Mobiles2day – Mobile Industry News

T-Mobile adds another Android powered handset to it’s portfolio of smartphones. You can now get HTC Desire for free if you are willing to be locked up in 2 year long contract for £35 a month. For that you will get brand new and shiny HTC Desire, 1200 minutes, 600 texts and also a flexible booster.

Cheapest 18 months contract is £15 a month, you have to contribute £164 and you will also get 100 minutes and 100 texts.

All plans with this phone include unlimited internet.

Here is a list of specifications for this phone:

Network Type: GSM Quad-band phone capable of global roaming (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
UMTS dual-band European/Asian 3G (2100/900 MHz)
Data: EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA 7.2 Mbit/s/HSUPA 2.0 Mbit/s

Dimensions: 4.69 x 2.36 x 0.47 inches (119 x 60 x 11.9 mm)
Weight: 4.76 oz (135 g)
Battery Type: Li – Ion, 1400 mAh
Talk Time: 6.66 hours (400 mins)
Standby: 340 hours (14 days)
Display Resolution: 480 x 800 pixels, 16 777 216 colors, AMOLED
Display Size: 3.70 inches
Touch Screen: Capacitive, Multi-touch
Camera: 5 megapixels Resolution
Camera Features: Flash LED; Auto focus, Face detection, Geo tagging
Multimedia Video Playback: MPEG4, WMV, 3GP, 3G2
Music Player: MP3, AAC, WMA, WAV, M4A (Apple lossless), AMR, OGG, MIDI
FM Radio
Memory Slot: microSD/microSDHC
Software: Android 2.1
Processor: Snapdragon, 1000 MHz
Memory: 576 MB RAM / 512 MB ROM
Input: Predictive Text Input
microUSB
WiFi: 802.11b/802.11g
Bluetooth: 2.1, Stereo Bluetooth
Headphones connector: 3.5mm
Other Features:
PhoneBook, Capacity depends on system memory; Ring ID, Picture ID, Search by both first and last name, Multiple numbers per contact, Caller groups
PIM, Alarm, Calendar, To-Do / Tasks, Calculator, World Clock
Voice Recording, Speaker Phone, Email
GPS: A-GPS, GPS

If you place an order now, you will probably wait for a week for it to arrive.

Orange has signed three new mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) contracts, two with fixed line providers to cross-sell own-branded mobile propositions into their customer bases and the third with a niche brand working with students, ethnic minorities and SMEs.

Orange has confirmed a deal with fixed line provider Unicom, which will sell its SIM-only MVNO offer into its base of 80,000 customers, providing billing for both fixed and mobile services on the same invoice.

It is also working with regional provider Axis Telecom, which is to provide a number of SIM-only deals to its regional base of 14,000 businesses and residential customers.

As well, niche operative Catalyst will provide mobile services through partners for groups such as students, ethnic minorities and SMEs.

All new MVNO deals are products of its relationship with mobile virtual network aggregator (MVNA) Transatel, with which it has set up a partner platform to enable swift establishment of such projects on its network. All are expected to launch shortly.

Orange already has MVNO deals with Mobinet, Lycamobile and IDT Mobile, and also national roaming agreements with 3 and Cable&Wireless in the UK.

Source: Mobile 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:

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

3 is to start carrying HTC’s Hero handset in November, making it the last of the five major UK mobile operators to begin offering an Android phone.

The company will bundle the Hero with a Spotify Premium subscription for the duration of the handset’s two-year contract, so users can download unlimited tracks from the internet music service. 3 is the first UK mobile operator to offer a Spotify Premium bundle.

“This partnership continues our commitment to bring popular internet services to our customers,” 3′s director of products and services, Charlotte Blanchard, said in the company’s announcement on Monday.

Blanchard added that bundling Spotify Premium with the Hero was a “first step” in the operator’s relationship with the web-based jukebox service. The company intends to extend the Spotify relationship across a range of its products, including some of its mobile broadband deals, she said.

The operator’s Hero deal, which includes unlimited texts, email and internet browsing, costs £35 per month over 24 months, with an additional £99 upfront fee.

A subscription to Spotify Premium, which allows the user to download tracks to their iPhone or Android handset, ordinarily costs £10 per month. Over the two years of 3′s Hero contract, this brings the total value of the bundled service to £240.

A spokesperson for 3 told ZDNet UK that the operator will start selling the Hero sometime in early November, but could not specify the precise date.

Source:  ZDNet