Three UK have confirmed that they will be ranging the Android-powered Samsung Galaxy Tab this winter, on a range of data-only as well as traditional SIM-only call packages.
Data only deals start at £7.50 per month for 1GB of data whilst 5GB can be gotten for £15 per month. Voice deals bundle 100 minutes, 2000 3-to-3 minutes, 3000 texts and 1GB of mobile internet for £10 per month, whilst £15 per month bumps the minutes up to 300.
Nigel Field, Director of Devices at Three, feels the network’s data savvy nature is a perfect fit for the Galaxy Tab:
“With both the Android and tablet markets going from strength to strength, we’re proud to be ranging the Samsung GALAXY Tab.
“More than 97% of Three traffic over the network is data, so more than ever consumers need to make sure they’re on a network that can cope with the demand when buying mobile Internet devices like tablets.
“With both SIM and Wi-Fi connectivity, Samsung GALAXY Tab users on Three can get the most out of the product knowing they’re with the UK’s number one mobile broadband provider.”
The all-important question that Three’s announcement hasn’t addressed is the cost of the Samsung Galaxy Tab itself. With the SIM-only deals in question being only 1-month rolling, its likely that Three will offer the device without subsidy.
If current pricing on eXpansys is any indication, the cost of the Galaxy Tab could be the biggest barrier to entry rather than which network to plump for.
We’ll let you know if and when contract deals arrive for the iPad challenger…
The curse of modern devices struck has struck twice for O2 UK, as roll-outs of brand new Android firmware for both the HTC Desireand Dell Streak tablet have resulted in disgruntled consumers, missing features and in some cases ‘bricked’ handsets.
First up was the belaboured journey for an update to the Dell Streak, a cutting edge Android powered tablet running on a year-old ‘Donut’ build of Google’s smartphone operating system.
O2 finally rolled out an update to owners of their network-exclusive device, bringing their massive phones up to the new 2.1 ‘Eclair’ software.
Before long, forums flooded with complaints as consumers claimed that features had been removed as well as a host of new issues, including the removal of PC synchronisation, missing Facebook widgets, the loss of Windows Media Video playback as well as deleted contacts and messages.
With these features claimed to now be faulty by many Dell Streak owners, O2 are quickly looking for a fix to restore functionality.
This follows O2′s HTC Desire update woes, which saw the carrier’s over-the-air attempt to bring the Taiwanese manufacturer’s phone bang up to date result in numerous problems, the worst of which saw the device lock up and become completely unresponsive at the loading screen.
O2 responded to TechRadar regarding the issue, releasing the following statement:
“While many have been able to download [the update] successfully, we have had a small number of reports of customers having problems installing the software, which we are looking into.”
Whilst the promise of Android and its evolving nature led many to believe that it could grow and eventually outperform the iPhone in terms of features and functions, the fear we had of networks and manufacturers finding it difficult to keep up with the pace of the fledgling platform seems to be materialising.
Even by disseminating these updates over wi-fi, the various makes and models and their customised versions of the vanilla OS have caused myriad problems for carriers and phone makers alike.
Say what you will about iOS, but there’s a charming consistency in the way that Apple’s updates bring the entire range up to speed in one fell swoop. Either that or leave it by the wayside altogether (see you later, iPhone 2G!).
As Android phones and their manufacturers continue to roll out new handsets, perhaps they will fall into a rhythm of regular updates, or scale back on the customisation to make the process easier.
Either way, the current experience is far too convoluted, troublesome, and fraught with failure for the average consumer to contend with on a regular basis.
If a major factor putting you off from buying Apple’s latest ‘magical’ device was the distinctly down-to-earth price, then a promising sub-£100 iClone from Chinese wholesaler LightInTheBox.com might be just the device you were looking for…
The aPad tablet certainly looks familiar upon initial inspection, down to the single face button and rectangular frame, with a closer look revealing a device running Android 1.6 on a 600MHz internal processor, with a 0.3-megapixel webcam and a 7-inch touch display at a resolution of 800 x 480.
Connectivity is solely 802.11 b/g wireless support, whilst a 2GB flash drive (but with support for microSD) acts as memory, and battery life is a scant 2 and a half hours. Also a concern is the 128MB of RAM, which can be boosted to a more speedy 256MB if you ask nicely…or order enough units.
Okay, it might not be an iPad but at a frankly amazing price of £97.43, we forgive it for being light on the specs front. With largely the same Android functionality as handsets costing three times as much, the aPad is a cost effective — if slightly basic — alternative to Apple’s tablet.
We haven’t plumped to purchase one for ourselves just yet, but we want to get an aPad just to see if we can get Froyo up and running on it!
For under 100 quid it might seem tough to go wrong, but we couldn’t wholeheartedly endorse buying the aPad from a site that also sells taffeta wedding dresses and fake grenades filled with bullets…Source: Tech Digest
UK network O2 is making their customers feel special with a new Priority iPhone app, raising the velvet rope early to thousands of the country’s biggest gigs and events.
This free app leverages their sponsorship of a host of UK venues by giving a window of opportunity to O2 customers, letting them snag tickets up to 48 hours before they go on general release. With gig guides, artist search and venue maps complete with directions, Priority looks to be the ideal app for fans of live music.
The carrier doesn’t discriminate either, as they revealed plans to bring the currently Apple-only app to other devices including the O2-exclusive Palm Pre Plus:
“With this app we are making it even easier for [O2 customers] to have incredible experiences that they can share with the people that matter to them the most,” said Jonathan Earle, O2′s head of consumer mobile, in a press release.
“Having launched on the iPhone we now plan to roll out the app to other platforms including Android and WebOS.”
Each major network is truly relying on separating themselves and courting consumers through value adds, with Orange Wednesdays now a necessity for cinema lovers and Vodafone offering a truly VIP festival experience if recent reports are anything to go by.
It’s no longer just smartphone fans on top-end contracts that are getting offered free stuff, as Orange have rolled out a series of top-up perks to benefit their prepay users.
Offering greater value for money to their animal-themed tariffs, Orange shoppers will get rewards for topping up as little as a fiver, as well as lower call rates and free international calling minutes depending on the package.
Music loving Monkey tariff users can add to the unlimited free music access by snagging a daily internet pass and free UK texts for adding at least £5 to their credit, whilst chatty Canary tariff owners get 100 more free evening and weekend texts when they add a tenner onto their account, on top of the 100 call minutes they already receive.
The intriguingly-spelled Racoon tariff keeps things easy – allowing prepay owners to enjoy cheap calls as the per minute cost falls to just 12p, whilst intrepid Camel PAYG customers can get free international minutes from just topping up.
On top of all the above, an offer of Unlimited Text bundle for a £5 top-up is extended to Dolphin and Monkey PAYG package owners, taking them slowly but subtly into pay monthly territory…
Pippa Dunn, Vice President of Orange Propositions said:
“We have enhanced our Pay As You Go animal packages to ensure we meet our customers’ changing needs and continuously provide good value. We are committed to offering customers packages that are tailored to their specific lifestyles – from music to free international calls.”
Great to the prepay customers getting a similar level of love as contact owners on Orange. Other networks would do well to follow suit…
There once was a time when the term ‘HD’ used to mean something. ‘High definition’ denoted a significantly better quality of image, video or sound, adhering to specific parameters and standards.
Then those wily marketing folk caught wind of it and HD has come to mean pretty much anything, from shorthand to describe games on the iPad and fancy mobile phones, to a pair of wraparound specs that can help you see real life in a little more clarity.
There is even the promise of daubing our living rooms in a high resolution hue, thanks to the invention of HD paint.
HD paint.
So excuse our scepticism when Orange announced that they were bringing high definition voice calls to phones in the United Kingdom.
Thankfully, they are trying to make HD mean something again as this service promises clearer and higher quality connections between mobiles, eliminating the occasional hiss and distortion that we’ve come to tolerate from chatting on the move.
Orange’s HD Voice runs on 3G connections utilising the WB-AMR (Wideband Adaptive Multi-Rate) speech codec, essentially meaning a wider bandwidth is used and packs in far more sound data, whilst placing the same strain on the network infrastructure.
Tom Alexander, Chief Executive of Everything Everywheresaid: “Although what we use our mobile handsets for has evolved significantly in the past few years – the way we make mobile calls hasn’t changed a great deal since the 1990s.
“So we’re proud to be the first telecommunications brand in the UK to change this and offer customers a revolutionary new calling experience. With mobile HD Voice – hearing really is believing”.
Talk of bandwidth and codecs is certainly encouraging; this is not just a gimmick or attempt to differentiate Orange with a unique selling point, significant time and investment seems to have gone into improving the aural experience on mobiles with the results coming through loud and clear.
Okay, so that video was a little gimmicky, but tests and trials have been ongoing with many coming away suitably impressed with the clarity of hearing the person on the other end, equating them as being in the immediate vicinity.
Background ambient noise is subdued, whilst the disembodied voice on the other end is as clear as a bell…sounds like HD Voice is a hit!
Well, not just yet. It isn’t simply a matter of snagging an Orange SIM card and getting your Bob Hoskins on.
HD Voice is limited to four specific handsets initially – the Nokia X6, Nokia E5, Nokia 5230 and the Samsung Omnia Pro – with further devices on the network soon to receive the signal.
A cute HD Voice logo is also present on new handsets to let you know if it is compatible with Orange’s service, available to no extra charge to those lucky phone owners…provided you’re in an area with decent 3G reception.
And talking to someone else with decent 3G reception.
On the same network.
Whilst great in theory and a huge step for mobile, the problem is that the advent of HD Voice on the various networks might be more divisive than anything, with each attempting to promise the richest quality of chatting experience rather than colluding to make the service better for everyone.
Once the range of compatible handsets broaden and 3G reception becomes less flaky in the UK, we are sure that we will banish the memory of crackling lines and dropped calls to the history books, whilst Orange blazing a trail without cost to the consumer is a commendable start.
More importantly, it promises a future for connectivity so bright that we’d have to wear HD WrapArounds…definitely a good thing.
As a UK retailer put paid to the Samsung Galaxy Tab‘s sole hope of competing with the Apple iPad by revealing an astronomical pre-order price tag of £680, a glimmer of light has emanated from O2 Germany’s Twitter account in the form of pay monthly deal for the tablet upon its October launch.
After an upfront cost of €99, customers will be able to snag the 7-inch full touch tablet for just €27.50 per month, falling largely in line with smartphone contract pricing in the country.
With Vodafone also touted to be releasing Samsung’s device on European shores, it’s a lot more likely that the Galaxy Tab will arrive on a contract rather than asking consumers to shell out the full cost up front…especially if pricing for the smaller 16GB model starts around where the costliest iPad ends.
Not content with helping a humble Manchester lass break the world record for fastest texter ever and appearing on the new Samsung Galaxy Tab, typing app Swype is winging its way over from Android to Symbian handsets.
Now available in beta form for loads of Nokia’s Symbian^1 devices including the Nokia N97, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia X6, 5800 XpressMusicand the 5230, Swype provides swift text entry to touchscreen phones by allowing users to deftly drag fingers (or a stylus) between letters on the keyboard, rather than pecking away at .
Whilst still a Beta Labs product, the ease of switching to the Swype input method is a little strange at first, but proves second nature after sending a few messages thanks to generous and loose predictive analysis that can second guess plenty of common words and spellings.
Also great is the extent to which Swype integrates with a host of existing applications, adding the new funtionality to them almost seamlessly.
Grab it from here for free, be sure to submit constructive feedback as it is still a work-in-progress, and stay tuned as Swype glides over to more handsets in the future!
Korean phone maker Samsung has finally entered their hat into the iPad-shaped ring with the Galaxy Tab, a 7-inch tablet packing a host of browsing and multimedia features that mark a very strong debut entry into virgin territory.
The Galaxy Tab is brilliant as far as the tale of the tape goes, with a 7-inch 1024 x 768 resolution TFT display running Android 2.2 underneath a TouchWiz-tinged Samsung interface. Hardware specs are rounded out with a 1GHz processor running proceedings and a dedicated graphics chip for apps and gaming.
A major boon over Apple’s tin tray is that the Galaxy Tab also acts as a massive mobile phone, complete with voice and video call functionality, as well as text and photo messaging support. The usual layout of various homescreens comes across as a Samsung Galaxy S display writ large, with much the same features, options and Swype for swift typing all built in.
Tapping in a telephone number on a device measuring 190.1 x 120.5 x 11.98mm makes the Dell Streak look positively minuscule as multi-purpose phones go, but 3G ad Wi-Fi b/g/n connectivity shows that this is much more than a gimmick for Samsung’s device.
Two more pluses arrive on the Galaxy Tab in the form of a 3-megapixel camera with LED flash on the rear, as well as a 1-megapixel effort on the front for some 3G video-calling face time antics.
Continuing to swerve left where the iPad veers right is in the format freedom when it comes to media playback. The Samsung Galaxy Tab happily plays all of the major movie flavours found on the web without a hitch including DivX and Xvid, as well as Apple’s favoured H.264 format.
With 7 hours of movie playback, the Tab is the perfect accompaniment for those long journeys, whilst support for millions of titles via the Readers Hub means that it is equally capable when it comes to browsing books, magazines and periodicals alike.
Equally important is web browsing, and thankfully the Galaxy Tab brings the true internet to your palm. Support for Adobe’s Flash 10.1 offers up a very familiar experience, with videos running within browser windows and animation-heavy sites looking much like their desktop counterparts.
Whilst a little less populated than Apple’s App Store, the Galaxy Tab has access to the thousands of games, and productivity software on the Android Market, and it won’t be long until developers update their applications to make full use of all that new-found display real estate.
The Galaxy Tab will be getting a European reception in September with 16 and 32GB sizes, and Vodafone is currently tipped to release it in various territories.
Lighter, smaller and more versatile than Apple’s iconic iPad, the Galaxy Tab actually does a better job of convincing that a tablet device serves a genuine purpose in our lives, as well as serving as a compact multimedia powerhouse.
Android Market will hopefully grow organically to cater for this new swathe of Google-powered tablets, and a decent array of applications from budding devs will be as much of a selling point as the device itself.
The only issue still up in the air is the price. The need for a traditional SIM card to serve up 3G connectivity will make it a prime target for pay monthly offers on the networks, instantly making the Samsung Galaxy Tab a more appealing (and affordable) prospect when paying over 18 months than in one lump sum.
Whilst consumers are only too happy to lay down £429 for an iPad, the allure of snagging something better for £30 per month could see the Android-powered device sweep up this winter…
A low-key launch marks the reveal of the Samsung Wave 723, the second handset to run on the Korean manufacturer’s proprietary bada operating system.
With a touted September release date, the Wave 723 is a far more affordable effort than the original Samsung Wave S8500, packing a 3.2-inch WQVGA TFT touchscreen (as opposed to the Super-AMOLED goodness of the Wave), a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and runs on the latest iteration of the widget-based TouchWiz interface.
Samsungs Social Hub software ensures tweets and texts appear on the homescreen, whilst direct access to the Samsung Store means a wealth of applications, games and software.
With a multi-touch Dolfin web browser, Wi-Fi support and assisted GPS navigation, the Samsung Wave 723 certainly fulfills the criterion of being a well-specced smartphone that (hopefully) doesn’t break the bank.
