HTC Touch Diamond – Competition For The iPhone?

The iPhone was far and away the must have gadget of the last year for many people. Touch screen goodness and a good set of features made it truly stand out from the crowd, although the millions of people that will seemingly buy anything with the Apple logo also helped its popularity I’m sure. Recent news on the iPhone is that it’s now unavailable in the UK but an updated 3G version will be available very soon.

In the meantime, here’s a potential competitor to salivate over. The HTC Touch Diamond is expected to be released in less than a couple of months although no firm information on networks and pricing have been released. Murmurs have indicated that Orange will be the first to offer the Touch Diamond at a sim-free price of £400 or, if you’re willing to sell your soul on a monthly basis, you could get the handset free.

As well as offering a full touch-screen interface with 2.8” display, it will have built in A-GPS software to use with any satnav application. It will also have a 3.2MP camera and 3G data meaning that users will be privvy to speeds of up to 7.2MBps. FM radio and built in WiFi and bluetooth round off an impressive set of features that is designed to make the Touch Diamond compete with the latest incarnation of the iPhone.

Vodafone Includes Mobile Data In New Increased Tariffs

Vodafone has become the first UK mobile operator to include data usage as standard with their pay monthly tariffs. However, it comes at a price of a £5 per month tariff increase. Vodafone currently only offer bolt-on additions to tariffs that allow 120MB downloads for the cost of £7.50 per month. Customers will now be entitled to unlimited downloads with an unenforced fair usage policy.

While the £5 addition will apply to all tariffs, those customers that do not wish to use the Internet or email can ask Vodafone to opt out of this portion of the tariff. The £5 will be deducted from the price. Essentially, Vodafone have reduced the price of the bolt-on and made it an opt-out rather than opt-in addition.

A fair usage policy of 500MB downloads is included as part of the tariff, but Vodafone has stated in communication with the ZDNet website that they won’t fine customers that go over this limit.

Mobile Internet and email has come under fairly close scrutiny because it simply hasn’t taken off in the way that many people anticipated. However recent developments in improved hardware and greater software options, as well as our increasing fascination with social media websites, are proving to increase the amount of data downloaded with mobile phones.

Mobile data downloads are used for accessing the Internet and reading email, as well as downloading files from the Internet. Most mobile pages are optimized to reduced sizes, making the 500MB download limit seem more than reasonable for the majority of mobile surfers.

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iPhone “Finally” arrives in Canada, eh!?

According to a market report from Bloomberg, Steve Jobs may well be dropping the iPhone on Canada, tomorrow’s at Apples keynote speech.

RBC Capital Markets analyst - Mike Abramsky says, Apple will unleash the phone via Rogers Communications — the country’s largest mobile service provider. “

There’s a very good chance that Apple will announce or discuss some kind of other carrier roll-outs, beyond the ones it has done in Europe and the U.S.” He said, adding that, “There is definitely very strong demand and interest here.”

No, this isn’t a definite from apple campus who have stayed mum, up until now. However its only a matter of time before the apple roll out in Canada. For those of you who haven’t realized what apple’s master plan is. Basically there going from territory to territory striking exclusive deals with the major network operators in each country, That way monopolizing the market to one provider, both getting a healthy cut, nice jobs!

Toshiba Portege G810 - More Touchscreen Goodness

You know the old saying – “touch screen phones are like buses, you wait years for one to come along and then a bucket load arrive at once.” The Portege G810 from Toshiba is certainly one of the best looking smartphones money can buy and when it’s released (expected release date is currently the second quarter of this year so any time soon) it will have an abundance of impressive features to boot.

The most recent announcement is that this little beauty will include the latest Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system. Users will enjoy better security features, improved navigation, and increased time saving features thanks to the Windows platform.

Other features include an improved user interface as well as an impressive touch screen display. A 3MP camera and built-in GPS receiver make this an impressive all round handset ideal for business or personal users.

The Portege G810 is Toshiba’s first foray into HSUPA handsets. HSUPA provides handsets and users with improved data transmission speeds and is dubbed as being the saviour of multimedia handheld devices. Realistically, it does mean that handsets can offer a greater number of features and applications without the usual increase in manufacturing price and it will certainly offer improved speeds with a number of those individual applications.

All in all, Toshiba look like they’ve hit the nail on the head with their early HSUPA adventures.

Speak2 Offers A Unique Way To Reduce Call Costs

Speak2 is an innovative telephone company that not only offers reduced rates against typical landline and cable calls, but also includes a system that determines the cheapest way to make a call. Users pay a one time installation fee (currently £59.95 or £99.95 depending on the package) and then enter details of their landline, sky, and mobile call packages. The software then selects the best available option whenever a call is made.

You only need leave your computer and broadband connection running and you can take advantage of this system wherever you are when you make a call. This greatly reduces mobile call costs and enables you to truly take advantage of your free calls without having to wait until 2 o’clock in the morning to get off-peak rates.

For heavy callers and for those that regularly use their mobile phones, it could save a fortune. A number of call packages can also be added, starting from £5 per month, as well as some useful add-ons.

While businesses have benefited from cheap call routers for some time now, Speak2 brings a similar system to home users – it will prove especially beneficial for those that make regular overseas calls too. Whether it will change the way we make calls remains to be seen but it could save you a few quid every month.

Sing And The World Will Sing With You

At least, your mobile phone might join in. It will if it’s a Nokia 5320 XpressMusic. One of the latest Nokia handsets, this includes the Nokia Say and Play software. The rather intuitively titled program enables you to pick a song just by speaking the title. It could make for some fairly embarassing situations involving bad music tastes – although it may not, of course.

All in all it’s a pretty nifty piece of kit for music lovers on the go. Quick downloading of tunes is enabled through HSDPA and USB 2.0. Up to 8GB external memory is offered through the microSD card slot.

Nokia has also announced that its “Comes with Music” phones will include 12 months access to their as yet undefined music download service. Its perhaps a little odd that the 5320, and similar 5220, don’t include access to this service but perhaps something bigger and better is planned to coincide with that announcement.

For those who don’t know – the Comes with Music product was announced in December last year. At the time of the press release, the service was being billed for a mid 2008 release and would include millions of tracks. Consumers could download an unlimited number of songs that they would be able to keep even once their subscription came to an end. Could be promising, and we will try to dig up a little more dirt on the service and its expected release details but we can tell you that Universal Music Group International and Sony BMG are already lined up for the release of the service.

Competition for iTunes?

Iphone Missing – Presumed Sold Out Ready For 3G Version

The Apple iPhone has been something of a phenomenon since its release. There’s no doubting its incredible looks and the existence of a touch screen that actually works as intended had many a technophile salivating at the very prospect of ownership.

However, the £269 price tag was far from accessible for the majority. Partially in light of this, prices were reduced by £100 to a much more attractive £169. The end result is that both the providers Carphone Warehouse and the network O2 have indicated that they only have very limited supplies of the iPhone left in stock.

A more cynical, although potentially more accurate, view is that the price drop was offered in order to clear stocks in time for the release of the 3G iPhone in early June. Citi Analysts have taken the price drop, along with other factors, as a clear indication that Steve Jobs will announce the next generation of 3G iPhone (as well as a new iPod) during his keynote speech. The speech will take place during the Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference on June 9^th.

The Developer’s Conference has been something of a hot bed for new releases in recent years and if a 3G version of the iPhone is imminent then Steve Job’s keynote speech is the most likely time to make an announcement.

press leak: LG Prada II in the works

We all know the phenomenal success of the LG Prada KE850 handset. If iPhone wasn’t around the KE850 would be top dog for ‘phone of the year’.

So why did iphone steal the show from LG Prada, well apple has a loyal “Apple Fan Boy” following from the Personal Computer market and create more buzz on the web then Saatchi and Saatchi ever could. To be honest, Let’s not forget LG Prada’s abysmal features such as the 2 million pixel camera which the iPhone beat hands down.

Ding Ding, Round Two. LG Prada are making a comeback with some very impressive feature set including a full QWERTY keyboard and slider. It’s hard to tell what LG Prada 2 will look like but we’ve managed to source an artists impression from Engadget.

LG Prada II specs will include:

* Quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900). WCDMA 900/2100, 7.2 Mbps HSDPA connectivity
* 3 WQVGA 400×240 px TFT touchscreen
* 5 megapixel camera
* front camera for video calls
* Wi-Fi b/g connectivity
* USB 2.0, Bluetooth
* Full HTML browsing
* FM-Radio
* TV-out
* microSDHC memory card slot (up to 8GB)
* slide-out QWERTY keyboard

According to the leaked press release, LG Prada II will be even more focused on the overall design of the handset and user experience. LG Prada II is expected to launch in Forth Quarter of 2008.

Style And Features From The LG Secret

LG took a giant leap in the mobile phone industry with the releases of the LG Chocolate and the LG Shine. As of the 24^th

April (Europe release date - America and Asia to follow), they’ve taken their third step with the release of what is the slimmest, and arguably best looking, 5 Megapixel camera phone available in Europe.

The LG Secret offers the same level of design as its black label predecessors but packs in even more features. The carbon fibre body is not only designed to look good but also ensures that your mobile phone looks as good after several months as it did on day one. Even the LCD uses tempered glass to provide a ruggedness and hardiness not always associated with mobile phones.

120 frames per second of DivX video combines with the impressive 5 Megapixel camera and a plethora of high specification features to give a powerful mobile experience. The Touch Screen design is, in all probability, an attempt to cash in on the unparalleled success of the Apple iPhone but that’s not a reason to complain so long as it works properly – and all early indications show that it does just that.

LG have really stepped up to the plate recently as a serious mobile phone manufacturer, and the Secret is certain to carry on this lineage of high quality and good looking phones.

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