ZOMG It’s CJ has just published it’s review of the Nokia Booklet 3G, and it’s a very impressive review, covering all areas of the device, with a massive number of pictures too.  It’s well worth a read to find out more about this High End (although only medium spec) stylish netbook.

I was fortunate to be able to spend half an hour with a Nokia Booklet 3G a couple of weeks ago, and was quietly impressed.  The device was light, stylish, and very nice to use.  It’s not perfect though; due to the nicely sized keyboard (with a nice gap between each of the keys), the screen looks quite small in the top, and in fact, I wonder if Nokia will increase the screen size within the current laptop frame sometime soon.

The particular unit I tried also suffered from a small irritant in that the screen hinge was too loose, and allowed the screen to move too easily, making it difficult to walk around with the device in one hand (yes, not the best way to carry a laptop, but something that many people will do).  At times it felt like the screen would not stay put, although it never moved on it’s own it didn’t feel right (and speaking with others, this fault does not appear to afflict other models).

However, the main problem I found was the 1GB of memory made Windows 7 a little sluggish, and again, hopefully a memory upgrade will come soon to improve the device.  I wasn’t able to test the 3G functionality, but having 3G and HDMI built in does make the device very useful, and the battery was rather impressive too.  One other minor issue was that after being used solidly for over an hour, the CPU was making the case a little warm.

All in all, if you are after a very stylish device with a similar design ethos to a Macbook, but running Windows, then this device is worth a look; if you don’t need the latest greatest kit, I would suggest possibly waiting until the next version comes out to make it a truly all round device.

Thanks to the team at WOM World Nokia for letting me have a play with the Booklet (and thanks for the hospitality when I dropped in unannounced).

I’ve had access to one of these devices since yesterday, and I am quietly impressed by the device, and it’s capabilities; it’s not perfect (more later), but it certainly is a very useful device…

Although it costs a little more than a standard 3 Mobile Broadband USB Modem, the extra facilities it offers may make it worthwhile for many.  Basically, it shares it’s 3G connection over Wi-Fi to upto 5 devices at the same time.  Now, the 3G network speed is not enough for all 5 devices to be streaming audio or video, but would cope with all 5 checking mail and web surfing.  In fact, I’ve been sat here with 2 laptops connected to it, with one streaming Spotify music for over 2 hours now without any glitches or problems.

One problem with the device is that it is 3G / HSPA only; it will not fallback onto the Orange 2G data network (like a 3UK Handset would), so if you are out of coverage of 3UK’s own 3G network, it will not work at all.  3UK claim to be at 70% population with 3G, which is still one of the highest (if not the highest) for pure 3G connectivity, but the lack of fallback may leave you stranded in the short term.  Last night, 3UK showed their plans for a “monster” 3G network for 2010, which fills in a lot of gaps in their current coverage, so as this better network comes online, this problem will fade to some degree.

One key use of this device is for Wi-Fi only devices, such as the iPod Touch, the Nokia Internet Tablets, PSPs etc. and certainly all these devices gain extra features with connectivity, and it’s very easy to just turn the device on and be able to access the internet anywhere (with signal).  The battery is claimed to last 5 hours, and althougwe haven’t yet got to 5 hours of usage, it’s certainly a plausible figure.  If needed, you can turn off the wireless to limit it to local wired USB connection only, or you can turn off 3G to just give you a local wireless network hub for file sharing.  The network name (SSID) is quite obviously a 3UK device, so you may want to change it (all mangement needs to be performed via a wired cable connection).  You can also change the encryption key, although given this is listed under the battery, it may be easier to leave this alone for convenience.

Other positive points? 3UK are trying to ensure nothing (legal) is blocked by their Internet connection, and certainly everything we accessed worked fine without any issues.  As 3UK have good support for Skype, they are happy for you to run the client on your laptop.  Also interesting to note is that iPhones and iPod Touch can also use a MiFi to allow full access to Skype for calls; whether or not you are allowed to make calls on the Skype client is based on whether the connection is 3G (from the phone) or WiFi (from the phone); the fact that the WiFi access point then uses 3G is not factored in to the switch within the application, so these functions work fine too.

The only other downside we can find is that when you turn it on, you then seem to need to turn on 3G every time; it’s a shame it needs 2 buttons presses, and not just one, but this is a minor point.

The 3 MiFi will be available on Friday in Stores (and available to order online on Thursday)with two pricing options; the “Broadband 5GB 1 month” service will cost £69.99 upfront and then £15 per month for 5GB of data (with 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 standard Mobile Broadband PAYG pricing.  3UK have indicated that there may be more tariffs in the future, and they will also review the 5GB limit over time too.

If you are worried about “Bill Shock” with this device (you will get warning SMSes, but as these are only available if you have the connection software installed and connect to the device via the wired USB cable, most people will never see these), 3UK have a “hard block” of £25 per month; once you hit this limit (comprised of the original tariff and then the overspend), 3UK will block the SIM for the rest of the month.  This is a nice feature to limit exposure, and you can ring up 3UK to increase or decrease this limit if you wish.  Of course, the My3 portal is accessible from any connected device (even on wireless) which gives you a live data usage figure should you wish to check how much you have used.

All in all, a useful device, and one you should consider if you want to have the capability of easily sharing your Mobile Broadband and have sufficient 3G coverage in the areas you want to use it.

This is the new Nokia Booklet 3G, a small form factor laptop (similar to many other devices, like the Vodafone netbook / Dell Mini units).  This, however, as well as featuring what appears to be a Windows OS, will also include some special features.  Firstly, like some other units, it will have 3G capabilities built in, possibly via a hot-swappable SIM card slot (allowing you to change or remove the SIM with the machine booted up).  It will also have A-GPS facilities for location based services.  Now, let’s remember that other devices, such as the Dell Mini 9 have similar capabilities, so this isn’t yet a unique device.

It will though, ship will access to a number of the Ovi Services, which will make a difference, including Ovi Maps (device widget), Nokia Music Store (including music streaming), Ovi Files (cloud based file storage), and Ovi Suite, allowing syncing with your mobile.

The spec, what little is currently known, looks good on paper: 10″ glass fronted screen, 3G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 120GB Hard Disk, HDMI port, integrated SD card reader, stereo speakers.

If you want to know more about this device, head over to All About Symbian.  More information is likely to be revealed by Nokia next week at their Nokia World event, where we expect a number of the phones we’ve covered recently to be announced as well.

This is an interesting looking secondary display to add to your PC.  The Nanovision 710-S display features a 7″ 800 x 480 screen; what’s most intersting though is that there will be two version of this USB-connected screen, a normal screen and a touch screen version.

Both versions feature a dual hinge mechanism, allowing it to be used in portrait or landscape mode (but still fold flat for travelling).  It’s due to ship next month, and one UK site apparently has it on pre-order at £130 (although that may well be the non-touch screen version), but it’s definitely an interesting device for adding a secondary display to your PC (it may well be Windows only), especially for the likes of the smaller laptops with 3G that are often in desperate need of a bit more screen estate…

Some content courtesy of Slashgear (via Engadget)

A week or two back, 3UK informed us they were cutting their data roaming charges to just £1.25/MB, claiming that was the lowest rate available in the UK.  It may well have been, but I’m afraid it seems to me that Vodafone’s new rates make that look pretty poor…

If you are using a Handset (as opposed to a Mobile Broadband USB Modem), then in Zone 1 (roughly the bigger countries in Europe) you will pay £4.99 for each block of 25MB (ie go 100k over 25MB and you will pay £9.98).  Outside of Zone 1, you would pay £14.99 per block of 25MB.

If you are using a USB Dongle (actually Vodafone’s terms are “on phone” and “on laptop”, not explaining where a laptop or PDA tethered to a phone comes) then it’s £9.99 for each block of 50MB in Zone 1 (so the same rate per MB, just only available in bigger chunks) and £29.99 in Zone 2.

All these charges are per day, and end at midnight *UK* time (although Vodafone will send you texts when you get close to the end of a block of data and when it’s close to midnight), and Vodafone do state the charges are based on browsing and emails, and not file sharing, downloading music or video or streaming media either (as these will quickly eat up those blocks of data).

So, if we do our sums properly, it looks to us like Vodafone works out a lot cheaper per MB than 3UK are when roaming, but of course if you use a really really small of data per day, then 3UK will be cheaper, but where’s the fun in that…

With the aide of a handy calculator, we think the following would apply:

• Using 1MB a day for 7 days on 3UK in France: £8.75
• Using 1MB a day for 7 days on Vodafone in France: £34.93

So, 3UK comes out best, until you start using more data…

• Using 4MB a day for 7 days on 3UK in France: £35.00
• Using 4MB a day for 7 days on Vodafone in France: £34.93

Of course, as the numbers go up, it still starts to add up for both…

• Using 15MB a day for 7 days on 3UK in France: £131.25
• Using 15MB a day for 7 days on Vodafone in France: £104.79

Now, 15MB a day for 7 days is only 105MB, and, to be honest, with both networks offering over 500MB (3UK offering 1-2GB) for £5 per month, all these charges still look ridiculously high, but let’s hope the price war between the networks continues to drive down data charges before the EU has to act and set limits on roaming, like it has for calls and texts.

Although we update the UK Gadgeteer Offers page most weeks with new deals we have found / agreed with companies, we thought we would draw your attention to the last update, which added a couple of exclusive 3UK offers.  Both offers include a white USB Mobile Broadband Dongle, which are currently very rare on 3UK, to the extent that if you head off to the 3Store website, you will only be offered the black ZTE modem.  However, we can provide you access to the white Huawei modem with two options; either a 24month 15GB contract for just the USB dongle or with an Acer laptop.  Head off to the UK Gadgeteer Offers page to see these two offers and links to the offers direct at 3UK.

Please note these are time limited offers, and will be removed once they are no longer available from 3UK.

We try to provide access to deals such as these (ie not available to the general public) as often as possible; if this deal does not interest you, please keep an eye on the UK Gadgeteer Offers page in case something else catches your fancy.

If the new Pocket Surfer 3 from yesterday was not your cup of tea, then maybe the new UbiSurfer is more your thing…

This is a small form factor laptop sized device, running Linux, but benefitting from both Datawind’s GPRS web compression technology, and their experience with the Pocket Surfer to bring an interesting, and well priced device to our shelves (and it’s available in Maplin already here at £149.99 until 4th August when the price goes back up to £159.99).

Just like the Pocket Surfer 3, the device comes with an embedded Vodafone SIM, and offers 30 hours of internet access per month for 12 months, and just like the Pocket Surfer 3, costs £29.99 for an additional 12 months, and can additionally have unlimited browsing for £5.99 per month.  It also benefits from the same 5p/25p per minute roaming data charges.  It, however, is not eligible for the lifetime unlimited browsing option at this time.

As well as featuring built in GPRS, it has built in Ethernet support and Wi-Fi (to allow connection via Hotspots, although it’s not clear whether you are limited to free hotspots, or whether Datawind have some agreement in place for wider access), a 7″ 800×480 screen and features local storage of 1GB, with access to a free 50GB online storage account.  At 222 x 165 x 29.5mm and 700g, it’s bigger and heavier than the Pocket Surfer 3, but it does also support video playback and audio too (and even has a microphone, which makes us wonder if VOIP could ever be made an option…).  As well as mic and headphone sockets, it also features 3 USB ports and an SD card slot.

As well as a web browser, it features Calendar, Media Player, XIP Office (Word processor, Spreadsheet and    Presentation), PDF Viewer, Email, IM support, Paint, and finally even a few Games.  Just like the Pocket Surfer 3, it features a QWERTY keyboard and touchpad (although it’s much larger than the Pocket Surfer version), yet still offers 4 hours active usage or 4 days standby, and because the device is Linux/GPE based, it even offers built in software updating capability.

This makes for another interesting device, although it does seem to offer a conundrum; do you go for the smaller, lighter audioless Pocket Surfer 3, or have the fuller multimedia experience of the UbiSurfer at the expense of size and weight…

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…

Ever since we tried the Vodafone netbook, aka Dell Mini 9 with 3G, we have been impressed by the device; it’s small, lightweight, but still powerful enough for most needs.  However, until recently the only way to get one with the 3G module was via the networks like Vodafone, but now, to offer a choice, they are available from PC World.

PC World are selling the Dell Mini 9 for £299 with 3G, Bluetooth, 8GB SSD, 1GB RAM, and a webcam, although they are also selling the Dell Mini 10 for £329 (which offers the larger screen, and a much larger 160GB HDD, and it’s available in a range of colours too). Even better, most of the networks have yet to offer the Dell Mini 10 with 3G, so this may be a way to upgrade to a larger screen whilst still in your existing mobile broadband contract…

News of this deal courtesy of MyDellMini.com.

Lenovo will apparently start selling this dual screen laptop from today in the US.  As you can see, it main feature is a secondary slide out screen (the primary screen is 17″, the secondary 10.6″), but is a fairly feature rich laptop anyway, with optional RAID / SSD, DVI / Display port / VGA display support, 5 USB ports, Wi-Fi, optional WiMax, a 7-in-1 card reader, a smartcard reader, upto 8GB of DDR3 RAM.

The secondary screen can be adjusted by up to 30 degrees, giving some control over the exact viewing angle.  Lenovo also state “Ideal for digital content creators and users, the optional digitizer provides high resolution, pressure high resolution, pressure sensitive control of the primary screen, the primary and the secondary screen or a specific defined area of either screen. Select models also come with a color calibrator that quickly and automatically adjusts the screen’s color to give true-to-life images and rendering 2D and 3D images, which are important items for digital content creators.”

The laptop with start at around $3700 and go up from there, so it’s not a cheap solution, but certainly shows some good innovation.  We expect the laptop will be available in the UK shortly.

Information courtesy of jkOnTheRun.

Vodafone have just started a promotion on their TopUp and Go USB Modem Stick for £39 (down from £49 yesterday), which includes the first free TopUp of 1GB (worth £15).  Unlike 3UK, this TopUp will not expire, and we understand nor will any subsequent TopUps.  The K3565 Modem Stick offers downloads of up to 3.6mbps, and includes a microSD slot.

This may be an interesting competitor to the 3 USB Modems, especially with the non-expiry of the TopUp vouchers; but is it good value…  Let’s compare the main networks:

• Vodafone: £15 buys you 1GB of data, but with no expiry
• 3UK: £15 buys you 3GB of data, but it will expire after 30 days
• T-Mobile:£20 buys you 30 days of usage, with a 3GB of data cap (includes Wi-Fi access too)
• O2: £15 buys you 3GB of data, but it will expire after 30 days (it does also include “unlimited” Wi-Fi)
• Orange don’t offer PAYG Mobile Broadband

So, is this a good deal?  Well, we think for those who want to occasionally take their laptop out and about it could be wonderful, removing the need for TopUps unless the data has been used up; for those who need more data, we would probably recommend the 3 Mobile Broadband Starter Kits or any of the contract Mobile Broadband deals.

In other news, we’re hearing Vodafone has an offer on their Vodafone netbook (Dell Mini 9) laptops; half price line rental for the first 3 months; we are finding our netbook very easy to use, and you can read our first impressions of it here.  Full details of this should appear on the Vodafone website soon.

Well, our review Vodafone netbook arrived on Friday, and we’ve been using it on and off since then; in fact, this article was written completely on the netbook!  Having turned it on, we were impressed the battery came sufficiently charged to get going, although the completion of the XP install took quite some time (as always).  Having got that working, we were impressed by the screen; the 8.9″ screen is nice and clear, and runs at 1024 x 600, which is just big enough; less than 1024 width causes problems on lots of websites, although the 600 height is often not enough, with many websites needed additional scrolling to read.

One thing that the Dell Mini 9 doesn’t have, which was brought out by all that additional vertical scrolling is the lack of a scroll area on the touchpad, something we are used to from larger laptops.  Having said that, the addition of an external scroll mouse has removed most of the problems with the touchpad, by virtue of not using it

Although the whole keyboard is less than full size, a number of the symbol keys are even smaller again, which makes them more difficult to touch type on (eg the comma key is the same size as the main keys but the period key next to it is smaller), but generally the keyboard is acceptable, especially given the size of the unit.

In terms of software installed, there’s a nice range pre-installed, including Microsoft Works and viewers for the various Office document types, Dell video chat and webcam software, McAfee (30 day license only though), and a WiFi / Bluetooth connection application.  We were a little disappointed at the lack of IE7 and the 129Mb of Microsoft patches that were needed straight away, which has of course eaten further into the 8GB SSD Flash it came with.

Overall, our initial impressions are that it’s a nice, small little laptop, and very easy to use and cart around.  Our only other problem; despite what the Vodafone website says, the device claims we are only in a GPRS area, ie no 3G, so we’ve yet to test the Mobile Broadband in anger; more updates later in the week on that.

Update: The Dell Mini 9 does have vertical scroll support in the touchpad, but only after a fresh boot; if you use standby mode, this support seems to get lost on resume, especially if an external mouse is attached, whereas it’s fine on a cold boot even with an external mouse plugged in.

Oh, and once we had connected to Vodafone in a 3G area, all was sorted out, including then listing the original location as a 3G supported area.

Here’s a very good challenge for you.  Vodafone are currently giving away 4 Dell netbook laptops every day until the end of next week.  There are two ways of winning…

• Every day, he will be in a different city, and if you can pinpoint him and catch him, you then need to say a specific phrase (available on the website); he will give away 3 netbooks like this each day.
• Once a day, the person who closest predicts his location will win a netbook too.

Head over to the Vodafone LiveGuy site for more information, his schedule, and more details on how to win; in the meantime we’re hoping to get hold of a Dell Mini Inspiron 9 for review.  To remind you, the specs are:

• Built in Mobile Broadband (up to 7.2mbps, although realistically you will only get about 5mbps), but this is one of a very small handful of units where the HSDPA is built in; ie you just need a SIM card
• 232 x 175 x 30 mm, 990g
• 8.9inch LCD display
• 8GB SSD hard drive running Windows XP with 1GB RAM
• Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Webcam

If you don’t win one, you can always a Vodafone netbook for free from Vodafone, at either £25 per month (1GB data limit, 24 month contract) or £30 per month (3GB data limit, 24 month contract).

We’ve covered the Asus Eee PC range many times before, but above is a variant of the 901 with built in 3G support.  Orange will supply this to you for free in exchange for a £25 per month 24 month contract.  The Eee PC 901 comes with Windows, 16Gb of Flash Memory, with (according to Orange) five hours of battery life, an integrated webcam, and features an 8.9″ compact design, weighing in at just 1.1kg.  It’s available in Black or Pink.

It comes with the “Internet Everywhere” tariff, which includes 3GB of data per month (well done to Orange for not using the “unlimited” word) and 100 texts direct from the laptop.

This should be available from the Orange Shop soon, although it was not yet available at the time of writing.

There are a few rumours, and a few facts about the ability to use your iPhone’s internet connection with a laptop right now. What we know is that AT&T have said it is coming soon to their iPhones. What we don’t know is how. It could be within the new v2.2 firmware due out soon, or it could be an additional application. Also, even if AT&T release the functionality in the US, it’s possible O2 will not do the same in the UK, so even once the capability is there it might not be available in the UK.

More news as and when we have it, but it certainly looks like iPhone tethering will soon become a possibility for some people around the world.

At a briefing last week, 3UK were bemoaning the costs of calls to and from other mobile networks, and stated they were determined to keep working on reducing costs for all.  One of the reasons it costs more to ring a mobile phone from a landline compared to another landline is there is an additional charge levied by the mobile phone networks for that inbound call to be carried across their network; this is call Mobile Termination, and each network set their own rate for this.  3UK have stated they want to see this reduced, initially to the real cost, but ultimately to nothing.

However, they also took advantage of the assembled press to announce that from 1 November they will be offering a £15 per month tariff with unlimited 3UK-3UK calls and texts (making the point that with the current costs of transferring the call they cannot yet offer unlimited calls across all networks).  Even better, this tariff will also come with 1GB of data included.

What’s not clear is whether they are simply increasing the current 300 3 to 3 minutes to unlimited calls and texts (and adding the data bundle) on all tariffs, or whether they will be offering a single tariff with unlimited 3 to 3 calls (and we wonder whether this will be truly unlimited, or whether there will actually be a fair usage policy).

3UK are showing lots of innovation; a good range of phones, good Mobile Broadband devices, laptops and Mobile Broadband deals, the D100 Wi-Fi Router, and now even more minutes for the same outlay; let’s hope they either truly mean unlimited, or play fair and simply state the maximum minutes allowed…

We’ll bring you more details of the “unlimited” tariff once we have it.

As well as offering low price laptops, the Chief Exec of Asustek has stated that Asus intend to provide 20GB of free online storage to all users. They are also hoping to offer free downloads of music, movies and educational or gaming software for a limited time (which maybe around 3 months from purchase).

Picture courtesy of linitx.com.

Along with many other networks and even Carphone Warehouse, Vodafone are offering a laptop / mobile broadband offer.  However, what’s different with this deal is that the laptop is a Dell, and it’s got built in HSDPA.  The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 is an Eee-like machine, and with the built in HSDPA should sell very well.  Exact prices are yet to be revealed, but this is likely to be popular with small businesses.  It also appears that Vodafone have managed to get an exclusive on this Dell as well for Europe.

berble.com have confirmed that there will be no laptop tethering for the iPhone, inline with our opinion last week. An O2 contact told them that connecting a laptop to the iPhone would be against the T&Cs for the unlimited data usage. They go on to mention that the contact also suggested the capability might not even be available within the iPhone to achieve this, even if it wasn’t against the T&Cs.

Read berble.com’s article here.

Here’s a roundup of a few additional points and information that have been released since the initial launch earlier this week.

Firstly, there are rumours that O2 are going to allow the iPhone 3G to be tethered to a laptop via Bluetooth, ie you can get access to the internet from the laptop via the iPhone. This is unconfirmed, and some people have indicated that the early iPhone 2.0 firmwares do not contain this functionality, so unless Apple pull something out of the hat at the last minute, this may not happen. Of course, many people argue that the iPhone has enough capability that you won’t want or need to use your laptop at all!

On the more positive, Unlimited WiFi will be available on the iPhone 3G at 9,500 hotspots covering both The Cloud and BT’s OpenZone network, which will be added in on 11th July, the iPhone launch date.

There’s no front facing camera, despite what a few people are claiming, so no 3G video calling.  Whether this was something that was dropped from the development to meet the timescales, or whether it was a purposeful decision (after all, how many of us make regular video calls, compared to voice calls…?) we’ll never know, but for now, there’s no capability.

There’s some questions over navigation apps, with some people claiming that companies like TomTom will not be able to release SatNav software because of a clause which prevents real-time navigation apps.  We believe that this clause relates to the use of the SDK to access the Google Maps data, which, of course, TomTom will not be using.  As such, we doubt this clause will prevent a wide raft of SatNav applications becoming available.

All in all, we suspect there will be a lot more news about the iPhone between now and a month’s time.