recall the press release from HTC on Friday of last week about the next update for their flagship HTC One X phone in which we were told that the ‘next upgrade for the HTC One X will be released on August 10th’.
This update should take the version of Android OS to 4.0.4 (still Ice Cream Sandwich) and bring with it various improvements to the Sense experience.
However, I’ve had lots of feedback through Twitter asking where the update is. Indeed I’ve been wondering the same thing myself as the update has not yet presented itself to me on my One X either.
Several other unconfirmed tweets suggest that the UK isn’t getting the update while the rest of Europe already has it. I’m waiting for comment from HTC but anyone out there already rocking 4.0.4 through a legit OTA update?
Posted by: Matt
For those of you waiting for it and possibly due an upgrade you may want to check out Motorola’s hotly anticipated smartphone, the brand new Motorola RAZRT MAXX, is now available at Carphone Warehouse.
The handset will be available for free from £20.50 per month, with tariffs on Vodafone, Orange, O2 and T-Mobile networks. Full tariff details are available here.
The Motorola RAZR MAXX boasts an incredible battery life that delivers up to 17.6 hours of talk time1. It also comes with 1GB RAM combined with a dual-core 1.2GHz processor and AndroidT operating system will ensure you are always entertained, delivering a lightning-fast user interface and the power to multi-task like never before. This combined with the long lasting battery means the Motorola RAZR MAXX is perfect for those with hectic non-stop lifestyles.
The RAZR MAXX is a tough and resilient handset; Corning® Gorilla® Glass defends 4.3-inch screen from scratches and scraps. Every part of the Motorola RAZR MAXX is protected by a splashguard coating, which even extends to the electrical boards inside, ensuring a go anywhere, do everything attitude.
The Motorola RAZR MAXX is available in Carphone Warehouse stores, online at www.carphonewarehouse.com or by calling 0800 925 925.
Posted by: Matt
The guys over at Coolsmartphone.com picked up on a little story from Stuff about a tablet Acer have mentioned in the past. Acer’s A110 tablet has a 7? screen, Tegra 3 CPU and Jelly Bean confirmed to be on the way. We had prices from the US however with 8GB this is merely priced at £179 at launch. The one big spec that propels the Acer is that the tablet will have a microSD slot. That’s one of the two major options covered that many will have been holding back on buying the Google Nexus 7 tablet for. The Nexus 7 lacks both expandable storage and a 3G modem option. However, this does have a problem in that there is no guarantee of future updates to the Android operating system.
It looks like the budget tablet market has really been shaken by the Amzazon Kindle Fire and, more recently, the Nexus 7 and its open ground for the manufactures to get creative in. The Nexus 7 has set the benchmark very high and it will be fun watching to see just what company will surpass it.
Posted by: Gareth
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