Mobiles2day – Mobile Industry News

Latest addition to Android powered handsets is Sony Ericsson’s X10. Device has huge 4 inch capacitive touch screen and runs on Qualcomm QSD8250 Snapdragon 1 GHz processor. X10 is currently listed as coming soon in April on Vodafone’s website:

Here is a full list of phone specs:

2G Network     GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network     HSDPA 900 / 1900 / 2100
HSDPA 1700 / 2100 / 900 or HSDPA 850 / 1900

Dimensions     119 x 63 x 13 mm
Weight     135 g
Display     Type     TFT capacitive touchscreen, 65K colors
Size     480 x 854 pixels, 4.0 inches
- Scratch-resistant surface
- Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
- Timescape/Mediascape UI

Sound     Alert types     Vibration; Downloadable polyphonic, MP3 ringtones, composer
Speakerphone     Yes, with stereo speakers
- 3.5 mm audio jack
Phonebook     Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
Call records     Practically unlimited
Internal     1 GB storage, 384 MB RAM
Card slot     microSD up to 16GB, 8GB card included

GPRS     Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
EDGE     Class 10, 236.8 kbps
3G     HSDPA, 10.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 2 Mbps

WLAN     Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, DLNA
Bluetooth     Yes, v2.1 with A2DP
Infrared port     No
USB     Yes, v2.0 microUSB

Camera 8 MP, 3264×2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
Features     Touch focus, image stabilization, geo-tagging, face and smile detection
Video     Yes, WVGA@30fps

Features     OS     Android OS 1.6
CPU     Qualcomm QSD8250 Snapdragon 1 GHz processor
Messaging     SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push email, IM
Browser     HTML
Radio     No
Games     Yes

Colors     Sensous Black, Luster White
GPS     Yes, with A-GPS support
Java     Yes, via third-party application
- MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV player
- MP3/eAAC+/WMA/WAV player
- Google Search, Maps, Gmail,
YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk
- Document viewer
- Voice memo
- T9

Battery           Standard battery, Li-Po 1500 mAh (BST-41)
Stand-by     Up to 415 h (2G) / Up to 425 h (3G)
Talk time     Up to 10 h (2G) / Up to 8 h (3G)
Misc     SAR US     0.87 W/kg (head)     0.81 W/kg (body)
SAR EU     1.40 W/kg (head)     0.91 W/kg (body)

Sony Ericsson video ad:

Europe’s top competition watchdog has approved the proposed merger of Orange and T-Mobile in the UK after obtaining concessions from the mobile phone operators’ parent companies.

The joint venture between France Telecom’s Orange UK and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile UK is planning to start trading in April, and will be Britain’s largest mobile operator.

British consumer groups reacted angrily to the European Commission’s decision to approve the merger on the fastest possible timetable, accusing Brussels of clearing the transaction with “indecent haste”.

The merger could also destabilise a UK government-sponsored effort to end a dispute between Britain’s mobile operators over their ownership of radio spectrum.

O2, Telefónica’s UK subsidiary, and Vodafone’s British business are not planning a challenge to the Commission’s decision.

O2 and Vodafone, the UK’s largest and second- largest operators, are instead expected to intensify efforts to poach customers from the new market leader.

Orange and T-Mobile, the third- and fourth-largest operators, are attempting an ambitious integration that is supposed to provide cost savings of £3.5bn.

The operators are planning to rationalise their networks and retail shops, and cut staff.

Tom Alexander, chief executive designate of the combined Orange/T-Mobile entity, expressed confidence that the integration would run smoothly and insisted the transaction was “great news” for consumers.

The merger will cut the number of British network operators from five to four, and consumer groups had called on UK competition authorities to investigate the transaction.

Which?, the consumer magazine and campaigns organisation, accused the Commission of failing to protect consumers’ interests.

Brussels’ decision to approve the merger is conditional on the combined Orange/T-Mobile entity having an infrastructure-sharing agreement with 3, the UK’s smallest network operator owned by Hong Kong’s Hutchison Whampoa.

The Commission said 3’s viability could be threatened if it did not have a network-sharing deal with the joint venture that would save costs.

Source: Financial Times

T-Mobile UK is revamping it’s portfolio of tariffs from 1st February 2010. Existing Combi, Flext and U-Fix tariffs will be replaced with new 18 and 24-month deals. We are not sure at this moment that T-Mobile will still offer 12 months tariffs or not. It looks like telco is moving away from short pay monthly contracts, it has already stopped selling them online, though you can still get them via phone or in the shop.

Here are highlights of new monthly plans:

• Customers can get fixed minutes and text deals on the following monthly costs – £10, £15, £20, £25, £30, £35 and £40 (24 month contracts)
• The deals will also be available on 18 month contracts for an additional £5 per month.

Tariffs range from 100 minutes and 100 texts for £15 per month to 1,200 minutes and 500 texts for £35 a month. Customers will pay £5 more for 18-month tariffs than 24-month deals allowing equivalent monthly airtime. Customers will now get a Flexible booster in addition to their text and minutes as part of their contract, which they can change each month. The flexible boosters include:

• Unlimited texts
• Unlimited internet
• Unlimited landline talk
• Unlimited T-Mobile talk
• Euro talk & text
• USA & Canada talk
• Europe &Amsterdam talk

Customers can ALSO buy another booster in addition to the one with their contract for only £5 extra a month.

T-Mobile is also dropping its ‘Solo’ SIM-only brand from March 1 for a range of ‘SIM-only’-branded propositions at new pricepoints. Rolling one-month deals start at £10 per month for 100 minutes and 100 texts,  and rise to £25 per month for 900 minutes and 500 texts.

Twelve-month SIM-only deals allow 600 minutes and 500 texts for £15 a month, and rise to 1,200 minutes and 500 texts for £25 per month. All unlimited text bundles have been removed.

SIM-only customers also get to select a free booster, and opt in for further bundles at £5 a go.

Existing Solo plans (affording 300 minutes and unlimited texts for £15 a month, 600 minutes and unlimited texts for £20 a month and 800 minutes and unlimited texts for £25 a month) are available until March 1.

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Today Nokia announced that it will provide all it’s smartphones with free turn-by-turn navigation.

Up till now, you had to pay subscription fee for it and I don’t think it had many users, especially here in UK.

This is Nokias bold move to attract new customers to it’s high-end market. Nokia has been loosing a lot of customers in this segment to Apple and to phones running on Android platform. Recently Nokia has failed to impress customers with it’s latest smartphones, competition has produced much more interesting and innovative products.

In the press statement, Nokia says that the new version of Ovi Maps includes high-end car and pedestrian navigation features, such as turn-by-turn voice guidance for 74 countries, in 46 languages, and traffic information for more than 10 countries, as well as detailed maps for more than 180 countries.

Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President, Nokia said: “This is a game changing move. By leveraging our NAVTEQ acquisition, and our context sensitive service offering, we can now put a complete navigation system in the palm of your hand, wherever in the world you are, whenever you need it – and at no extra cost. By adding cameras at no extra cost to our phones we quickly became the biggest camera manufacturer in the world. The aim of the new Ovi Maps is to enable us to do the same for navigation.”

Mapping is one of Nokia’s strongest assets, following the acquisition of Navteq, the electronic map company for $8.1bn in 2007. The move to make the maps free counters Google’s announcement in October that it would offer free maps and turn-by-turn navigation for all new Android phones.

Nokia will be integrating location based services into it’s Maps software, for example there will be interface to Facebook, where you could publish your current location. Traffic information, details of speed cameras and speed limits will also be free.

Source: Nokia Press Release

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Market today is full of different touchscreen phones, everyday new ones come out with better features and cheaper price. One of the attractive deals today in UK market is Toshiba’s TG01. Phone has impressive set of hardware specs, most eye catching being huge 4.1 inch touch sensitive display.

Have a quick glance at specs:

General: 2G Network     GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network     HSDPA 2100
Size: 129 x 70 x 9.9 mm
Weight: 129 g

Display: TFT resistive touchscreen, 256K colors (65K effective)

480 x 800 pixels, 4.1 inches
- Touch-sensitive navigation controls
- Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
- 3D user interface
- Shake control
Sound:     Alert types     Vibration; Downloadable polyphonic, MP3 ringtones
Speakerphone: Yes
Phonebook: Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
Call records: Practically unlimited
Internal Memory: 256 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM
Card slot: microSD, up to 16GB
Data: GPRS     Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
EDGE     Class 10, 236.8 kbps
3G     HSDPA, HSUPA
WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
Bluetooth: Yes, v2.0 with A2DP
USB: Yes, microUSB
Camera: 3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels, autofocus
Features: Videocalling
Video:    Yes, VGA@30fps
OS: Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, upgradeable to Windows Mobile 6.5
CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 1 GHz processor
Messaging: SMS (threaded view), EMS, MMS, Email
Colors: Black, White
GPS: Yes, with A-GPS support
Java: Yes, MIDP 2.0
- Pocket Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, PDF viewer)
- MP3/MP4 player
- Facebook and YouTube apps
- Photo editor
- Voice memo/dial
- Organizer
Battery: Standard battery, Li-Ion 1000 mAh
Stand-by: Up to 276 h
Talk time: Up to 5 h

Phone definately has all the top specs you need from a smartphone, to name a few: 1GHZ Snapdragon processor, large memory, 4.1 inch display, GPS, HSDPA and accelerometer. Phone is very slim and easily fits in shirt pocket. You would think that this kind of device would cost you dearly, but currently there is a deal at Orange shops where you can get this on Pay as You Go for only £149.99 with £10 top-up. That is very good value for money, especially if you want to use the device for internet surfing and watching videos on the move.

On the other hand, there are few drawbacks that I think worth mentioning. Device runs on Windows 6.5, although much improved, still not the best mobile operating system. Also screen is resistive touchscreen, which means not very responsive to finger touch, but you will be ok using nails or stylus. Headphone jack is only micro USB, but there is an adapter to 3.5 mm bundled in the box.

Offer for this phone is only available from Orange shops or online, so if you are looking for inexpensive large screen phone, get your Toshiba while stocks last!

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• Orange Offers Mobile Broadband Under £5
• Orange Launches £7 Million Campaign For Orange Wednesdays
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• HTC Touch HD Orange UK Exclusive