Here’s the new 3UK MiFi (v2) that was launched last night.  The device features a number of minor updates on the previous unit, and really does address many of the issues and concerns that have been raised against the original unit.  In particular:

• The device now turns on, powers on all radios, and auto-connects to 3UK, instead of needing 3 button presses.
• The device now features an OLED screen, with information on data usage (from that session), WiFi status (including number of connected clients), SMS messages.  When the screen turns off, the green power light on the power button still lit for immediate visibility of the fact the device is turned on.
• The management is now all performed from a web browser interface (the old Windows management tool which only worked when connected via a cable is no more); this means Mac, Linux, iPad / iPhone support is all there and working out the box.  This also now allows access to the microSD card reader from all devices.
• 3UK / Huawei have improved the battery life of the device, but due to the screen needing more power than 4 lights it has roughly the same usage time, although battery charging has been reduced by around 20%.
• Also, you can use it whilst charging (as opposed to the old unit), and 3UK have moved from miniUSB to microUSB in line with most (but not all) mobile phone manufacturers.
• In terms of the new device, it will go on sale on 2 July for the same price as the current unit.  As stocks of the old unit run out, the In Car MiFi and iPod Touch bundles will update to the new unit too.

For existing users of the current device, there are no upgrade plans, although you can simply buy the device on PAYG and move your current SIM across to the new unit. One thing though; 3UK are considering releasing a firmware update for the current device which would enable the 1 button startup (ie basically it turns on the auto-connect feature).  Experiments with this though have indicated this may reduce battery life a little.

Overall, this device has resolved the concerns of the old unit, is styled more in keeping with tech nowadays, and is well worth considering.

Finally, thanks to @3MobileBuzz for arranging the event, and even providing cupcakes…

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]]> http://gadgeteer.org.uk/2010/06/11/new-3uk-mifi-unit/feed/ 1 http://gadgeteer.org.uk/2010/05/12/the-return-of-3uks-15gb-mbb-deals/ http://gadgeteer.org.uk/2010/05/12/the-return-of-3uks-15gb-mbb-deals/#comments Wed, 12 May 2010 14:14:07 +0000 UK Gadgeteer http://gadgeteer.org.uk/?p=4458

A while ago, 3UK dropped their 15GB per month contract tariffs for Mobile Broadband.  Well, if you felt that 5GB per month was not enough, then we’re pleased to let you know that the 15GB per month deals are available again on the 3Store.  In fact it seems for many options, the 15GB per month replaces the 5GB per month option at the same price, so this is even better value than before! It should be available for Mobile Broadband, 3UK MiFi and laptop deals (and even the 3UK iPod Touch Bundle), although as with many things 3UK -related, you are likely to find these are all 24-month contracts, and not the more traditional 18-month ones.

Well, I’ve been using the Novatel 2352 MiFi device for a few months now, and the most important thing that I can say about it is that it remains one of the first things that I look for when going away travelling (whether personal or business); in fact, using it with a PAYG SIM ready for whenever needed has proved very useful over the time I have had the device for review.  I’ll write up my full findings soon, but this is a device well worth considering.

Of course, it’s about the function of the device as much as the particular device; so things like the 3UK MiFi (which is available for a lot less on PAYG) shouldn’t be discounted.  In fact, you could even buy the 3UK MiFi and iPod Touch bundle for less than you can buy the Novatel device SIM-free (of course, SIM free offers other benefits).

As I’ve said before (see here), the web interface management of the Novatel 2352 makes it easier to use than the 3UK MiFi (although I do have access to information on how to enable the web interface on the 3UK MiFi, as it was apparently disabled in the 3UK-specific firmware), and the need to only press one button for everything to turn on and setup can’t be discounted either, but at roughly 3 times the price, it’s more difficult to justify the purchase of the Novatel 2352.

Of course, the 3UK MiFi is tied to 3UK; if you were looking for a device on, say, Vodafone, you would have to plump for the Novatel 2352; or would you? I’m hearing a rumour that next month Vodafone will be launching a PAYG MiFi type device for sale through their website and stores; whether this will be the Novatel 2352 or not isn’t clear (Vodafone already sell the Novatel in other countries though), and whether the price will be more inline with the 3UK MiFi I also don’t know, but it does look like there will soon be competition in the MiFi world…

3UK have announced an updated bundle for their 3UK MiFi, called the In Car Wi-Fi.  As well as the device itself, and 1GB of data allowance (valid for 30 days), they have included a mains charger (as before), but now a car charger and also a windscreen suction mount, and all for £59.99.  In comparison, normally you would pay £69.99 for just the device, although with 3GB worth of data valid for 3 months.

Suddenly providing Internet access for Sony PSP / Nintendo DS / iPod Touch devices whilst travelling has just got a lot easier, and with the ability to share the internet with multiple devices, this does seem a nice offer; especially with a car charger to keep the device working even on long trips.

This new bundle is not yet available online, but I’m sure it will be soon.

For those who have bought an Amazon Kindle and were hoping to use the Kindle for iPhone application to additionally read their eBooks, we can announce that Amazon have finally released the iPhone / iPod Touch application for the International market (60 countries, including the UK), and it’s now available to download from the Apple iTunes Store.

I met up with James Body of Truphone last night, and had a nice long chat about where Truphone and other companies are going in the next few months.  However, the exciting solution is the Truphone Local Anywhere solution, that I’ve talked about before, should launch early next year.  Because Truphone are supplying the SIM which talks to their infrastructure backend, it allows them to provide some nice features you won’t see on other solutions…

When they launch, they will have support for UK and US, but not just will you be able to roam to the US at nice low rates, but on that single SIM, Truphone are able to provision you both a UK phone number and a US phone number (in fact, they will over time be able to provide multiple different country phone numbers on that single SIM).  This is the cool bit; irrespective of where you are located, the SIM will work the same way…

• If someone in the UK rings your UK number, they will reach you
• If someone in the US rings your US number, they will reach you
• There will be clever CLI management functions to allow you some control over the Caller ID presented to your callers as well.

Basically, the person you call doesn’t need to know you are roaming, doesn’t need to know which country you are in, and can also reach you on what is (to them) a local number.  Because your outbound call is being routed through Truphone, the call cost to you is lower than normal roaming rates too.

The benefits of this are items such as:

• The convenience of a single SIM with local mobile numbers in multiple countries
• The ability to transfer their current mobile number to Truphone
• Great value domestic calls, SMS, and data in their home country
• Low cost international calling to the world from their home country
• Significant call savings, when visiting other countries
• The feeling of being local, wherever they go

This is powerful.  For those regular international travellers or even international businessmen, this is a well designed solution.  As we mentioned earlier this year when we first covered Truphone Local Anywhere, data will also be available as part of this solution.

James was sporting (amongst many other handsets) an iPod Touch and a 3UK MiFi (which are being bundled together by 3UK; see here), and was having no problems with utilising the iPod Touch for VOIP calls over 3UK’s network.  In fact, a solution like Truphone on an iPod Touch, or Skype on an INQ Mini 3G may well suit many families to allow easy and cheap communications between everyone without needing lengthy phone contracts (calls to other Truphone users, like Skype, are free of call costs).

As Truphone have pointed out here, using an iPod Touch over WiFi with the 3UK MiFi allows apps such as Truphone and BBC iPlayer to work as the iPod Touch sees a WiFi connection and is not aware that the traffic will then pass onto a 3G network.  The same trick can be used with the iPhone as well, of course.

Thanks to James to taking time to talk through this and many other matters last night, and here at UK Gadgeteer we look forward to some of the other Truphone developments during 2010.

Update: When first published, this story had a number of technical inaccuracies which have now been addressed; apologies and thanks to Truphone for the corrections.  For more information on Truphone Local Anywhere, head to the Truphone website, or look at this PDF presentation giving the details of the new service.

Absolute Radio (105.8FM, also available online and via DAB) have released an interesting feature which works on the iPod Nano.  It’s called iTunes tagging, and it works like this; you tune your latest generatino iPod Nano into Absolute Radio and listen to their songs.  Should one of the songs catch your attention, you can tag it, and then when you dock your iPod, you’ll be able to see who the song was by, what is was called, and you will even be able to buy and download the song from iTunes.

This is a nice level of integration between the non-connected iPod Nano and the well-connected iTunes PC, and could prove a nice feature for many people.

Absolute Radio have more information on this service, including a video on their website here.

When we reviewed the 3UK Mobile Wi-Fi unit (MiFi) here, we said it allowed devices such as the iPod Touch to gain extra facilities by being connected to the Internet whilst mobile.  Well, it looks like 3UK agreed, as they have just announced a bundle deal whereby you can get a 3UK MiFi on a 24 month contract for £23 per month, but for that, as well as the 5GB of data each month, you’ll also get an iPod Touch.

Now, the MiFi would normally be £17 per month (18 month contract), so ignoring the extra tie in period, it’s an extra £6 per month for 24 months, which is, to be fair, £144, so although the exact spec of the iPod Touch hasn’t been announced yet, it’s not an unreasonable sum for the device (it’s certainly not massively overcharging for the device).

Details should appear on the 3Store at some point next week, but maybe this might be worth it as a Christmas present for someone special…?

Update: This deal is now available in the 3Store, and features an iPod Touch 8GB along with the 3 MiFi and 5GB of data per month (24 month contract).  It even throws in 80 free text messages per month, although I’m unsure how these can be used from the iPod Touch…

This is the new Roberts ColourStream radio, which is yet to be formally announced or released by Roberts, but at least one website already has the item with specifications, so we can reproduce them here.

As well as being a DAB and FM radio, it features an iPod Dock (possibly only supporting the iPhone in offline mode), but also sporting a 3.5″ colour touch screen for many of the controls. In other respects, it seems to offer a similar feature set to that of the Roberts STREAM 83i (USB media playback, Internet radio).  It can make use of the BBC Listen Again function, has an AUX in socket, as well as Line OUT and Headphone sockets.

Until more details are released, it’s not clear if this unit will also play last.fm radio (as the Roberts STREAM 83i does), so we’ll update you when we get more information.

However, with a price of £400, I think many will prefer the styling of either the Revo IKON (see here) or the PURE Sensia (see here), and personally, we would head to the Revo IKON.

Also, we note that both this device and the Roberts STREAM 83i we covered last week (here) may not have DAB+ support (thanks to Paul Webster at his DABDig website for drawing our attention to this point), which may limit it’s usefulness in the future, should the UK ever decide to adopt this standard (other European countries are already rolling out DAB+, so lack of support may impact your ability to use either radio whilst travelling).

Specs courtesy of DNA Car Audio (via Paul’s DABDig website).

To compete against SkypeOUT, Nimbuzz have now launched their equivalent service, NimbuzzOut, which offers the ability to make international calls at a discounted rate.  In a similar style, you need to TopUp your account with credit, and are then able to make cheaper calls to landlines and mobile phones.  For example, a call to a French landline would cost €0.0135 per minute, and the same cost to a US landline too.  In comparison, SkypeOUT will charge€ 0.020 per minute for the same countries.

It should be said that Nimbuzz offers US$ or EUR€ pricing, not GB£, so you will always have some element of currency conversion in there.

NimbuzzOut is currently available on the Symbian and iPhone / iPod Touch clients, and will be rolled out to the other platforms in time.

More information is avaialble from Nimbuzz from their website here.

For a while now, UK Gadgeteer has provided a dedicated website look and feel for iPhone and iPod Touch users.  Well, we’ve now changed our support tools, and now offer mobile optimised sites for the majority of phones available.  We’ve only been able to test this on a limited number of devices, so please report back what you find…

As well as getting the latest few articles, we provide access to our tag cloud, and the search function, which should offer you the ability to access other articles, should the need arise.  The largest change iPhone / iPod Touch users will spot is the reduction in the number of articles shown, which we have made to allow consistency across all mobile devices.

Also, along with this change, we’ve also re-enabled posting brief summaries to our twitter account whenever we publish an article, which we hope people continue to find useful.

For a company that went quiet for a few months earlier this year, Revo seem to have bounced back and have added another new unit to their range of DAB radios.  The Revo HERITAGE is styled a little like units from the 50s and 60s, yet packs all their high spec features that they seem to be concentrating on right now.  This units joins the lineup of the Revo IKON (featured here), Revo DOMINO (featured here), and elder units such as the Revo iBlik RadioStation range, and the Pico range of portable devices.

The Revo HERITAGE features DAB, DAB+, FM radio stations, as well as Wi-Fi Internet Radio, as well as offering network streaming and support for all current iPod models.  In keeping with the price tag, this device is made from aluminium and real walnut veneer, and the screen is an OLED “secret-until-lit” display and like the Revo DOMINO, features a joystick based menu system.  The radio also features a digital alarm clock with sleep and snooze functions, and also features optical out and iPod video out connectors (amongst others).  Also provided is a full feature remote control.

As with the Revo IKON and the Revo DOMINO D3 (and D2) models, this radio also features support for Last.fm, allowing you to select an artist or genre and get streamed music.  Also like those other units, the device comes with a free 30 day Last.fm trial subscription, and would need access to a £3 per month subscription after that (which we still believe can be shared across multiple devices).  You can also improve the track selection by providing feedback to Last.fm in terms of “loving” or “banning” tracks that are played.

Finally, if you are still after other music support, the device has a 3.5mm input jack for other mp3 players, and can also play a wide range of music formats from USB devices via a USB port too.

The only limitation on this device seems to be iPhone support, where Revo state “While Heritage doesn’t offer full iPhone compatibility, by placing the iPhone in ‘In-Flight Mode’, Heritage will provide playback and charging.” (We should add this limitation does not apply to either the Revo DOMINO or Revo IKON, which have full iPhone compatibility).

If you are looking to buy one of these devices, you’ll need to head to John Lewis who have retail exclusivity on these devices when it goes on sale in November for £230 (alternatively you can buy direct from Revo Technologies themselves).

Although more expensive than the Revo DOMINO range, some have questioned the styling of that range, and this unit may well be more suited to people’s taste.

Some pieces of additional Kindle news for today…

Firstly, Amazon have dropped the price by $20 (to $259), and should be providing a $20 refund to all early purchasers.  This makes the Kindle a little better value, although it’s believed the real reason behind the price drop is the announcement by US Bookstore Barnes & Noble who launched their Nook eBook reader (below) this week.  Now, this device looks interesting, partly because it has a colour touchscreen at the bottom for controlling the device, and partly because it uses the Android OS, which may mean future support for additional applications.

Also, B&N seem to be a little more open about their device; they confirm it can read ePUB and PDF files directly, implying (to some degree) that they do not want to limit their purchasers to only buy books from their eStore (of course, with applications like Calibre, Kindle users can equally get this type of content onto their device).  However, there are no plans for making this available in the UK (yet).

Secondly, Amazon have announced their Kindle for PC application, which along with their iPhone / iPod Touch application, expands where and how you can read your Amazon Kindle eBooks, and now allows you to read your Amazon Books on the PC.  It will also synchronize your last page read and annotations that you add to the eBooks (and this sync is bi-directional).  It’s not available yet, but should be shortly, and even offers a couple of extra facilities for Windows 7 users (XP, Vista and Windows 7 are the only OSes supported).

Finally, if you have an Amazon Kindle but feel some of the prices for accessories in the Amazon marketplace are a little high, you might want to head over to Mobile Fun, who now have a Kindle Accessories section covering most of the things you could ever need for your new device, including UK charges, cases, screen protectors and more.

Hot on the heels of the Revo IKON, launched in August, comes the Revo DOMINO Range, which combines a number of the new features of the Revo IKON into more affordable units.

The range features 3 devices:

• The Revo DOMINO D1, a dedicated DAB/DAB+ radio with FM support and iPod / iPhone docking capabilities
• The Revo DOMINO D2, which is a Wi-Fi Internet radio, FM radio, iPod / iPhone dock and offers Last.fm access
• The Revo DOMINO D3, which combines the features of the other into a single unit (similar to the RadioStation devices); so that’s DAB/DAB+ radio, FM radio, Wi-Fi Internet radio, iPod / iPhone dock, and Last.fm access too.

Athough the Revo DOMINO range does not have the touchscreen of the Revo IKON, it still has some impressive technology built in, such as:

• An innovative joystick-based control system
• A graphical OLED display and an NXT “Balanced Radiator” loudspeaker

Inline with the Revo IKON, it provides access to Last.fm radio streaming, with the ability to choose an artist or genre and let Last.fm build the playlist for you, or “an existing Last.fm profile can be used”.  Also like the Revo IKON, the Revo DOMINO D3 (and D2 we presume) will come with a 30-day trial access to Last.fm, after which a £3 per month subscription is required (although this is for a single Last.fm user account, which we suspect could be used on multiple devices).

The Revo DOMINO range will go on sale on 1st November from John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, and other usual Revo stockists, plus it will be available direct from the Revo website.  The prices are Revo DOMINO D1: £130, Revo DOMINO D2: £150 and Revo DOMINO D3: £170, putting them at similar prices to the Revo iBlik devices (including the Revo iBlik RadioStation), and like the Revo IKON.

We are very impressed with the integration of the various technologies in this device, especially the inclusion of Last.fm; we wonder whether next year will also bring other services, such as Spotify to hardware units from the likes of Revo…

Since the release of the new OS, v3.1, a number of applications have had some “issues”.  Well, some of them are now fixed, so we thought we’d lay out some of the updates that application vendors have informed us of…

Skype have released v1.2, which has the following new features:

• You can set up call forwarding from your iPhone – forward Skype calls to a phone number when you’re not signed in, so you can pick up calls even when the Skype app isn’t running on your device
• Improved performance and better audio quality when making Skype-to-Skype calls
• It’s even easier to send text messages (SMS) – you can now send SMSs from the Call tab

Devicescape have confirmed, that after their earlier problems, their Easy Wi-Fi client is now fully functional again, and have stated:

• First of all, Apple’s special support only applies to the original Easy Wi-Fi multi-network application (the one with the white icon).  If you’re using any of the other Easy Wi-Fi apps, like the AT&T or T-Mobile version, you’ll need to install the original version too.  It’s free in the AppStore.  You don’t need to use it: just the act of installing it has the effect of telling the iPhone OS not to do “smart” stuff with your Wi-Fi connection in hotspots.
• Previously, we recommended installing Boingo because we knew it had the same effect.  You don’t need Boingo anymore (unless of course you’re a user, and maybe you should think about becoming a user, it’s a great service!)
• Finally, if you’re one of the many iPod touch users who never upgraded from 2.x firmware, ignore all of this.  You’re fine.  The issue only occurs with iPhone OS 3.0, and if you upgrade you’ll be jumping past that version from now on.

Navigon have updated their Navigation application too (although not specificially for the new OS).   As well as recently adding text-to-speech and iPod controls, they have now launched lifetime traffic (it needs a one time fee to activate).

TruPhone have addressed their problems with the latest OS, and they have confirmed that v3.0.3 of their iPhone client now works fully with the new OS.