When I met up with 3UK last month, they were explaining that generally the main reason they take longer to get phones is that as a company they will purchase a much smaller quantity of any particular phone than the larger networks, and hence their requests for stock and customisations will always take second place.  They also commented that in terms of phones like the iPhone, they felt the costs were too high, both to them and to the consumer.  Well, I think this is about to change…

The day before I met 3UK I heard rumours that their Customer Services staff had been saying they would be carrying the iPhone within 3 months, and both that and a direct question on whether 3UK would be stocking the iPhone were, looking back, not actually answered on the night.

This week I’ve heard more Customer Services staff saying the iPhone will come next month (although personally I suspect it’ll be announced in the next month or so, as opposed to being on sale), and 3UK have put out a statement today saying that they don’t have a commercial relationship with Apple, but that they hope to resolve that in 2010.  That post also states that the Nokia E71 was their best selling phone of 2009, but what it doesn’t say is that the HTC Hero, costing £35 per month, is their current best selling phone.  This shows that buyers are willing to spend £35 per month on a 3UK contract, something that may not have been so apparent a year ago when PAYG and £15-£20 per month contracts were much more common.

Combine all these thoughts with statements by 3UK last month that they felt they should advertise their “Coming Soon” phones better and I think the iPhone is going to be announced fairly soon; in my opinion it’s rare for networks to talk about phones before they are pretty much ready.  With the experiences of the HTC Hero, 3UK know their customers will happily pay more for high spec smartphones, and with the comments from their own Customer Services staff I think this all shows it’s coming to the network.

Now, I might be wrong of course, and I suspect it’s possible they’ll only pick up the iPhone 3G, although I suspect they’ll be able to sell the iPhone 3GS too.  I also suspect that if / when a new iPhone 4th Generation model is announced in June / July, it won’t be seen on 3UK for a little longer than the other networks (due to the commercial points in the first paragraph), but we may well see some form of iPhone on sale on 3UK before too long.

Interestingly, unlike some Nokia phones, it appears that people aren’t having problems getting their 3UK SIMs to work in unlocked iPhones, so that bodes well.  Of course, I would expect 3UK to ship it with their own Skype on 3 and Email on 3 solution, which may take a little while to get ready and released into the App Store.  In fact, I wonder if this is the only thing stopping the announcement happening today, hence why 3UK are happy to start talking about the device…

Yes, finally, after all these years… Nokia (well Nokia Beta Labs) have released a Custom Dictionary Editor, which allows you to read, edit and delete the words in the customer dictionary on your phone.  Of course, as with all things Nokia, it’s not that simple, so read on before you head off to install the software…

Firstly, it’s mainly aimed at the latest phones, so devices like the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and the Nokia X6 are fine, and there’s a dedicated version for the Nokia E71 and Nokia E63 which works fine too, but most other devices will struggle in one way or another, and not have the full functionality, which includes…

• View all the words in your custom dictionary
• Add new words to it
• Edit and Delete existing words
• Export the dictionary as xml file
• Import words from an xml file
• Scan text files to import all the words
• Transfer your dictionary to another phone

Although many devices are generally supported (most S60 3rd Edition and S60 5th Edition devices should be able to run the application, although most S60 3rd Edition FP1 phones will have limited functionality), the best support is limited to the 4 supported phones (even devices like the Nokia N97, Nokia E72 and Nokia E75 are listed as having “minor issues”).

This is a good forward step by Nokia though; many people, myself included, have been annoyed by the lack of edit capability of the dictionary over the years.  One useful piece of advice Nokia have now provided though; the dictionary is limited in size, and, once full, when it adds a word, it deletes the least used word from the dictionary.  This will explain for many why some words disappear over time.

As always, if you want to try it out, head over to the Nokia Beta Labs to see it, and the support for your phone.  Also, if you hadn’t visited the Nokia Beta Labs site recently, you’ll need a Nokia Account (you’ll already have one if you use the Ovi features) to download the application.

According to this website, v400 firmware for the Nokia E71 is just starting to become available, and the changelog includes:

NEW FUNTIONALITIES:
Gimlet v9.5 (v9.5.3.72)
Quick Office 5.3
Ovi Store 1.5 (v1.5.2)
Ovi Contacts – Preinstalled
Mail for Exchange 2.9.176

CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS:
Email Setup Wizard update
WLAN Corrections
Internet Radio v1.16 – Increased functionality
Camera functionality improvement
Incoming call hang issue fixed
Turkish SMS character input improvement
Many functionality and Stability improvements in MfE
Support for Russian and Ukranian keymats
Phone activation Baseline updated
Yahoo account hack fixed

GENERAL
Stability and functionality improvements
Email and WLAN functionality improvements
Increased robustness in handling SMS and incoming calls
Memory leak fixes and crashes
Email and WLAN functionality improvements

CALL HANDLING
Fix for Incoming call hang issue and fast call crash
Fix for making emergency call when the phone is locked

CALENDAR/CLOCK
Minor Functionality improvements
Time display correction when the phone is locked

CONNECTIVITY
WLAN functionality Improvements and fixes for crashes
Improvement in WLAN authentication
mVPN authentication improvements and general functionality improvement

CONTACTS/PHONEBOOK
Functionality improvements for search functionality

EMAIL
Email setup wizard updated
Fix for Yahoo account hack while setting up Gmail account through Nokia Email
Fix for mails getting duplicated after restoring backup
Mail for Exchange upgraded from 2.9.158 to 2.9.176
Gimlet updated to v9.5
Many functionality and stability improvements in MfE
Robustness and functionality improvements in email items.

INTERNET RADIO
Improved functionality
Increased application stability

QWERTY KEYBOARD
Usability improvements
Keyboard mapping corrections for Russian and Ukranian keymat

MESSAGING
Improvement in Turkish SMS characters input
Fix for delivery report for SMS with more than 22 characters
Increased robustness in handling SMS

It’s nice to see Nokia not neglecting the elder phones!  Once this becomes available in the UK, don’t forget the Nokia E71 does not hae UDP (User Data Preservation), so it will wipe everything off the phone when you apply it.  Certainly with the memory leak fixes and the time display correction, this may be an update worth applying.  As always, the network operator branded firmware versions will take longer to be released.

Now available in the Ovi Store is a Symbian Facebook  for the Nokia E71 / Nokia E72.  To see more screenshots, head over to ZOMG its CJ’s website here.  However, from our point of view, it’s not enough…

On much cheaper phones (eg the INQ Mini 3G, reviewed here) the Facebook support is actually much more integrated into the phone; it will happily take the Facebook contacts and add them to the local addressbook, it will bring their picture down, and it even puts their latest status updates right in the addressbook for you to see if you are about to ring, text or IM them.  The Sony Ericsson T715 we recently reviewed (here) also had support for Facebook, with the ability to upload pictures to Facebook as soon as they were taken, so why aren’t we seeing this level of integration on Symbian?

None of this is difficult, and if it can be achieved for a £50 phone, then surely it can be achieved for a £300 phone…

However, it’s a start, and one we hope that Facebook and Symbian work on to improve.  Also, we’ve no idea why this application is limited to these two phones, although we can understand the need for a portrait version and a separate landscape version given the way Symbian works.

Screenshot courtesy of ZOMG its CJ too.

3UK have supplied us with a full list of phones that they will be supporting with their Skype and Windows Live Messenger clients, and 3UK have provided us with a number of useful updates since we originally mentioned that 3UK were now supplying these clients for use on non-3UK supplied phones.

Firstly, it appears that Windows Live Messenger is getting the same level of treatment as Skype does (under their Skype Free Calls Forever promotion); that is, you don’t even need to TopUp your account for both Skype and Windows Live Messenger to work on your device; even if your credit has expired, it would appear both 3UK-custom app versions will keep working.

How can you obtain these apps; well, if you have a 3UK supplied phone, it should have links or shortcuts to these apps already built into the firmware (although it may involve a download on the first connection).  However, for those who have upgraded their firmware to a generic firmware, or for those who are using a non-3UK-supplied phone, then today, it’s quite simple…

All you need to do is to insert your 3UK sim into your phone, power it on, and go to the Planet 3 link which should automatically appear on the phone (either directly on a shortcut key, or within the Favourites / Bookmarks within the browser, and you may find it’s preset as the homepage within the browser).  Once there, you can select these apps, and then download these apps.

However, and this is a very smart move from 3UK; from 1st October, if you put a 3UK sim into your phone, it will automatically connect and download these apps in the background, and then notify you (via text) when this has completed.  This is a very shrewd move by 3UK, and adds to the user convenience of these apps.

So, for that list of fully supported phones?

• Nokia E65, Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia N96
• Sony Ericsson C510, Sony Ericsson C902, Sony Ericsson K660i, Sony Ericsson W595

Now, although that’s the formal list of supported phones, there are, of course, many phones that 3UK have supported directly with clients, such as the Nokia E71, so you may find it’s possible to access and download clients for other phones, although we can’t guarantee this at this stage.  We should also point out that the list of phones that can run the Skype client is much longer, so it does potentially seem to be just the Windows Live Messenger client which is shortening that list right now.

3UK made a number of changes yesterday, which, for certain new users, may mean that buying a phone today is more expensive than buying the same device on the same contract last week.

Firstly, they have dropped their 6 month contract options, now reliant upon their 18 and 24 month contract options only.  Of course, they still have their new 1 month SIM-only rolling contracts, but the 6 month contracts came with a free phone (albeit a selected range of handsets); so people now have to commit for a longer contract, or choose the 1 month contract and potentially will need to buy a 3UK PAYG phone and pay an upfront charge.  Is this a big issue? We don’t think so; the price of some of their PAYG phones, such as the INQ1 is not that high, and by separating the phone from the contract may actually offer customers more choice and the ability to change phones more often (which is becoming more common).

Some Summer sale tariffs have finished, and the products returned to full price.  This is fair enough, although we expect they’ll be a new set of offers in the run up to Christmas!

The final change, which is an interesting one, is that the Nokia E71 is no longer available on the £20 Internet Texter tariff, but will be available instead on the £20 Texter tariff (with an upfront payment of £48.93).  This is strange; the phone is getting old (and about to be replaced by the Nokia E72, which 3UK tell us they won’t be stocking), and as phones get older, it’s more common for the price to drop, not increase.  Also, the change in Texter tariffs means for those that want it on the Texter deal, as well as paying a small upfront charge, they will now need to pay extra for Mobile Internet, adding more to the monthly cost too.

Of course, whether these changes are to allow the new INQ Chat to take the place (and pricepoint) of the old Nokia E71 tariffs remains to be seen, but in the short term, it seems one of the most popular phones and tariff combinations is now not looking as competitive.

We should point out the Nokia E63 remains available, not just on the £20 Internet Texter tariff, but it is currently on promotion so it only costs £18 per month (18 month contract required), which, as we’ve covered before, may well suit some people.

In contrast to this, 3UK are planning to bring free Windows Live Messaging support to all phones and contracts soon, and will be launching their Mobile Wi-Fi device later this month too; there will be two pricing options; the “Broadband 5GB 1 month” service will cost £69.99 upfront and then £15 per month for 5GB of data (with presumably a rolling 1 month contract), or you can select the PAYG “Ready To Go” option at £99.99, which will include 3GB of data to be used over a 3 month period, and then it will move onto PAYG pricing (it’s not clear if this will be the same standard pricing for a Mobile Broadband Dongle).

This device is a good improvement over the original D100 Router, and should sell well; if fact, it may even become more popular than a standard USB Modem given the additional flexibility it offers (eg the ability to connect devices such as the iPod Touch to the Internet too whilst travelling).

Both Orange and Vodafone are preparing some Social Networking software to improve their customer experience…

Orange are planning their “Social Life”, which will be available from their Orange World portal, bringing your Facebook, MySpace and Bebo information together in one place, and they should be offering text message services too.

Vodafone are starting work on Vodafone People, which appears to be based on Zyb, a company they bought last year.  It will apparently bring together Twitter, Facebook and Google Talk (Which for us, makes it a more useful service), offering status updates and the syncing of the contact lists onto the mobile phone.  Interestingly, Vodafone are claiming this will be available on 400 mobile phone devices, which makes it pretty device OS-independent.

3UK obviously already have the INQ1 (aka Facebook phone), and with the new INQ Chat (aka Twitter phone) coming, it seems these three networks are going to be going head to head to claim superiority in the Social Networking space.

On a side note, we heard yesterday that it’s unlikely 3UK will be launching the Nokia E72, and we suspect they’ll be promoting the INQ Chat instead.  So, if you are after a replacement for your current Nokia E71, you’ll either need to move to the INQ products, or head off to another network…

Historically, the Skypephones and INQ1 were launched more by 3UK than by the manufacturer, but this has now changed; INQ has today released details of their two new phones, which will be in stores in time for Christmas.

Firstly, and after the success of the Nokia E71, we suspect the more popular device, is the INQ Chat.  This is a QWERTY based device designed to concentrate on Social Networking.  As well as the Facebook, Skype, and Windows Live Messaging support of the INQ1, these phones Twitter support, something we predicted a while ago.  This Twitter support includes providing the latest updates on the homescreen.

The INQ Chat also has a 3.2 megapixel camera, whereas the INQ Mini will feature a 2 megapixel camera, and both support upto 8GB (we’re guessing via a microSD card).  Both devices can operate as HSPA Modems for your PC, although whether this is inline with the 3UK T&Cs is another matter.

However, one interesting additional point is that via the third party DoubleTwist software, INQ plan to make it possible for both phones to be able to sync music with iTunes.  Although not aimed as iPhone killers, the ability to use a single source and program to manage your iPod and your mobile phone may sway some users into buying these devices.

We expect both will be available on 3UK around October time; although the Nokia N97 was the Top Seller with 3UK for a few weeks, the Nokia E71 is back in the top slot again, showing how popular the QWERTY format has been for 3UK, and remember that INQ and 3UK will be aiming these phones between £69.99 and £109.99 on PAYG; they have a good spec and are likely to be big sellers for 3UK when available.

Update: We’ve now had it confirmed that the INQ Chat does have GPS, but the INQ Mini does not; our main complaint against these devices (and their predecessors) is that Google Maps’ My Location feature (and by implication, Google Latitude) is unlikely to work on them, as there is no GPS, and Google Maps does not support Cell Based location on BREW based handsets, leaving no method to locate the phone.  This doesn’t apply to the INQ Chat, which will feature GPS and includes Google Maps.

Finally, it will be interesting to see whether or not we’ll see an update to the INQ1 Slider to offer Twitter support for the existing users; although it would be very nice to see, we suspect it may not happen (or at least not until well after the initial sales period for these new phones).

Some content courtesy of The Guardian [Via TRMP]

After we informed you about a number of new Nokia devices available on Vodafone this year, it appears even more devices are coming…

Dan at World of Nokia reports that the Nokia E63 is coming out soon, and that Vodafone will also be stocking the new Nokia E52 (the replacement for the Nokia E51, and a similar design to the Nokia E55, but without the hybrid keyboard).

What’s also interesting is that Dan points out the Nokia E52 will be available for £225 on PAYG, but will not be SIM-locked, which makes it a good value high spec smartphone…

So, that’s the Nokia E63, Nokia E71, Nokia E72, Nokia E52 and the rumoured Nokia N97 Mini all being available on Vodafone over the next few months; it seems Vodafone is trying to make up for the various exclusive phones O2 have picked up by offering a greater range of form factors…

Back when the Nokia E71 was launched, and in the months afterwards when it was becoming a very popular handset, we commented that it was not available on Vodafone to personal customers (it was classed as a business phone, and only available on business contracts).  Well, we notice that the Vodafone Nokia E71 is now available for personal customers.

Hopefully, this will be a successful phone for Vodafone, and they will be one of the leading suppliers of the Nokia E72 in September when it becomes available…

Whilst we’re talking about Vodafone, we understand from Vodafone that the Nokia N97 is currently their best selling handset.

Gerry over at nokiAAddict brings us news that BirdStep SmartConnect now seems to have been made available for many more Symbian devices now free of charge.  Although a popular program for the Nokia E71, it seems that the licensing deal with Nokia allows for many other devices.  As Gerry says, SmartConnect “removes the access complexity and brings the user just one click away from internet access, i.e. it combines all your Wifi & GPRS access points into one access point.”

So, if you have any of the following phones, head over to here to download the free client, or here for more information.  It seems the latest version from BirdStep is v1.3.6, which may well be newer than the version most people are running (When it was available in the Download! App for the Nokia E71, it was back at v1.2)

Nokia E-Series:
E50, E51, E52, E55, E60, E61, E61i, E62, E63, E65, E66, E70, E71, E75, E90

Nokia N-Series:
N76, N78, N79, N81, N82, N85, N86 (8MP), N95, N95 (8GB), N96

Thanks to Gerry for the screenshot too.

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 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.

Back in March, we stated that a replacement for the Nokia E71 was due soon (including information that it was likely to be called the Nokia E72, have a 5 megapixel camera, and could well feature S60 3rd Edition FP2).  Further to that, in May we suggested it would be available in Q3 (we said September).

Well, today Nokia have released the Nokia E72, which does indeed feature a 5 megapixel camera and S60 3rd Edition FP2, although Nokia have stated it will not be available until late in Q3, which again hints at September availability.

The full spec for this phone includes

Size

• Form: Monoblock with full keypad
• Dimensions: 114 x 59.5 x 10.1 mm
• Weight: 128 g
• Volume: 65 cc
• Contemporary design with fully integrated QWERTY keypad

Display and 3D

Main display:

• Size: 2.36″
• Resolution: 320 x 240 pixels (QVGA)
• Up to 16.7 million colours
• TFT active matrix

Keys and input method

• Numeric keypad, QWERTY keyboard
• Nokia Eseries one-touch keys for Home, Calendar, Contacts and Email
• Volume and mute keys
• Intuitive Optical Navi Key

Applications

• Media (Camera, Gallery, Music Player, Radio, Real Player, Voice Recorder)
• Messaging (Messaging, New email, New message, Read emails, Read messages, Read new emails, Read new messages)
• Organiser (Calculator, Calendar, Clock, Converter, Data Synchronisation, File manager, Notepad, What time is it)
• Profiles (General, Silent, Meeting, Outdoor, Pager, Offline)
• Tools (Connection manager, Device manager, Help, Landmarks, Personalisation, Profiles, Settings, Speed dialling, Voice commands, Voice mail)
• Application manager
• Bluetooth
• Browser
• Logs
• Navigator (= GPS data)
• Phonebook

Colours and covers

Available in-box colours:

• Zodium black
• Metal grey
• Topaz brown

Connectors

• Micro-USB connector which supports charging. High-Speed USB 2.0
• 3.5 mm Nokia audio connector

Memory

• 4 GB MicroSD memory card (with hot swap), support for up to 16 GB
• One-touch use as USB mass memory storage
• 250 MB free user disk space

Power

• Nokia Battery BP-4L 1500 mAh Li-Ion standard battery
• Talk time (maximum):
  - GSM 12 h 30 min
  - WCDMA 5 h 54 min
  - VoIP 13 h 42 min
• Standby time (maximum):
  - GSM 492 h
  - WCDMA 576 h
  - WLAN 110 h
• Video playback time (maximum): 13 h 6 min
• Video recording time (maximum): 6 h 24 min
• Video call time (maximum): 4 h
• Music playback time (maximum): 37.5 h

Environmental features

Power Save mode, ambient light sensor, unplug charger reminder, High Efficiency Charger AC-8
Eco zone via download/Ovi Store, Eco bookmarks. We offset via Download!/Ovi Store. Eco tips in tutorial. Maps for route optimisation and pedestrian navigation.

This is likely to be a very popular phone, given the success of the Nokia E71 across many of the UK networks; and we’ll provide more information on pricing and network availability closer to the release date.  We can’t get pre-release information correct every time, due to lots of false rumours put out by the phone manufacturers, but we’re happy to report we were pretty spot on 3 months before Nokia released this information.

Nokia have released what they are claiming should be the final beta version of the new Nokia Maps v3, AKA Maps 3.0 with Ovi Maps.  This new release has a number of new features, including:

• Additional features such as weather information, safety spot warners in selected countries, extended country coverage for traffic info service and premium POI (Point of Interest) content for travel, selected events and cinema
• New maps data version
• Quicker zooming & panning
• New “Shop & Licenses” format
• Also, a number of fixes and enhancements onto both Maps Updater and Map Loader have also been implemented – with Maps Updater supporting 21 different languages
• Last but not least, many bugs have been fixed!

This new version is also compatible with Symbian S60 5th Edition devices, so the list now includes:

S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 (E63, E66, E71, E90 Communicator, N81, N81 8GB, N82, N95, N95 8GB)
S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 (E55, E75, N78, N79, N85, N86 8MP, N96, 5320 XpressMusic, 5630 XpressMusic, 5730 XpressMusic, 6210 Navigator, 6220 Classic, 6650, 6710 Navigator, 6720 Classic)
S60 5th Edition (5800 XpressMusic & N97)

To use this, you’ll need to head off to Nokia Beta Labs and download and install the new Map Updater and Map Loader.  If you use SpeedCam on your Nokia to get alerts for speed cameras, the author tells us it should still be compatible with this version (on S60 3rd Edition FP1 and FP2 only; he is still looking into S60 5th Edition support).

Update: If you are a Mac user, then N97Geeks have managed to work out the Map Updater simply downloads a .SIS file and sends it to your phone, and they have intercepted this process and released the .SIS file for Mac users to download and directly send to their Symbian phones.

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 .

After mentioning WeFi now being available for Android, we thought we’d recap the situation for Symbian devices, where there are a fair few solutions available:

• WeFi is also available for Symbian, which provices easy access to Free WiFi Hotspots, although you could use fring which now includes a WeFi plugin which we covered here).

• Devicescape provide a Symbian client, although this concentrates more on easy logging it to paid WiFi Hotspots, as opposed to the free WiFi of WeFi.

• Of course, another option we’ve covered before is HandyWi, which has just been updated to v2.0.  This new version adds a number of new features, including a fallback to 3G option (when no WiFi is available), and includes support for the new S60 5th Edition devices, and also adds support for entering WEP and WPA/PSK encryption keys.  Other handy features include a Logoff function (very handy if you are connected to FON or BT OpenZone hotspots to help minimise the charges when you paying for the service), and you can now also upload your Landmarks to the HandyWi server (for backup  restore purposes, plus you can then view them using Google Maps or Google Earth).

If you are an existing user of HandyWi, at some point in the next week or so you’ll be asked to upgrade to this new version.  For use, allowing you to backup and restore your Landmarks (which are additionally used by Google Maps, Nokia Maps, and Route66) is a nice feature, and may make this a worthwhile app to install and run every now and then if you don’t want the benefits of it’s main functionality.

In terms of other options; if you have a Nokia E71, you may find you can download BirdStep’s SmartConnect from the Nokia Download! area for free, and Psiloc’s Connect is another option to consider.

3UK have announced that they have sold out of the Nokia E63 in Blue, and are now stocking the Nokia E63 in Black instead.  This new colour is likely to sell very well, although the Nokia E71 still remains a popular choice too.

In other news, 3UK have confirmed that over the next few days they will be communicating their new roaming deals, as the current “3 Like Home” roaming deal will finish at the end of June; once we have more details on the new deals, we’ll let you know what they are, and compare them to the current deal.

Firstly, here are some highlights of software releases that have happened over the last few weeks that we haven’t already covered (interestingly many of them focused on the new S60 5th Edition):

• Nokia have released a Friend View version for S60 5th Edition devices (ie the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and the Nokia N97); if you previously installed the S60 3rd Edition (which did pretty much work, but wasn’t optimised for touch input), then you need to fully uninstall it before installing the new software.  To download it, simply head here on your mobile.

• Nimbuzz have updated their multi-IM client (now v2.0) with S60 5th Edition support too. Nimbuzz includes IM support for Google Talk and MSN, SIP support and even Skype (with SkypeOUT too), and it’s available to directly download to your phone from here.

• Nokia Beta Labs have updated their S60 3rd Edition (original and FP1 versions) Ovi Contacts application, which should now feature more reliable voice messages and location sending features.  With some server side changes, you are now able to search for contacts (with the ability for individuals to opt-out of appearing the searches), and this client should now be available via Download! (until it’s replaced by the Nokia Ovi Store) and via nokia.mobi.  Head to here for more details.

• Nokia have released a new Beta application; Nokia Point & Find, which is designed to provide you with real time information on things you point the phone’s camera out.  Right now, it mainly works well with movie posters and barcodes but Nokia has put some clever thought into this; if you select a movie poster it not just show details, including reviews, ratings, but will use the GPS location to provide additional information such as show times, the closest cinema showing the movie, and (limited to the UK) may even offer to allow you to purchase tickets there and then.  More information is available from here.

• Nokia have released a beta version of their Nokia Messaging application for S60 5th Edition, and more information can be found about this version here.

• Gerry over at nokiAAddict has confirmed that the BBC have fixed their iPlayer client on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, such that you can now download TV onto your device for later viewing again (this problem seemed to mainly affect those who had upgraded to the latest v21 firmware).

Since we released our last Branded firmware update where we requested help on providing product codes for various devices, we received a number of helpful comments from various people, and now appear to have a full set of Nokia 5800 XpressMusic operator product codes for the UK (we’re still missing a couple of product codes for the Nokia E71, so if you have a Nokia E71, we’d be grateful for a quick comment including the product code (found under the battery) and which network the device came from).  However, we can now confirm that the situation with the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic looks like this:

• v21 was released a couple of weeks ago, having replaced v20 (compared to the v10 or v11 that most devices originally shipped with)
• We can confirm that T-Mobile, Vodafone, O2  and even Virgin (the first Virgin phone we’ve tracked!) should all now have access to v20, however
• Orange devices are still stuck back at v11

It appears that for different networks, different phones seem to suffer from greater delays with firmware updates, and we’d like to see the networks providing more timely updates.

Back in March, we covered two potential new devices from Nokia.  Well, one has now been released (although we didn’t get the details 100% correct), and the other is the subject of more rumours right now.  We said:

• There would be a replacement for the Nokia E51, with a hybrid QWERTY keyboard, like the Nokia E55.  Well, it’s not got the hybrid keyboard, but today there’s new of the replacement for the Nokia E51, the Nokia E52:

(Video link courtesy of All About Symbian)

• There would be a replacement for the Nokia E71, possibly called the Nokia E72, with S60 3rd Edition FP2 and a 5 megapixel camera.  The rumours going around seem to confirm this spec, although it looks like Nokia want to build on the reputation of the Nokia E71, and this device may well be called the Nokia E71i (in the same way back in the 90s Nokia would often release an “i” version of a device a year or so after the initial device).

It’s believed the Nokia E71i / Nokia E72 will be released around September time, but in the meantime, more details can be found in the Nokia Data Sheet for the Nokia E52.