Both LG and Panasonic are working with Skype to produce the capability of accessing Skype directly from within your TV.  Although it’s likely you’ll need to purchase an additional TV webcam (which will feature the camera and microphone), both manufacturers will be offering Skype within their Internet-connected TV ranges, allowing you to make and receive calls (and even make HD video calls if you have sufficient bandwidth).  It should be noted you need the webcam even for just audio calls, as the TVs won’t ship with microphones, so the only microphone available will be from the combined webcam / microphone unit.

In a move said to be supporting the “Make do and Mend” movement, 3UK have announced that they are now selling refurbished handsets, which currently includes the Skypephone S2, the White Skypephone, and the LG KF310, although this list will vary as stock changes over time.

If you are interested, head to the 3UK Refurbished Handsets page on the 3UK website.

Further to our announcement of last week that we had drawn the winner for the LG 42″ TV, I can now announce the winner is D. Shore of Suffolk, who will hopefully be receiving the TV shortly.  It’s been great fun running a competition, and I’m hoping to be able to offer more competitions in 2010, although the prizes might not always be as fantastic as this first competition!

Well, it was nice to have the LG 42″ LED-Backlit LCD TV for review for a week, before it nows gets boxed back up, and shipped onto our competition winner.  We’ll be inviting the winner to write up a review of the TV again in a while once they have really got used to all the features, but for now, here’s a brief review from me…

The screen is nice and bright, and even though one of the first things I did was to turn on the Auto Energy Saving feature, the device still offered a nice bright image at all times.  The 2 SCART sockets and 4 HDMI sockets offer more options than most people could need, but I guess allows for future options too.  The setup of the device was nice and easy, with an auto-setup running when the TV first powered on.  In fact, a small minor point, but my current LCD TV has a power button on the front (as well as a little button on the side; whereas the LG TV only has the button on the side), and it was amazing how much the family and I missed the easy to use front power button.

However, one thing I really liked was the fact the TV ships with 2 remotes.  Yes, two remotes.  I loved the main remote with the ability to illuminate the keys, and having full access to control the TV at all times, but you know what; I liked the smaller, simpler remote even more.  With a much smaller selection of buttons (power, input selection, channel and volume controls, and not much more!) this remote was easier to let the kids lose with knowing they could not get to the menus and accidentally make changes to the settings.  Whether in the long term this second remote is actually useful I don’t know, but for a short trial, is was certainly useful.

Less useful was the lack of auto-SCART selection I’m used to from my current TV, and I had some issues with the headphone socket not providing sound if a cable was plugged into the headphone socket on power on.  The second wasn’t a major issue, but the first did seem strange, and may have been a configuration setting that I missed.

On top of the ability to play TV / video information from SCART and HDMI sockets, the TV also features the ability to play media from USB devices and from Bluetooth devices too.  The Bluetooth can also be used to play back the audio via Bluetooth Headphones without disturbing others, which is a nice touch too.

I mentioned the “frameless design” when the TV first launched (see here); in fact, it’s more of a seamless design, in that there is no bezel where the TV image finishes and the black surround starts, but the main thing about this TV that does stand out is how slim it is; at 2.9cm it’s obviously crying out to be wall mounted (something I was unable to do, but maybe our competition winner will…); and I did feel that if the device was being placed on a TV stand, the extra cost of buying a slimmer device may seem excessive; although the power saving and image quality the LED backlighting offered did seem to me a worthwhile expenditure even without wall mounting the TV.

When not wall mounting the TV, it stands on a very nice square base, which is smaller than many of the normal bases, presumably due to the thinner nature of the screen.

Will I miss this TV?  Well, yes, in a way; the extra little technology (eg Bluetooth) and the sheer quality and brightness of the image will be missed, but for me, it’s not actually a great improvement over my current TV to warrant an upgrade right now; but if you are looking to increase your screen size, or move up to your first LCD TV, then this Full HD TV should at least be on the shortlist; the power savings and brightness of the LED Backlighting may not be obvious in store (where most TVs will be set to maximum brightness irrespective of the power draw), but are well worth factoring into the long term costs of the TV.

As to our competition winner; we’re in the process of contacting them, and arranging with LG for the TV to be shipped on to them, and we’ll announce who won later this week, and will look forward to seeing their review of the device in due course.

Thanks yet again to LG and The LG Blog for offering this competition prize, and thanks to everyone who entered.

Don’t forget our competition for the LG 42″ TV finishes today at 5pm; see here for the details on how to enter…

Don’t forget, there are still a few days to enter our competition to win an LG 42″ LED-Backlit LCD TV.  For more information head to here.

Yes, that’s right, for our first ever competition we’re starting with a rather impressive prize; a Super Slim 42″ LG LED-Backlit LCD TV (SL9000). If you want to know more about the TV, read our article here when this range was announced a few months back.

The competition is quite simple; you simply have to email your answer (and your details) to the following question to info@gadgeteer.org.uk before 5pm Friday 4th December 2009.

Unfortunately, as with many competitions, there are a few rules we have had to impose; no UK Gadgeteer or LG staff (nor anyone living at the same address), you must be over 18 years old, you can only enter the competition once, and the TV will only be shipped to a UK address.  The winner will be selected by random from the correct entries. You will need to provide your name, address and contact telephone number, which will not be used for any marketing activities, although the winner will be expected to:

• Take part in some limited marketing activities, and your name will be revealed.
• Provide some feedback on the TV, in terms of a review with pictures and/or video of how the TV has fitted into your lifestyle.

That last point is key, but should not be too onerous!

Just to show this is real, here’s a picture of the TV (still in the box; more pictures next week of it out of the box…) and we’ll be providing a review of this very TV next week too, before it’s boxed back up and ready to be sent off to the winner.

So, to win, all you need to do is email info@gadgeteer.org.uk your name, address and contact telephone number, along with the answer to this question:

What are the screen sizes of the two models in the SL9xxx range:

a. 32″ and 42″

b. 42″ and 47″

c. 32″ and 47″

The winner will be contacted and announced soon after (likely to be the following week).

Good luck!

Thanks to LG and the LG Blog for offering this fantastic prize.

This is an innovative desk stand for your phone.  As well as including an 8-in-1 memory card reader, a 2 port USB hub, having a variety of connectors to charge your phone, and running solely off USB power, it also claims to be able to hold any phone in portrait or landscape formats without any additional support!

The Desk Genie is apparently made from a special rubberised material, which is strong enough to hold an phone in portrait or landscape positions, and should even still hold the phone in place when the phone is vibrating, yet should leave no sticky residue on the phone.  For only £15 (+ delivery) this looks an interest device, if only to hold your phone at the right angle for use on your desk, let alone all the additional properties it has.

Mobile Fun do warn that with time the rubbery surface’s ability to hold a phone will fade as dust collects on the surface, but a quick wipe with clean water should restore it back to normal.

As for those mobile phones charging connectors: iPhone, Nokia (both 2mm and 3.5mm), Sony Ericsson, Samsung and LG are all supported, as are the miniUSB and microUSB formats (the latter being the standard connector for many manufacturers moving forward).   This power connector does not use either of the USB ports on the device, although it would appear at first glance that this is a power only connector, so it may not be possible to sync and charge many devices (unless you use Bluetooth to sync between the device and your PC/Mac).

You can see more of the Desk Genie at Mobile Fun.

Last night I was privileged to be invited to a small, cosy location in London 2 floors underground to discuss with LG some of their new phones recently released, and about to be released.

John Barton, the UK Sales & Marketing Manager, spoke candidly about the LG range, and there’s a summary of the devices that were discussed after the break…

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Well, I’ve had a LG Chocolate BL40 in for review for a few weeks now, and overall I have been impressed with the phone.  I already covered my initial impressions of the phone here, so I’ll add to that review.  Having now used the phone in a variety of lighting conditions, the 21:9 screen is still wonderful to use; bright and clear in most situations.  The split screen functions within the phone are still useful, although as this isn’t a true smartphone, some of the apps still feel a little limited compared to other more advanced phones on the market.

In use, the size hasn’t proved a major problem, although even today there have been comments like “that’s a large phone”.  The touchscreen is nice to use, and a great improvement on some previous LG models, with the whole phone feeling more responsive, and easier to use.  Some games and other Java applications seemed not well adjusted to the large screen size, causing buttons to appear very small, but this is a minor problem.

Overall, this is a very nice phone to use, and stylish to boot!

In fact there are only a couple of downsides to the phone.  Firstly, given the phone is a designer device, we wonder how many of the users will take advantage of the whole range of features available.  Secondly, with the rise of phones supporting Social Networking sites via built in applications (such as the INQ Mini 3G, or the newer LG GW520, reviews of both phones soon!), and the lack of such applications on the phone may not have been an issue a few months ago, but now seems a little oversight.

Allowing for these small concerns, I’ll miss the phone, which is available on a number of networks.

Thanks to LGBlog for lending me the phone.

The LG Chocolate BL40 picked up Mobile Phone of the Year at the What Mobile? awards on Friday.  In terms of being quite an iconic phone, we can understand why, as the phone packs a lot of features into a novel new form factor, which makes watching movies on the device even more entertaining.

We’re planning to release our full review of the phone very shortly, so keep an eye out for it.

This is an interesting phone, and shows that both the main mobile phone companies and the mobile networks can work together to produce a phone capable of more than just calls!  The phone (as we mentioned before) has Twitter and Facebook support, as well as the usual 3UK features (Skype on 3, Email on 3, Windows Live Messenger etc) and the phone also has some RSS support too.

Some features were well integrated, eg if you take a picture, the menu then offers to Send the photo to Twitter or Facebook as well as the more usual options.  However, others, such as the Social Networking apps themselves, weren’t so easy to find; Facebook wasn’t too bad, as it’s available from Menu / Messaging, but Twitter was only found in Menu / Entertainment / Applications, whereas, it would have made more sense in the Messaging area alongside Facebook.

However, in that app list, there were a number of other useful applications, including AccuWeather, YouTube, Yell, as well as the 3UK specific apps.  Also, was a Permier Football Scores app (although this requires you to pay a subscription to use it at all).

In other terms, the phone, and 3UK’s integration was good (personally I don’t like 3UK taking over both softkeys on the homescreen, but this is a minor point).  I did like the way that 3UK recognised I had moved my 3 SIM into a different phone, and automatically sent the latest 3UK settings to the phone (including sending an SMS in advance telling me what was happening, and how to accept the settings).

However, all was not perfect; I didn’t like the back cover, which is held on with 2 clips at the top and 2 more at the bottom, therefore needing some force to remove it; no nice buttons / slide to remove here.  Okay, the rear cover only gives access to the battery, SIM and microSD card slot, so probably does not need to come off often, but it still detracted from the phone.  Also, the phone uses a proprietary connection for both the handset and charging; given the general move by the other manufacturers towards microUSB, this was a shame (some, like LG, are already shipping phones with microUSB).

In a normal week, I would be saying that this is a really good, all round phone, but I’ve just had the new INQ Mini delivered, and that seems to offer a similar package that’s easier to use, and has less negatives, but that’s for another article…

The Sony Ericsson T715 is available from 3UK in Pink and Silver, and thanks to 3mobilebuzz for the loan of the phone.

Here’s a new and interesting phone; the new LG GW520.  It’s not a top end phone, but it has added a range of Social Networking features directly into the device.  As well as the 2.8″ touchscreen, you can see it’s got a QWERTY slide out keyboard, and it’s even got high spec features such as HSDPA support.  A 3.15 megapixel camera allows video and camera pictures to be taken, and finally there is an MP3 player and an FM radio.

So, those Social Networking features…?  For a start it offers threaded messages, but for those contacts you speak to the most, they will appear on the homecreen as avatars.  If you get a text from them, the avatar will tell you, and if you click on the avatar, it will take you straight to the message.

Well, to us, a phone needs more than the ability to link texts to contacts to be classed as having Social Networking, but we hope to have one of these phones to review in the near future to confirm either way.

Of course, if it’s like the previous LG QWERTY phone, it’ll be available on PAYG for a lot less than people would expect for a QWERTY phone, and we’ll report on where the phone is available from soon.

What’s Vodafone 360 I hear you ask… Well, it’s a new, revolutionary set of services from Vodafone, which claims to gather up all of your friends, communities, entertainment and personal favourites into one single place.  From the intial press release, it looks like Vodafone is attempting to achieve across a broad range of phones what companies like INQ and LG have attempted with single phone models…

So what does the service comprise, what phones does it work on? Read on…

Firstly, the service is designed to be embedded within the phone, and Vodafone are using the LiMo operating system to help achieve this.  At launch, there is 1 phone, developed by Samsung, which will be labelled as the Vodafone 360 H1, which will support the capabilities natively on the device.  A second device is due from Samsung soon, which will offer customers a range of “colours” and models.

Also, at launch, the service will be pre-loaded on 4 Symbian handsets in Vodafone’s current phone catalogue, and the full service will be available for download on another 10 Symbian devices.  However, “part or all of the service” will also be available for download onto “over 100 popular phones”.  No word as to whether this is still limited to Symbian phones, or whether it is using Java / mobile web browser technology to allow them to support wider than just Symbian; however, Vodafone have stated they plan to support more handsets (from multiple manufacturers) and operating systems over the coming months.

So, the service itself:

• The main key element is Vodafone People (and this function will be available across all 100 phone models) automtically syncs all contacts from your phone, Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, and Google Talk.  Soon, that list will be enhanced with Twitter, Hyves and studiVZ (the last two are leading Dutch and German social networks).
• This address book should also sync with your PC and Mac, although it’s not clear if these platforms will sync with the same internet server, or whether that will be direct to the device (the latter is hinted at).
• The internet services is said to include “apps, games, music and mapping services”.

Vodafone have stated that “Customers will have integrated contacts, music, photos, and mapping services and can share their favourite music choices and even their physical location, how and when they choose, with their chosen group of friends”.

If all of this is not enough, Vodafone are opening up the website that manages all of this to non-Vodafone users too, to allow the system to be used by all, although you’ll need to be a Vodafone customer to benefit from the mobile side of things.

A little more on the Vodafone 360 H1 (as pictured above); all we know right now is that it has “a 3.5 inch multitouch, high definition OLED screen, 16GB memory, WiFi, a maximum talk time of over 400 minutes (3G) and a 5 megapixel camera.”  It also has integrated GPS, as will the Vodafone 360 M1 to follow, although that has a smaller 3.2 inch TFT screen, 1GB memory, no Wi-Fi, and only a 3 megapixel camera.

However, Andrew Grill from London Calling, has provided info on some of the apps involved, including a Vodafone Mclaren Mercedes application providing news and live telemetry from their F1 cars, and Tube Exits (a popular iPhone app which gives you advice on where to board London Underground trains for the most efficient exit).

More information is now available at www.vodafone360.com.  Screenshot courtesy of Andrew Grill.

Here’s an interesting campaign by LG; as part of promoting the newly launched LG Chocolate BL40 (our Review here), they are looking for 5 of the original LG Chocolate phones with the serial numbers below:

• 802KPAE821224
• 803KPBF578597
• 803KPXV578330
• 803KPVH578503
• 803KPJP923836

LG are going to provide a fairly large reward (US $10,000 and a new LG Chocolate BL40 phone) to anyone who has any of these phones, and the phone will need to be handed in person into an LG office (for verification of the serial number within the hardware, so no attempts at just doctoring the serial number on the sticker!) before 8th October to qualify.  LG have stated these phones could be anywhere in the world!

If you want to know more (and read the T&Cs) then head to LG’s website here.

Last week we mentioned that LG had announced the achievement of selling 1 million LG Arena phones since it launched earlier this year.  Just to bring that into perspective with the power of Nokia and their flagship models, Nokia have announced they have sold 2 million Nokia N97 phones since they launched it, only 3 months ago!

Even more incredibly, Nokia have announced the Nokia N97 Mini as a phone that’s likely to replace the Nokia N97 (with the initial rush on the Nokia N97 over, it’s not a big surprise this new model with replace it in terms of sales).  We’ll be bringing you more details on the Nokia N97 Mini and the other phones released at Nokia World later this week, but one major thing of note about the current Nokia N97; the major firmware update, v2.0 should become available in mid October (via NSU first, and then eventually via FOTA directly on the handset).  This firmware update should help to resolve many of the memory problems people have been experiencing with this phone, although why Nokia didn’t ship the phone with more memory in the first place I’m not sure).

This new firmware will also add Kinetic scrolling, various enhancements (VOIP, Music Player, Photo Menu), new Homecreen widgets and an updated Ovi Maps.

Oh, and it appears the Nokia N97 Mini will ship with the same amount of memory for applications that the Nokia N97 ships with, so let’s hope the same firmware tweaks are included in this new model too…

Finally, if you think 2 million is a lot of phones, Nokia also announced between the Nokia N97 and the Nokia 5800 phone, they’ve sold 10 million S60 5th Edition phones in 10 months; which makes 8 million sales of the Nokia 5800.

It’s been a big week for LG, with LG Mobile launching the new LG Chocolate BL40 phone, and their TV division launching a number of ranges of new devices today…

Firstly, they have launched the LU7000, range of TVs (19″ and 22″) with a built in front loading DVD player (and also built in Freeview).  This uses two glass sliding doors which slide from the centre outwards to allow access to the DVD drive.  This TV is designed for a variety of uses; in the kitchen, for kids, or for students.  Even with the design, it’s a wall mountable unit, featuring a standard VESA mount, and supports a USB connection for accessing pictures or mp3 music.  It also features 2 HDMI connections, and Scart support too.

Other ranges follow in the rest of the article…

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Along with a select few, I was privileged to be invited to the UK launch of the new LG Black Label phone, the LG Chocolate BL40, which has taken the key Black Label features, and combined them with the S-Class UI used on the LG Arena and LG Crystal and put them into a new take on a traditional phone form factor.

The phone looks big in pictures, but it still fits into a shirt or trouser pocket.  With the tempered glass screen (as featured on the previous LG Black Label, the LG Secret), the glass is safe from scratches from keys (although whether the back is as safe isn’t as clear until I get more time with the phone).  That screen is one of the key selling points of the phone; it allows full cinematic 21:9 playback on the 4″ touchscreen, and I have to say video playback looked very impressive, even in the various lighting conditions of the London Design Museum last night.

LG have also realised this screen has great potential in other apps; and therefore within the Messaging, Scheduler and Contact apps the phone offers a split screen layout when used horizontally; in Messaging, it will show the list of SMSes on the left, and then the contents of the selected SMS on the right.  This use of the screen is very impressive, and I should also point out that they have used the additional screen space to create a more usable QWERTY on screen keyboard than previous models.  Whilst I am comparing it to previous models, the menu scrolling, the transition from portrait to landscape, and generally moving around the menus is vastly improved compared to previous phones, with no noticeable lag at all; also, when you are selecting which of the 4 homescreens to use, the thumbnail images of the homescreens actually reflect the current content of those screen, instead of a generic image; again, a little improvement in the UI that makes for a better overall experience.

The phone appears to come with about 1.5Gb of internal memory (enough for a couple of DivX optimsed movies), and should support microSD cards upto 32GB.  Finally LG has listened and separated out the USB connector (now microUSB for charging, as with the LG Crystal) and the headphone socket, and have adopted the standard 3.5mm headphone jack too.  I heard rumours of a possibility of the UK production phones shipping with a named brand set of headphones too, although this could not be confirmed, so I won’t name the brand at this stage.

I noticed little improvements throughout the whole phone; geotagging is there in the Photo application, although more impressive is the panoramic mode; once you have taken the first picture, you start scrolling (left, right, up or down) and the camera shows you where the next picture should be taken which a nice red box; no need to manually try to align the picture to get the right amount of join.  The photo app seems to support 12 pictures using the 5 megapixel camera, and that should just allow a full 360 degree picture.

Although a little bit of a noisy environment limiting testing, the phone will ship with DivX and Dolby Mobile support (as featured on a number of recent high end LG phones), giving a good rich sound to support that widescreen.  There’s an FM transmitter in there too, allowing easy use of the phone as a media player in the car.

Web browsing was acceptable, and again in landscape mode the phone has been designed to not require scrolling left to right (only vertically), which worked well on a few sample websites; also impressive was the way mobile optimised websites were zoomed in to take the best advantage of the screen, instead of just leaving small text on the left and a big white space on the right, and compared to previous phones, this zooming was smooth and fast.

In terms of other apps, a small suite of Google apps is included, which includes Google Maps (with GPS support), although still missing Latitude support.

This is a designer phone, and in my opinion, LG are getting their designs just right at the moment; sleek and stylish devices, but putting the right features into the device to allow all to use them (and the Internet) to the full.  Whether everyone will like the form factor I don’t know, but I suspect this will be a big seller for LG in the coming months.

As one of the first to be able to handle the phone and try it out, I’d like to thank the LG Blog for letting me into the launch event, and hopefully in the next few weeks, I’ll get longer to review the phone in more depth.  I believe the phone should start selling during September (maybe early October), and UK Gadgeteer will provide updates on networks and prices when it does become available.

Although we’re used to hearing the likes of Apple and Nokia announcing phones which have sold over a million devices, it’s not something we often hear the same thing from the other players, especially as they often don’t hit such large figure for a single device, but LG have; since February this year they’ve managed to sell over 1 million LG Arena phones across the world (LG state the phone is on sale in 53 countries).

This is a fantastic figure for LG, and shows how popular their phones are becoming.  The LG Arena was the first phone with their new S-Class User Interface, which is also featured on their latest LG GD900 Crystal phone too which we are currently reviewing, which apart from a few minor issues, we’re really enjoying using.  Occasionally their are times when we find the virtual on screen keyboard more responsive than the touch based keypad, and the screen sometimes seem to take a little while to light up when a call comes in, but otherwise it’s proving to be clearer on calls and better at hanging onto poor network signal than many phones we have tried.

Our review LG GD900 Crystal arrived yesterday, and I’ve been using this since then, and wanted to share some of my initial thoughts on the device.  I haven’t really had time to spend with the device yet, so some thoughts and opinions may change as I use the phone more and more.

Before this, I was using an LG Renoir on a regular basis due to the nice 8 megapixel camera, but the LG Crystal combines that camera with the new S-Class UI from the LG Arena, and seems to do a good job too.  It’s a slider, and therefore features a keypad too, which I prefer.  However, the transparent keypad is more like a touchpad, so has no real keys; in fact, within certain parts of the UI, it actually acts as a touchpad, allowing you to scroll through screens (eg your contact list) with ease.  Closing the slider can also end a call (this can be turned off), which is a nice touch too.

The phone is a nice colour, and matches in with the stylish designer look LG seem to be perfecting with all of their recent phones.  It’s moved from a proprietary LG connector to microUSB, which is a good thing (although does mean a new investment in chargers), although LG are still sharing that single port with the headset, which I don’t personally like, but on this handset may well be acceptable…

Why do I say that; well, the main drain on the battery of a modern phone is using the GPS, and simply put, this phone doesn’t have a GPS.  So, no geotagging of photos and no moving maps in Google Maps (which is included as standard on the device, but with no GPS, and the version installed not supporting Cell ID location information nor Google Latitude, it’s a little limiting).  The phone does feature WiFi and Bluetooth though, so for those looking for a stylish feature rich phone, as opposed to a SatNav workhorse, this phone really does shine.

DivX support is there again, as is TV-out, although the Dolby Mobile features of the LG Renoir and LG Arena seem to be missing.

What else has impressed me so far with the phone?  I like the way the slider covers up the camera, thereby not needing a separate camera cover (which always seem to open on it’s own on the LG Renoir), and I like the way LG has put a nicely designed battery in there, which is on show when the transparent slider is shut.  However, it appears there’s no contact or calendar syncing built into the device, which for someone who normally keeps all that data synchronized across multiple devices via syncML is a shame, but probably not a key requirement for the target market for this device.

Oh, and I like the little slip case it ships with to keep the device in good condition; and although the touch keypad is made of tempered glass, I don’t think the actual main screen is, which, without that slip case, may make it more prone to scratches (the LG Renoir equally doesn’t have a tempered glass screen, and my model is looking quite scratched up now, whereas the LG Arena, and LG Secret before that, do have the tempered glass screen, and still look wonderful even after regular use).

More opinions on this device after I’d used it for a while, but right now, it’s looking a very stylish phone that should be popular.