Well, I’m afraid to say, we’ve got very little to report in terms of Branded firmware updates, but let’s go through the variety of devices we monitor, and provide any key information:

Nokia N95 - No change at all (v31 the latest); with 3UK the only network not providing v30 or v31.

Nokia N95 8GB - No change at all (v31 the latest); with Vodafone not providing v30 or v31.

Nokia E71 - v300 was released this week for generic unbranded devices; 3UK are still only offering v100 for their customers.

Nokia E75 - as we covered a while ago, v110 is now out for generic devices.  This device is not common on the main UK networks, although Orange have now started selling it.

Nokia 5800 - most networks are now offering v21 for their customers, except certain Orange variants, still stuck on v11.

Nokia N79 - although v30 has been released, it appears that the Nokia Software Updater is still only offering v20, so you may want to use the OTA (Over The Air) firmware update option.

Nokia N96 - just like the Nokia N79, the v30 is only available via the OTA firmware update option, and not NSU.  All UK networks still seem to be offering v11 or v12 (in fact since Nokia have released v20, T-Mobile have upgraded from v11 to v12).

Nokia N97 - v11 was released this week for generic unbranded devices, although there seems to be some issues with UK devices getting this firmware.  It will be interesting to see how quickly the network branded firmwares are updated…

Hopefully next time we report, we’ll be able to show that the UK networks are happy to keep the latest Nokia phones up to date…

Although it’s not due to be announced until next week (Tuesday), and hence we’ve heard nothing official from O2 or Palm, but yesterday the Guardian (and now today the Telegraph) are reporting that O2’s parent company Telefonica have secured pretty much worldwide exclusivity on the GSM version of the Palm Pre, and that includes the UK.  Apparently, both Vodafone and Orange were also in the running for this handset.

It appears it’s likely to be sold on the same tariffs as the iPhone is, although the upfront charge for the Pre is likely to be a little cheaper.  Don’t get too excited yet though; although it’s due to announcement next week, it’s believed the handset will not go on sale until September this year.

What’s interesting is that the iPhone and now the Pre are only available with contracts with full internet access built in, yet none of the UK mobile operators are doing this for any other phone; look at the Nokia N97 for example; with it’s homepage widgets; it’s crying out for internet access, yet 3UK do not have a single tariff available with net access included as part of the deal.  No wonder a greater percentage of iPhone users access the net from their phones than an average Nokia phone; it’s part of the deal, why wouldn’t they?  Better than that, O2 do not state an actual fair use limit on net access (for contract phones; they do for PAYG); as long as you play fair and don’t cause network disruption, then they are happy; even O2’s Customer Services will tell you “it’s unlimited, use it as much as you like from the handset itself” (possibly a reference there to their separate tethering options).

3UK seem to try to remain at the forefront of mobile deals, and it appears that they are in the process of two new deals which should help…

Firstly, yesterday 3UK dropped their 12 month Mobile Broadband contracts.  3UK have stated that their 1 month Mobile Broadband Contracts offer sufficiently good value to not need to tie customers into 12 month contracts.  Now, 18 and 24 month contracts still exist for those who want even better value (at the cost of the tie-in).  This is a good move, and here at UK Gadgeteer we believe we are starting to see some large shifts away from longer contracts, with many people looking at shorter terms contracts.

Secondly, and to show their committment to Mobile Broadband, we can exclusively reveal that as from tomorrow 3UK will be offering SIM Only Mobile Broadband contracts, which are aimed at users who have laptops with built in 3G capabilities in their laptops.  Now, this covers a whole range of machines, not just the small form factor laptops such as the Vodafone Netbook (Dell Mini 9), and it will be interesting to see further details of these deals when they are released tomorrow…

We first covered the Huawei D100 Router as sold by 3UK earlier this year, but we now see it’s been removed from the 3Store (most likely due to 3UK concentrating on the ZTE USB Modem right now, which is not compatible with the Huawei).  Well, courtesy of Hot UK Deals, we’ve been informed that Carphone Warehouse are currently selling their stock of the 3 branded device at half price, which is £34.25.  That’s a very good price for the device, although it is limited to only working with 3UK, and, as already stated, needs a Huawei 3UK USB Modem to work.  However, once you have that, it will offer you the ability to share your 3UK Mobile Broadband connection with upto 4 other devices via Wi-Fi as long as you have access to a power socket.

Given that this does have these limitations, what are the options for others?  Well, the Solwise 3G Router may help out; although it’s designed as an ADSL router, it has a 3G failback capability (ie when the ADSL line is down, it will use a 3G USB Modem instead).  Now, because this isn’t being sold by any particular network, it’s not limited to one mobile network, and also supports a whole range of USB Modems, including a number of ZTE models as well.  It can even support some mobile phones being connected via USB if you have one lying around spare.

As the Solwise has both an ethernet port and Wi-Fi capability, it can act as a nice portable connection sharing device too. The Solwise is a little more expensive at £60 though (although for another few pounds you can get a Euro plug adaptor for the same device given you the ability to use it across Europe; although use a local SIM or be prepared for some horrendous data roaming charges!).

Both these devices still have one problem; the USB Mobile Broadband Dongle has to be physically located close to the main unit (and hence a power socket); if this location does not have the best 3G signal, then you should head over to Mobile Fun, who sell external aerials and signal boosters for the majority of USB Modems on the market (and have some generic ones for those without external antenna sockets).  Finally, it’s not clear if Carphone Warehouse are selilng the Black or White variant (or if you get a choice when ordering online), so it may be prudent to go to your local store if you are looking for a particular colour.

We should say that T-Mobile have a similar unit, but it’s only available with a new Mobile Broadband contract, so if you already have a device, there’s no wasy way of purchasing one…

3UK have reduced some of their PAYG prices to make them even more competitive…

• A PAYG Mobile Broadband Dongle is now £19.99 (although you may find you can get a cheaper one at the 3Dongle4Free website if there offer of a free dongle with just p&p to pay is still running)
• Taking the 1 month at a time contract, the dongle now just costs £9.99 upfront
• The Mobile Broadband Starter Kit loaded with 3GB of data is now £39.99

These are all offers worth considering if you are in the market for occasional use Mobile Broadband.  Also, don’t forget the 3 SIM Zero contract deal for your voice calls, or head to the 3Store and 3 will even send you a PAYG SIM for free if you want to benefit from their Skype Free Calls Forever campaign.

This is the new HTC Hero, similar to the HTC Magic already available on Vodafone, but enhanced by a number of HTC customisations on top of the base Android OS, in a similar way to the TouchFlo interface that HTC add to their Windows Mobile devices.

The spec includes a 3.2″ 320×480 display, 5 megapixel camera, 512MB ROM, 288MB RAM, HSPA, WiFi, GPS, compass and microSD slot.  It features a fairly powerful 1350mAh battery, weighs 135 grams and is 112×56.2×14.4mm, and features a Teflon coating to help keep it clean.

In a similar way to Nokia E-Series devices which feature two theme profiles, the HTC Hero will have a Scenes profile feature to allow you to swap between business and personal modes (although we don’t believe it’s limited to 2 profiles like the Nokia solution).  It looks like it will have the ability to integrate some social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter into the Contacts, and the phone features a dedicated search button that provides “you with a more natural, contextual search experience that enables you to search through Twitter, locate people in your contact list, find emails in your inbox or search in any other area in Hero”.

Best of all, HTC are talking about a July availability date in Europe, and to back that up, Orange UK have already announced they will be selling the HTC Hero, and T-Mobile have stated this is the phone dubbed the G1Touch.

The G1Touch will be available from mid-July and will be free on T-Mobile on a £40 per month contract (no contract term stated by T-Mobile, so that might be 24 months) on a Flext tariff offering £225 of credit to spend each month, and that tariff will also include “unlimited” internet browsing (likely to be 3GB per month).

Orange have stated the HTC Hero will be free for customers to take out the £39.15 per month (24 month contract), which will offer 1200 cross-network / landline minutes, “unlimited” texts, and “inclusive anytime” internet browsing (which means 500MB); which looks to us to be the Dolphin 40 tariff.  It will also be exclusively available in ‘Graphite’ (dark grey) from early July.

It’s nice to see Orange finally starting to offer half-decent internet access deals, and we note that the Dolphin 40 tariff has no “out of bundle” charge for texts, so maybe they actually mean unlimited texts… <later> Oh no, it actually means 3,000 texts, just like the other networks….

Well, it looks like we were right and wrong with our information on 3UK’s Nokia N97 pricing…

For the main Mix’n'Match tariffs, 3UK have stuck with their current method of pricing, which is to bundle the cost of the phone into the monthly fee, so, for example, the lowest tariff (Mix’n'Match 300) is £35 per month for an 18 month contract for the Nokia N97, but you pay no upfront costs for the phone at all.  Now, although this tariff offers all the normal 3UK benefits (Skype, Windows Live Messenger, some 3UK-3UK calls, and free voicemail), the total of 300 cross-network / landline minutes does not necessarily look good value compared to Vodafone’s £35 per month option, which offers 900 cross-network minutes, “unlimited” 3,000 minutes of landline calls, and “unlimited”  3,000 texts and Internet access, although there’s an upfront £150 cost attached to this deal.

However, we talked about 3UK offering similar deals with an upfront payment, and for the Texter plans, 3UK seem to have done just that…

So, for £25 per month (18 month contract), you can get 500 cross-network / landline minutes, “unlimited” 3,000 texts, and Internet access.  Now, this deal has a one-off payment of £146.80 upfront, which does start to look comparable with Vodafone’s offering.  It’s also interesting to note that the same £146.80 charge would apply to getting a Nokia N95 8GB or a Nokia N96 on that same tariff.

So, the information we gained last week was generally correct; you can get the Nokia N97 for £100 on a £35 per month contract, or pay £200 for a £15 per month contract, but these are all Texter plans, not the more common Mix’n'Match tariffs.

As the week progresses, and more networks reveal their pricing, we’ll try to summarize them all and bring you details of the best deals out there…

Recently, 3UK have used innovative pricing to make their phones and tariffs appealing; instead of charging upfront for the phone, they have offered the phone for free, but increased the monthly price plan as required, so a phone that costs £20 per month for Mix & Match 300 was made up of £15 per month for the tariff and £5 per month for the phone (resulting in a charge of £90 over the 18 months).  Of course, one downside of this was that if you didn’t change phones at 18 months, then 3UK would continue to get an additional charge per month…

Well, according to Gerry at nokiAAddict, it looks like 3UK may be returning to a more traditional model for the Nokia N97, partly, we suspect, to appear competitive with the other networks.

You see, on their old scheme, they would probably charge something like £35 per month for the phone on Mix & Match 300, which gives 300 cross network minutes; but with Vodafone offering 900-odd cross network minutes for only a few pounds per month more, it doesn’t look good value.

As such, 3UK will be charging a one-off payment for the phone (like, to be fair, Vodafone do on the tariff mentioned above).  So, it looks like the Nokia N97 will cost £100 on a £35 per month 18 month contract, and as much as £200 on a £15 per month 18 month contract.  Of course, you can get the phone for free from Vodafone, but then you’ll be committed to even more (£40 per month) or a 24 month contract.

3UK haven’t officially released the full range of prices yet, but we will let you know when they do, and once the other networks all confirm their pricing, we’ll compare them all to see which ones actually offer good value…

Although the HTC Magic has been available for somewhile now, Vodafone have just launched a new special tariff.  This tariff is a 24 month contract, but for £25 per month gives you 100 minutes of calls, 500 texts, plus “unlimited” internet and webmail (so that’s 500MB then).

For many people, this may be a very good deal, although a quick check shows that 3UK offer 200 minutes, “unlimited” texts (3,000 actually), “unlimited” 3UK-3UK calls (2,000 minutes) and 2GB of internet access for £20 per month, and offer that as an 18-month contract with a phone such as the Nokia E71.

However, this plan does look good value if you want an Android phone and are happy with a 2 year contract.

In other news, Vodafone have confirmed that if you pre-order the Nokia N97 online via them, not just will they throw in a free set of Nokia MD-8 speakers for free, but they will also offer an additional 300 minutes per month, so £40 per month (for 18 months) will get you 900 cross network minutes, “unlimited” texts, “unlimited” landline calls, and “unlimited” internet (sigh! - so that’s actually 3,000 texts, 3,000 minutes of landline calls, although calls must be less than 60 minutes each, and 500MB of data); the only downside is that the phone costs £150 on that tariff; you either need to move to £45 per month or 24 months to not pay for the phone.

We’re not quite sure what to make of this, but we are certainly intrigued; it’s not Pay As You Go, it’s not a traditional contract option, and it’s not quite a 30-day rolling contract either…

3UK will, from tomorrow, start selling the SIM Zero contract from their 3Store.  Having already released a £9 per month contract, and then networks such as Orange released a £5 per month contract with a 3 year (yes, really!) minimum contract, and now 3UK have set the ultimate challenge, a contract with zero cost per month.  Of course, they aren’t the first to try this, with a similar pricing model having been available from Virgin for a while…

It features the same basic prices as the PAYG option, and includes many of the same facilities, but I guess the difference is that instead of needing to constantly topup your phone, you will simply get a bill at the end of each billing cycle with the costs you have spent.

So, calls will cost 20p per minute, texts 10p each, it’s 30p per mb of data (no word if you can add the standard Internet Addon though, giving upto 2GB of data for £5 per month), and like many SIM-only deals, will come with a 1 month minimum term and then 1 month’s notice to cancel (which makes it a minimum 2 months term to us…)

Of course, as this is 3UK, there are a whole range of additional benefits too; Free Skype-Skype calls and messages (upto 4,000 minutes and 10,000 messages per month), Free Windows Live Messenger (also 10,000 messages per month), Free voicemail in the UK; in fact the only difference between this and a more expensive contract from 3UK is there are no inclusive 3UK-3UK minutes included.

This looks like it might be a very interesting option for those who want a contract, but are not heavy users, and with the inclusion of the Skype Free Calls Forever, it may well suit many people; for those that don’t already have a compatible phone (especially for the Skype part of the deal, 3UK are happy for you to buy a PAYG phone like the INQ1 or Skypephone S2 and use this SIM in the phone).

More details will be available from the 3Store tomorrow when this tariff formally launches.

Update: 3UK have confirmed that the standard £5 per month 2GB Internet data Addon is available on this tariff.

A lot of people seem to be sensibly looking into the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of running a new iPhone 3GS.  With many still 6 months away from the end of their 18-month contract they signed up to with the upgrade from the iPhone to the iPhone 3G, there are only a few choices:

• Buy yourself out of the current contract, buy a new iPhone 3GS, and commit to a new 18-month contract.  Now, with the current arrangements from O2, there is no discount for buying yourself out of your existing contract, so for many, that’s 6 * £44.05 (£264.30), the new iPhone 3GS (£175.19 for the 32GB version), then as well as another 12 months of £44.05, there will be a similar 6 month payoff required next year when the next iPhone is released in June to upgrade again…
• However, some people are realising that in terms of costs over the next 12 months, buying a PAYG iPhone (even at £440.40 for the 16GB or £538.30 for the 32GB version) may actually work out cheaper.  Of course, one advantage of buying the phone as a PAYG phone is that when the existing 18-month contract is up in 6 months, you can move to either a cheaper tariff, or even an O2 SIMplicity type tariff.

It’s interesting to see people looking into the costs for this year *and* next year to ensure they minimise their costs (whatever option you choose it’s still something like a minimum spend of £800 between now and next June), and we’re hearing some Nokia users considering similar sums to work out the best way of getting a Nokia N97.

As some people have pointed out, phones like the iPhone which only come with a 1 year warranty don’t look good value on 18 or 24 month contracts due to the additional risk after 12 months of a broken phone (most UK supplied Nokia phones come with 24 month warranty, removing this concern); and with the rise of 30-day SIM only contracts becoming more popular, maybe the networks should stop trying to tie people into longer contracts, and start producing shorter term contracts.  Equally, if the networks concentrated on customer loyalty and not constantly trying to gain new customers by taking them from the other networks, we would probably all benefit.

3UK do at least stand out with their 6-month contracts, but not all phones are available, and with their removal of “3 Like Home”, they may realise they need to do more to gain and keep customers.

We’ve got used to long (12, 18, and 24 month) contracts, and we’re used to Pay As You Go (PAYG) with no ties at all, but we’re starting to see a rise in short term contract tie-ins (eg 30 day SIM only contracts).  Well, 3UK have gone one further, and are are offering a Mobile Broadband contract with only a 1 month committment, but are also offering a Mobile Broadband dongle if it’s required.

The monthly cost is £15 per month, for which you can download “up to 5GB per month”.  The contract is for 1 month only, and then if you want to cancel, you can simply give 3UK 30 days notice.  If you don’t have a spare dongle that can work on 3UK, they’ll sell you one for £19.99.

3UK have compared their 1 month Mobile Broadband with it’s competitors to allow you to work out which network offers the best deals…

If you are interested, head off to the 3Store to purchase.

It looks like later today BBC will formally release their iPlayer client for the Nokia N95 and Nokia E71 phones.  Although there have been tricks and hacks to get the iPlayer working on these phones, BBC are going to formally support them as from today.  If you head to http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/iplayer from your N95 or E71 you will be able to download the iPlayer client for your phone.  However, it will only support downloading content via Wi-Fi, not via 3G.

Update: We’ve now had more information from the BBC (from here); although BBC programme downloads are available on the Nokia E71, they are not available on the Nokia N95 or Nokia N95 8GB due to a lack of DRM certificates pre-installed by Nokia. Also, the BBC have stated that 3UK and Vodafone are able to offer 3G access to the programmes, but at this stage, access is not available to the other UK networks .

Having recently revealed what’s required to ensure mobbler works fine on 3UK, the development team behind mobbler have now informed us there can be similar issues with O2; if you are on O2, you need to make sure mobbler is using an O2 Mobile Web access point, and not the O2 Active access point, which seems to cause any tracks you are streaming to get cut off after around 43 seconds.

Over at the 3UK 3Store, they have compared their new 3Pay PAYG scheme with the main PAYG offerings of the other networks; if you want to see how 3 rate their offering over others, then head over to this page.

However, as we commented here, if you are an existing Flat12 3UK customer, you should find you can get some of these benefits without moving to 3Pay; so choose wisely, as it’s a one way thing; once you move to 3Pay there’s no way back to Flat12…

We’ve had confirmation from INQ that they are planning to release another phone, and this one will out in time for the Christmas shopping.  The main feature of this phone will be twitter support, which we hope that INQ will make available on the existing INQ1 as a firmware update.  There are little extra details available right now, but we’ll bring you updates between now and Christmas as we get them; last year we heard INQ stating they were looking at QWERTY and GPS as key features to add to future phones, so this phone may well be an interesting proposition, especially running on 3UK’s new PAYG rates.

We’ve had news from Vodafone about new dates for the Nokia N97; if you are waiting for the Nokia N97 on Vodafone, it will be available for pre-order from 12th June, and will go on sale on 26th June, slightly ahead of the “July” date the Vodafone website has previously been advertising.

So, that’s 3UK, Vodafone and O2 (via Carphone Warehouse’s White Nokia N97 exclusive) confirmed, and we believe it will be released on T-Mobile and Orange on the 26th June too.

We know that the 3UK version will ship with their “Skype on 3″ application, and the planned Skype application support (which caused controversy earlier this year) is not due to be released as part of the firmware until later this year; at which point we suspect some operators will either released heavily customised firmwares (ie removing this application), or will simply not make the new firmware available.  In other news, there have been lots of rumours that the Nokia N97 will ship in the UK without a stylus, but we understand that it will ship with one in the box for generic models, and we would suspect most networks will leave it in the box too.

Of course, with Apple’s iPhone announcement next week, people may want to think twice before placing that pre-order…

An update on our story about which networks will carry the Nokia N97, Dan Carter at World of Nokia announced yesterday that he has seen the Nokia N97 advertisement from 3UK, which is below.  The important details are that the Nokia N97 will be available for “free” on Mix&Match 300, which will cost £35 per month on an 18 month contract (ie that’s £15 per month for the contract, and a phone surcharge of £20 per month)

The phone will also be available on some of the Texter deals, which is good news, as these are quite popular at the moment.  The other big news is that Dan says the Nokia N97 will be available on PAYG for “only” £370.  Now, this will be SIM locked to 3UK, and have the 3UK branded firmware on it, but for most people, this may still be the best way to get the phone, especially with the new PAYG deals that include a limited amount of Internet access as standard.

Dan, is, however, concerned that the £370 price may be a mistake, as it does sound a little low (the Nokia N96, for example, is currently £490 from 3UK and has been on sale for some while).

Having had some clarification discussions with 3UK, we’re happy to provide a little bit of additional information that was not clear when we compared the new 3Pay tariff to the “old” Flat12 tariff yesterday:

3 UK have stated  that for existing customers on Flat12 “These customers will continue on Flat12 and be able to Stretch their credit. They will also get the text and internet benefits of 3Pay every time they top up.”

What does this mean? Well, unless we are mistaken, that means the additional free texts and the 150MB of Internet data access are included (and do not need users to buy any addons or send a text to setup).  Obviously it won’t benefit from the “unlimited” 5000 minutes of 3UK-3UK calls over 90 days (people who Stretch their credit do get 100 3UK-3UK calls over 30 days), or the cheaper SMS costs, so users will have to do their sums carefully to work out which is better for them…

(For completeness, those on WePay will also benefit from the text and internet benefits, whereas those users still on the ThreePay PAYG tariff from before February 2006 will be migrated onto the new 3Pay).

With call costs of 12p/minute compared to 20p/minute (3Pay does have cheaper SMS costs though), yet benefitting from the free texts, Free Skype Calls Forever, some internet access, and still having the ability to “Stretch” their credit, suddenly the old tariff looks more appealing.

3 have updated their PAYG offering from today, and overall, it seems to us to be a good compromise between offering lots of extra functionality and controlling the price of calls; but beware, if you don’t use all the extras, the net result may be increased call costs.  We should point out that existing customers will need to head to My3 to update their PAYG choice to the new 3Pay (from the current popular Flat12), although this is likely to be the standard option for new SIMs.

There are a number of differences between the old and new, and we must remember that some of the headline benefits of 3Pay are available already, such as the Free Skype Calls Forever promotion.

So, the differences are:

• Voice call costs have risen from 12p per minute (Flat12) to 20p per minute (3Pay)

3Pay offers the following additional benefits (which are all applied immediately, but expire after 90 days if not used):

• Depending on the TopUp level, you get additional texts (only valid for 90 days), for example:

  TopUp with £5 and get 25 free texts
  TopUp with £10 and get 300 free texts (doubled to 600 if topup is via My3)
  TopUp with £15 and get 500 free texts (doubled to 1000 if topup is via My3)
  TopUp with £20 and get 1000 free texts (doubled to 2000 if topup is via My3)
  TopUp with £25 and get 3000 free texts (irrespective of where you topup)

  We should point out 3 advertise the £25 TopUp as coming with “unlimited” texts, but as it has a limit of 3000 texts, we have simply used that figure.

  When these free texts expire, sending an SMS in the UK is now 10p, compared to 12p on Flat12 (although there were a number of Stretch options to improve this rate).

• Along with free texts, you also get 150MB of data usage (expires after 90 days with no rollover).  Once this usage is used up, it will be 30p per MB extra.
• Free Windows Live Messenger (you need to use the 3 provided application, which now should work with unbranded generic firmwares as well; it used to rely upon a security certificate that was only included in the 3-specific firmwares).  No fair usage specified, but we expect it to be subject to the existing limits.
• Free Skype (although this is being advertised as part of the 3Pay offer, Skype access is available even if your credit has run out).
• Free 3-3 Calls; also included on PAYG is 5000 free minutes of calls from 3UK to 3UK phones over that 90 day period (Flat12 has no such allowance, except the ability to get 100 3UK-3UK minutes if you used the Stretch addons, which only lasted for 30 days).
• Free 3UK voicemail access (the same as Flat12, as is video calls being 50p/minute and calls to 08xx numbers being 15p connection plus 15p/minute).

So, if you use a little data each month, or can balance your call usage alongside your data usage, then this may well result in sufficient savings alongside the free Live Messenger and free 3UK - 3UK calls. If you currently TopUp every month and call other 3UK users, you may find that overall the savings are quite considerable.

Personally, I like the fact the 150MB Internet allowance is automatically applied when the TopUp is credited to the account; today to purchase internet access you have to TopUp and then remember to go and buy an Addon; this way it will limit the exposure people have to accidental data usage, and this seems to make phones, like the INQ1 a very popular and sensible decision on the new 3Pay PAYG scheme, giving you the power of the Social Networking facilities potentially without any internet costs at all.