Omio News Blog

O2 Unhappy Over Skype On Nokia Phones, Threatens To Block Service

Following the news that Skype is now available on Nokia phones, it seems that O2 is less than pleased.

The application allows free phone calls to be made over data and wireless networks instead of using mobile minutes, and O2 are concerned that its usage could result in significant strain on their service. The carrier issued this statement to TechRadar:

“We do not as a general rule block access to voice over IP services on our network.”

“However, in the case of unlimited data services such as our data bolt on and iPhone tariffs, VoIP is prohibited within the excessive use policy.”

“These unlimited data packages are designed to allow customers to browse the web and access data services such as email without worrying about a cost per MB.

“To offer the best possible customer experience, we prohibit continuous streaming of any audio/video content, Voice over IP, P2P and file sharing services, all of which can adversely impact the overall customer experience.”

Fair enough, it’s against O2′s rules. But why?

As much as O2 reiterate that denying the use of VoIP services is to benefit the end consumer, we can’t help but think that it also has a lot to with the fact that Skype circumvents using their own network for voice calls, the primary revenue stream for many carriers.

This isn’t the first time the concept of VoIP (Voice Over IP) on mobile phones has been met with a frosty reception. When Nokia announced that the Symbian-powered N97 would have Skype pre-loaded at 2009′s Mobile World Congress, O2 and Orange retaliated by boycotting sales of the smartphone in their stores until the Finnish manufacturer stepped down and released the device without it.

Similarly, the iPhone’s Skype application is still hamstrung by restricting its usage to only Wi-Fi networks, blocking calls over 3G due to “contractual restrictions”.

Whether it is genuinely over issues of network capacity or simply to keep us using those minutes, it seems the mobile networks are still not ready to see consumers freely making and receiving calls over the web…

Nokia N900 Gets Scratched By Keys, Dropped On Concrete, Survives

Whilst everyone else has been touching, carressing and fawning over the new Nokia N900, TehkSeven have taken it upon themselves to be a little more…forceful with the device.

Buying it directly from the flagship Nokia Store on London’s Regent Street for the princely sum of £500, the guys promptly decided to try and damage the Maemo-powered smart phone as best they could!

The first video shows the N900′s 3.5-inch resistive touchscreen being subjected to pressure from a stylus, a coin and (shriek!) a key, as well as compared to the resilience of both the Nokia N97 and Apple iPhone.

Results may be painful to watch for phone lovers…

The second shows us what happens when the Nokia N900′s gorgeous form is dropped on grass, gravel, and concrete…it comes across as being surpisingly tough.

With the Finnish manufacturer’s flagship handset suffering all manner of delays before finally seeing a SIM-free release earlier in the week, the knock-on effect is that we may not see contract Nokia N900 deals from the major networks this side of Xmas…

Nokia N97 vs. Nokia N97 Mini: A Video Comparison

Confused as to why the new raft of telly ads have been raving about the new Nokia N97 Mini as opposed to the regular Nokia N97? Not completely sure where the differences lie?

Well, wonder no more as Nokia Experts takes you on a journey of mobile discovery, comparing the sleek smart phone to its bigger brother in great detail.

Whilst there is little in comparing N97 Mini deals to those of the Nokia N97 (£20 difference for a SIM-free model, according to the Nokia site), there is a lot more to contrast in terms of form and function.

Check it out below.

Keen to know how the two stack up on paper? Well, let our Omio phone comparison widget do the hard work for you…

Via

Gory Mobile Phone Unboxing Wins Omio’s Halloween Competition!

Over the month of October we’ve been holding our ‘Scare Omio‘ competition, and received some of the most horrible, hilarious and heart-stopping pictures and videos from our community trying to give us the chilliest chills in an attempt to win a Nokia N97!

Below are some of the more weird and wonderful entries, but first – the winner!

Congratulations to on this elaborate mobile phone ‘unboxing’ from @wee_dizzy_dee.

The effort is there with the make up, the homebrew intestinal gore and faux legs show dedication to anatomical correctness, and a child in grown up people spectacles just freaked us out!

HONOURABLE MENTIONS:-

This bloody effort from @v8gamer was inspired, we love that you dotted the ‘i’ on the logo!

It might be a slow burner, but this video from @corasonsalbahe got us, and good!

@xrgo‘s was just…yucky. Also, the attention to detail is awesome.

Another video nasty, this time from @TunaRioMare. Definite winner of ‘Best Cinematography’, if we had such a category. But we didn’t.

All of the entries were of a surprisingly high standard, thanks to everyone that made the effort and took the time to scare Omio.

We thought we were made of sterner stuff, but some of the ones that didn’t make it into the Rogue’s Gallery were on the grounds of taste and decency as much as anything else…you people are sick!

We hope to do another competition again very soon so keep looking out on Omio for the mobile phone deals, as well as more competitions!

Nokia N97 Mini On Orange Accidentally Made Available Early – UPDATE

UPDATE: Techradar has asked Nokia what is happening regarding the release, and they have stated that they, not Orange, would be the first to bring the diminutive handset to UK shores:

“The Nokia N97 mini will begin shipping in October, however an exact UK release date has not yet been announced. We can confirm that the device will go on sale inNokia’s flagship stores before it is sold through any operators.”

UPDATE 2: Unfortunately, a technical hiccup on Orange has been blamed for the premature release of the N97 Mini on third party retailers. They released a statement regarding the matter:

“We are working to resolve this issue. Orange can confirm it will be ranging the Nokia N97 Mini and correct pricing and availability will be available in due course.”

It’s a shame, as we are excited about seeing the N97 Mini arrive this winter. The flagship Nokia store is said to be selling the phone – SIM-free – from the 23rd of October.

The slimmed down sequel to Nokia’s popular N97 has been a little shy regarding a release date, but Omio has stock available of the N97 Mini from Orange Direct right now!

Despite being marked up as ‘coming soon’ on the Orange site, Omio’s Nokia N97 Mini deals will take you straight to the basket, allowing you to get one delivered as soon as Wednesday!

The pricing is certainly in line with premium smart phones on the network, with a handset price of £97.50 and £34.25 per month bagging you an N97 Mini on a 24 month deal of 1200 minutes and unlimited texts.

However, with the site saying the handset will be available from free on pay monthly, there might be even better deals yet to come…

Nokia N97 vs. Nokia N97 Mini Comparison: Mobile Phone Face Off!

The forthcoming Nokia N97 Mini is the latest Nseries phone, taking this summer’s most hyped handset and shrinking it down to a more pocket-friendly form factor.

So far, we know that it is smaller, cheaper and…browner than the Nokia N97, but does the N97 Mini actually bring to the table this October?

Check out our guide to see the differences between the Nokia N97 and the N97 Mini in all of the ways that really matter!

Size:

This is one round where the Nokia N97 Mini had better strut its stuff!

In response to popular demand, shaving a few centimeters from all of the N97′s angles makes the Mini, well…mini! The N97 Mini has also been made a little more curvaceous to fit in the pocket easier. The QWERTY keyboard is retained, but losing the N97′s slightly redundant d-pad in the process. What that means for N-GaGe gaming compatibility remains to be seen…

If you like your smart phone smaller, then the N97 Mini is exactly what you are looking for!

Winner: Nokia N97 Mini

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Weight:

Another shoo-in, the Nokia N97 Mini is positively svelte in comparison. The paunchy N97 is 12grams heavier than the 138g Mini, and that reduced weight leaves plenty of room in your pocket for loose change or pine cones.

Winner: Nokia N97 Mini

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Screen:

Something had to give, and the N97 Mini has lost .3 of an inch in the touchscreen department. May not sound like much, but size always matters and the N97′s 3.5″ screen looks all the more spacious for those active widgets when compared to its younger sibling.

Winner: Nokia N97

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Camera:

A photo finish in this department, the Carl Zeiss 5 megapixel camera remains largely unchanged between the two devices, with N97 Mini sporting a dual-LED flash as opposed to the single LED of the N97.

A small but significant victory for the plucky youngster!

Winner: Nokia N97 Mini

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Battery:

The Nokia N97 rocks a beefier battery, giving more than 2 hours talktime to the gallon over the N97 Mini and an 8 hour difference in music playback. Standby time eclipses the Mini by over 100 hours, proving that bigger is sometimes better!

Winner: Nokia N97

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Memory:

Another department whether concessions make the N97 Mini that bit more affordable. An internal memory of 8GB is usually impressive, but the hefty 32GB offered by the original N97 is tough for any handset on the market to beat. The microSD card slot can beef up both devices by an extra 16GB, but that doesn’t offset the cavernous 24GB disparity in memory.

Winner: Nokia N97

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Connectivity:

Both handsets are identical in this respect, the suite of smart phone syncing options from Bluetooth to USB and everything in between are covered by both devices. Wi-Fi makes surfing over a wireless connection a cinch, whilst the FM transmitter enables you to broadcast music through any free radio frequency. The built-in browser has support for Flash, whilst messaging and mail functionality remain intact. It really is a miniature N97 in most respects…

Winner: Draw

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Media:

The Nokia N97 Mini is well equipped to enjoy the wealth of existing music and movie formats, whilst the smaller screen size does little to ruin the viewing experience. Ovi Store downloadable apps are available and should be compatible with both devices, but the lack of d-pad makes the N-GaGe gaming platform a challenge on the smaller handset.

Winner: Draw

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Verdict:

It’s all about price at the end of the day, and the N97 Mini is about giving users that smart phone functionality at a more affordable cost. If the success of Nokia’s N97 flagship smart phone was at all tempered this summer by some being put off by the price tag, then the N97 Mini is bound to do great business this winter.

Nokia N97 Mini: It’s Real And It’s Coming!

From the early rumblings on a hastily deleted Vodafone Ireland thread (of all places) to recent sightings in the flesh, the Nokia N97 getting a little brother is the biggest non-Apple tablet story currently doing the rounds in the tech blogosphere.

So it’s only right that one of the interweb’s biggest bloggers lays down some concrete details, as Mobile Review‘s Eldar gives the world the lowdown on the Nokia N97 Mini.

Unwired View has brushed up on their Russian and picked out the salient points from all that he told them…

What is it? It is indeed the Nokia N97 Mini, and will be named as such. The name is apparently stealing a march on another manufacturer’s intentions to release a slimmed down version of a popular handset as the ‘Mini’. Sneaky…

What’s it got? It is indeed a smaller N97, with similar features and specs, albeit…well, smaller. The display is said to be reminiscent of the new Nokia 5530 XpressMusic, so we’re talking a 2.9″ screen at a 640 x 360 resolution.

The d-pad on the left side is gone as the images suggested, and the internal memory will be either 8GB or 16GB, depending on the model.

Why? It will be a sleeker, sexier alternative to the slightly bulky original, and cheaper too at around €100 (£85) less than the N97.

When? Well, the big reveal is said to be Nokia World ’09 in Stuttgart on the 2nd and 3rd of September. Release? Eldar doesn’t say, but he does mention the degree of faith that Nokia has in the N97 Mini’s success.

It’s cute, but does it really have what it takes to do Nokia N95 numbers? Time will tell.

We have a sneaking suspicion that even a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic with a decent software upgrade would be more of an <insert today’s hot smartphone name here> killer than a diddy N97 Mini might…

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic To Get N97 Homepage Widgets, Decent Scrolling

A firmware update is set to make the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic even more fly, hip and mackadocious to the kids, as it gets bolstered by some genuinely impressive new features!

We were harsh on the scrolling through menus in our Nokia 5800 XpressMusic review, particularly the decision to opt for the inconsistent and annoying (after using the iPhone, anyway) ‘up is up’ dragging movement for navigating menus, and the annoying and inaccessible scroll bars along the right side.

All that is to be a thing of the past, as the handset embraces kinetic scrolling on the homescreen, contact lists and web browser. A nice start, but we would really want to see it throughout the handset…nothing more frustrating than using one convention, only to have it change in the following menu. Single taps? Double taps? make your mind up, 5800!

Also, the homescreen is set to get a refurb, looking far more like the version currently gracing TV screens up and down the land on those Nokia N97 adverts. Little widgets which are constantly updating information to your handset, from weather to news and Facebook status updates. A great move, but without that unique selling point, what makes the N97 such a great choice?

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic will also be getting tweaks under the bonnet, including a swifter response to user inputs and improved camera performance, making for a very cool touch handset for the money. Between this device and the entry-level Nokia 5530 XpressMusic (a 5800 sans GPS and 3G) coming soon, the Finnish manufacturer seems set to have the music phone game sewn up.

However, we’ll soon see what the Sony Ericsson W205 has to say about that…

Nokia N97 Receives Firmware Update

Another Twitter exclusive, as Nokia Conversations revealed on their page that the new N97 smartphone will receive an update in the form of ‘SW 1.1 (11.x.021)’, available from today (1st July).

The fixes are plentiful, and wholly welcome!

- USB detection error fix
- PC does not detect N97 or USB charging connection not detected.
- Widget
- Home screen online/offline widget crash fix
- Fix for Alphabetical and Number input are mixed in facebook until end key is pressed.
- Widget UI improvement – New facebook widget fixes a problem of Home Screen background visible on soft-key area.
- Browser fixes to improve widgets stability.
- MfE related fixes
- Partial fix for Messaging/calendar entry lost.
- Mail for exchange calendar entry synchronization error fix.
- UI transition error fixes (Portrait <-> landscape transition, there is a home screen corruption.)
- UI transition (Slowness and bad effects)
- Slow Touch UI response
- Picture of the device lock appears half of the screen when transitioning the UI sometimes
- Landscape: in some cases the soft buttons on touch (right hand) show the Home Screen in background (install maps.google.com)
- Photos thumbnail performance and stability improvements
- Device performance deteriorates when lots of content in the device – especially photos
- Partial fix no display backlight illumination when unlocking lock-key – CAP Genius reported already
- New version of Accuweather to improve the “Connection error” situation
- Device reset when browsing with high speed packet access (for Malaysia)
- “Browser soft key UI doesn’t work after putting Chinese character with qwerty keyboard”
- Java fixes (TCK, Pre-install app disappearing, *#7370#*)
- Operator fixes (CMCC, Hutchson and Telefonica, Vodafone)
- Ovi store client now embedded in the core image

Great changes big and small, will these be the fixes to turn the Nokia N97 into the uberphone we were all expecting? Probably not, but its a step in the right direction. Especially improving the user interface slickness, which is way off the competition…

Source: TechTicker

Skype On Nokia N97, Courtesy Of 3

The Nokia N97 is certainly the other must-have smartphone at the moment, and despite the best efforts of some to destroy it, it still proves to be a very popular choice (particularly amongst shoppers on Omio!).

Well, that degree of choice has increased from today, as network 3 has announced that they will accept pre-orders for the flagship QWERTY slider from the 25th, with sales commencing from the 26th of June.

The most exciting thing about the N97 coming to 3 is not that you only have one day to get your pre-order in, but rather that 3 is the first operator to allow both free Skype-to-Skype calling and instant messaging on the device, via the “Skype on 3″ application.

We remember only too well the lather that retailers got into over Skype being available on the N97, so much so that they had to backpedal and remove the app to get the handset into stores. Well, 3 UK is only too happy to stock the handset, enabling customers to make Skype-to-Skype calls using this application, for free!

Available on both contract and prepay deals, 3 offer a free N97 with line rental starting at £35 per month, for a mix of 300 minutes and texts. Web browsing can be tacked on for an extra £5.

The prepay offer is equally interesting, and is one of the first for the decidedly high-end N97. For £319.99, you get 150MB of web browsing, 90 days of free voicemail and a text bundle, on top of cheap per minute call billing. A great way to make use all of the N97′s functionality, without being tied down to a contract.

Nokia N97 deals for the other networks are already available on Omio, and these new 3 deals should be in any moment now!