Omio News Blog

Three also to sell the Apple iPad cheaply

Three has announced they too will be offering ‘more affordable prices’ for the Apple iPad and on a contract, in an identical statement to both T-Mobile and Orange.

Three companies have now unveiled in the next few months they will be selling the iPad at a lower cost than the Apple Store can currently offer and on a contract too, in much the same way as mobile networks can afford to offer a £500 handset for free.

Three haven’t confirmed any prices yet, nor has Orange or T-Mobile but they at least have provided a link to register interest which Three haven’t as yet.

Out of all of the networks Three currently has the cheapest price for the 16GB iPhone 4, at nearly a third of the cost of the nearest competitor – where it’s been rumoured Orange could be selling the Apple iPad at £200.  

With this theory in mind, Three could very well undercut EverythingEverywhere and sell the iPad at £150 or even £100 as the iPhone 4 currently costs £499 from Apple directly. 

Check out the full range of Apple iPad deals at OMIO

Everything Everywhere to sell the Apple iPad cheaply

Both T-Mobile and Orange have separately announced they will be offering ‘more affordable prices’ for the Apple iPad, but only when purchased with a data service plan.

It appears the two companies that make up EverythingEverywhere will be selling in the next few months the iPad at a lower cost than Apple Store currently does, only on a contract in much the same way as the networks can offer the latest mobile phone for free.

Apple currently sells the 16GB iPad with Wi-Fi + 3G for £529 and although Orange will still add a fee for the Apple tablet, it’s been noted on What Mobile this could be as little as £200 – less than half the price SIM free.

No confirmed prices have been made public by either network, only that they will be offering the iPad at a better price and Orange has provided a link to register interest – seen here.

T-Mobile UK iPhone Pricing Arrives, Free From £35 Per Month

Finally, members of the magenta network get to find out what the fuss is about with the iPhone, as registration and pricing have arrived for Apple’s iconic device on the T-Mobile UK site.

Offering the 8GB iPhone 3GS as well as both the 16 and 32GB models of the iPhone 4, T-Mobile’s pricing is a little better than Orange’s on the whole, but stops short of Three’s text bounty and Tesco Mobile’s 12 month contracts.

An iPhone 3GS is free from £35 per month on a 24 month contract, whilst an iPhone 4 isn’t gratis until you hit a whopping £60 per month. With 3000 minutes and only 500 texts, as well as 1GB of data and the choice of a flexible booster (more info on those here), this tariff gets you a 16GB iPhone 4 whilst another £99 on top gets a 32GB model.

The £35 tariff is better value for money, with the iPhone 4 available for £189 or £269 respectively whilst the 3GS is free. With 600 minutes, 500 texts and 500MB of data in the deal, it is however between £40 and £70 more for the handset when compared with Orange.

A couple of tiers up from this is the £45 monthly tariff, with a whopping 1200 minutes and 500 texts (not forgetting a bump up to 750MB of data and that booster) and the iPhone 4 for either £59 or £159.

A full list of pricing is above, but the all important release date is yet to be confirmed. It should also be noted that all of the pay monthly deals are for 24 months, with no shorter contracts present.

Purchasing the iPhone on prepay is also an option on T-Mobile, with a far more straightforward pricing strategy to boot. An iPhone 3GS 8GB is £399, plus a compulsory tenner top-up, whilst the 16GB iPhone 4 is £499 before the £10 of credit is added on and the 32GB iPhone 4 is nowhere to be seen.

If the Apple Store is all sold out, then this is certainly an alternative method to get your hands on one…we suggest signing up to the T-Mobile site (or to ours) to know the moment that iPhone deals are available!

Everything Everywhere Now Here: Ink Dries On T-Mobile Merger With Orange

The merger of T-Mobile and Orange is now complete, with the conjoined whole now known as Everything Everywhere, confirmed by a gaggle of new e-mail addresses we’ve now seen attached to various contacts.

Despite the new naming, the networks will still operate as separate entities in terms of branding, whilst a management reshuffle sees a few big names moving around as the dust settles.

How does this affect consumers? Initially, not at all. The two are not even sharing bandwidth as yet, so no massive signal strength increases or T-Mobile 2-for-1 movie offers just yet.

This confluence of Orange and T-Mobile creates the largest network in the UK mobile market, a behemoth of nearly 30 million customers (almost a 40% share), sales of approximately £8 billion, and despite this was given the green light by the Competition Commission earlier in the year.

iPhone 4 On T-Mobile Confirmed: Apple Goes Magenta

T-Mobile UK has officially joined the fray, becoming the fourth major mobile network to confirm they will be stocking the iPhone 4 in time for its June 24th release. This makes it the first time Apple’s magical device has gone on sale with the magenta carrier.

Following O2, Orange and Vodafone’s confirmation that they will stock the device, T-Mobile have made a statement confirming they will make further details available soon:

“T-Mobile UK will launch iPhone 4, the thinnest smartphone in the world, with the highest resolution display ever built into a phone. Further information on launch timings, pricing and tariff plans will be revealed in due course”.

With preorders from the 14th of June, it won’t be long until we find out just how much Apple’s new device will set you back. Rest assured, we’ll be confirming offerings from all the networks, to see the cheapest place to snag an iPhone 4.

This just leaves 3 UK…they claimed to get the iPhone 3GS at the end of 2009, but that has since failed to materialise. We will let you know if it is fourth time lucky for the data loving network, we are sure that they would be only too happy for videocalling to come back into fashion!

T-Mobile UK Offers One Day Sale, 20% Off All Prepay Mobile Phones

Quick one, this! T-Mobile are offering a 12-hour sale on ALL of their prepay handsets, offering 20% off every single pay-as-you-go blower from 10am to 10pm tonight.

With handsets like the BlackBerry Curve 8520 getting its price slashed to only £119.99 and the affordable Android powered T-Mobile Pulse Mini becoming even more so at only £79.99, it’s a perfect day to snag a bargain mobile!

With 30 days of free texts and 6 months internet thrown in, T-Mobile’s prepay offering is one of the best around Don’t forget that you’ll need a top-up to get going, however…

Check out the entire line-up of discounted handsets here.

HTC Wildfire Available on both T-Mobile & Virgin in June

Virgin Mobile and T-Mobile have both confirmed that they’ll be offering HTC’s latest smarphone – the HTC Wildfire. The affordable Android-device will land on T-Mobile on the 14^th June, and will be free on a £20 per month, 2-year deal.

Virgin have yet to announce their precise launch date, but considering their relationship to T-Mobile, we imagine it will be fairly soon after that. In the meantime, the Wildfire has already popped up on SIM free pre-order on Expansys for £249.

The Wildfire has some tidy specs – a 3.2” QVGA (ok,not a-mazing, but looks better than it sounds) capacitive touchscreen that supports multi-touch, WiFi connectivity and an optical trackpad for navigation. It also runs Android 2.1, has the same 600 Mhz processor as the HTC Hero and packs the latest version of HTC’s Sense UI, which makes operating the Wildfire a doddle.

Application sharing software also makes recommending third-party software to your friends a lot easier, thereby enhancing the myriad ways in which you can interact with your personal network.

The Wildfire is the second handset this year that HTC have aimed at the affordable market, the first being HTC Smart. However, the Wildfire’s specs mark it out as a cut about the Smart, plus it possesses the magic key to people’s hearts – Google’s Android platform.

Source: SlashPhone

T-Mobile and Orange Merge To Become ‘Everything Everywhere’

Orange and T-Mobile’s joint venture has officially been announced as ‘Everything Everywhere’, bringing together two of the UK’s largest mobile brands to form a single ‘super-network’ from July 1st.

Despite the merger, the two brands will be remain as separate entities, with the resultant carrier having over 30 million customers and 700 retail stores in the UK.

Speaking to a spokesperson for Orange, their plans to benefit the consumer will begin with giving access to increased roaming nationally, with the two networks sharing masts and expanding their range of coverage.

“It is going to be a long process to provide a perfect integration, beginning with roaming but will be enhanced over time. It’s too early a point to mention the cost, but there are many things to consider, including the legal issues regarding termination rates and the like.”

“But we can say it will be a free service to roam between the networks, and its benefits to consumers will be immediate.”

With a merger between the two companies first announced in September of 2009, with the Office of Fair Trading stepping in to adjudicate proceedings and finally giving the go-ahead in April.

Tom Alexander, chief executive of Everything Everywhere, said: “Up until a few years ago, mobile was just about voice and text – not now. Multimedia phones have already started to change the way our customers access the world – for entertainment, education, information – wherever they are, whenever they want.

“We are Everything Everywhere – it’s our name, our vision, and our ambition – and we run two of the UK’s biggest brands Orange and T-Mobile. It’s our vision to give our customers instant access to everything everywhere, opening up a world of endless possibilities,” he continued.

All very omniscient…it remains to be seen whether these changes will affect our bills or the place for either network in the market, but a 30 million customer strong supergroup like that is in the perfect position to effect some sweeping industry changes. We’ll keep you posted.

O2, Orange, Vodafone iPad Data Plans Revealed

Apple’s UK site finally went live with iPad pricing details last week, and now the data plans on three of the major networks have been revealed.

They each differ slightly, with O2, Orange and Vodafone all attempting to cater for both light and heavy users of Apple’s ‘magical’ device.

O2 are first up, offering a 500MB ‘daily rate’ for £2, and two monthly packages of 1GB and 3GB for £10 and £15 respectively.

Orange has a trio of similar offerings with a slightly less generous 200MB per day for £2, as well as monthly servings of 1GB and 3GB for £7.50 and £15. However, they also cater for the heavier user with a 10GB package for £25 per month.

Vodafone is a lot more straightforward, with two deals aimed at opposite ends of the spectrum – 250MB per month for a tenner, and an ample 5GB for £25 per month.

All of the above deals come with the leaner, meaner microSIM as the iPad requires a smaller version of the card currently nestling in your mobile to indulge in surfing over 3G (unless you have a rather large meat cleaver to hand…).

There seems to be iPad deals to suit the pockets of all adopters from May 28th, with the only real question being whether people will take their beautiful gadgets out of the house enough to make these tariffs worthwhile…

Information on the inevitable T-Mobile and 3 UK iPad deals will be passed on as soon as we get it!

T-Mobile Pulse Mini Now Available: Android 2.1 For Under A Ton!

The T-Mobile Pulse Mini is now available to purchase, with the diminutive Google phone coming in for a penny shy of £100 despite sporting the shiny new Android 2.1 software on board.

Whilst not reaching the lofty heights of HTC’s latest handsets, the Pulse Mini offers a fine line in thrifty connectivity with a 3.2 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, GPS (complete with a free month of TeleNav…although we suggest getting some Google Maps Navigation involved), and a free 2GB memory card.

The 240 x 320 resolution might make the Pulse Mini’s display look more like a Speak and Spell rather than bleeding edge tech, it is indeed the latest version of Android, meaning that the lion’s share of applications and games developed for Google’s mobile operating system still are compatible with the tiny device.

With Pulse Mini deals starting at £99.99 on prepay (before that sneaky tenner top-up), the T-Mobile branded device ushers in a new era of budget smartphone that doesn’t scrimp on features, developed once again with phone makers Huawei.

Whilst the original T-Mobile Pulse might have failed to get hearts racing, the magenta network is hoping that the combination of decent looks, a knockdown price and the latest in Android tech will get the Pulse Mini some new fans. We’re inclined to agree…