After the successful launch of the Revo Ikon (released last year), Revo have now added another touchscreen DAB radio to their portfolio, and have released this unit as the first “under £200 colour touchscreen digital radio with multi-format reception”. What does that really mean? It means DAB radio (and DAB+), FM radio, Internet radio, ability to play Last.fm music streams, ability to play music from a PC, ability to play music from an iPhone / iPod attached via it’s dock, and if that’s not enough, it’s got an AUX socket and stereo RCA sockets for piping other music to the device.

The radio features a 3.5″ TFT colour touchscreen, with a similar user interface as that used on the Revo Ikon, and has an 8W amplifier and NXT’s Balanced Radiator loudspeaker technology.

I like the range of technologies that Revo put into their DAB radios, and expanded their touchscreen range makes sense, especially by introducing a cheaper device (although with a less powerful amplifier and it appears to not have the stereo speakers of the Revo Ikon).  As with the Revo Ikon and the PURE Sensia, the device only comes with a limited trial subscription to Last.fm (in this case, 31 days), so to continue to use the streaming facilities you’ll need to pay £3 per month.

The Revo AXiS will be available from 1st October 2010, and be sold at £199.95.

Over the last month or so, Pure Digital have been busy.  They’ve launched two new radios, updated the PURE Sensia software, and have now released a new service, Pure FlowSongs, which is a very interesting (and nicely integrated) service for some of their Internet radios…

Firstly, the Pure One Mi (pronounced Me), only costs £34.99, and includes DAB and FM radio, a clear digital display, 16 presets, multi-lingual menus and a USB socket for future updates, and is one of the more compact models they have ever produced.

They’ve also release the Pure Oasis Flow, a weatherproof and splash resistant, rechargeable internet-connected digital radio, costing £169.99, which features DAB and FM radio (as well as the internet radio via Wi-Fi), and should work for up to 15 hours on DAB.  It also supports the new Pure FlowSongs, covered below.

The PURE Sensia update is interesting.  When the radio first launched, I wondered how many additional plugins we would see over time for this device, and whether Pure would be able to continue to support it with new features.  Well, last month, Pure added Picasa support to the Twitter, Facebook and Weather applications already available.  This allows you to login to your online Picasa account and view a slideshow of your online pictures, either in the smaller visual panel, or full screen.  Some photo information can be overlaid on the picture, and you can change the timing of the slideshow, as well as pause it.

However, the most interesting item is Pure FlowSongs, which was announced this week.  This is only available in the UK (as a public beta), and is supported on the following radios:

PURE Sensia, PURE EVOKE Flow, PURE AVANTI Flow, Pure Oasis Flow and PURE Siesta Flow

The new software to support Pure FlowSongs will be released on Monday (16th August) and will allow you to identify, and then purchase any song you hear on the radio.  Importantly, you can be listening to the DAB radio, FM radio, or an Internet radio station (the software is limited to the internet-connected radios due to what happens next, not that the radio source needs to be internet based); the radio will then use a Shazam service (well known for their mobile application to detect what music is being played) to identify the song.  In the case of the PURE Sensia, there is an addition button on the screen (see below) whereas other radios will need a button combination to be pressed.

If you want to use the service, your radio needs to be registered at the Pure Lounge, and you’ll need to provide a credit or debit card to topup your online account, but then you’ll get a free 90 day trial of the identification service (normally £2.99 a year), and if you decide to purchase a song, they will cost an additional 79p to £1.29, and this uses the 7Digital music service.  The purchasing function on the device will be protected by a 4 digit PIN for security.

Once purchased, the song can then be downloaded (as an mp3) to your PC or Mac, but it will also be located within your Lounge account, allowing you to stream the song to your radio too.  Pure Digital also state the songs can be uploaded to an iPod, and have stated the mp3 files are DRM-free, allowing them to be played back on any mp3 device.  When you stream, the mp3 will be 128kbps, but the downloaded files will be up to 320kbps.

The integration of the Shazam service to allow you to identify any music being played is a very powerful extra facility for these radios; over the last year I’ve been impressed with both Pure Digital and Revo for adding support for Last.fm into some of their devices, and I think this ability to identify and even purchase songs adds even more to the experience.  Even better, although not yet available as part of the beta, Pure Digital are looking to enable you to buy whole albums using this method, which is likely to work out better value.

Just occasionally someone points out an application to you, and you go wow, that’s really useful; Tasker seems to be one of those such applications.  Designed along similar lines to Locale (which has so many plugins from different people now, and all charge for them, it’s difficult to see the good and bads ones anymore), it offers the ability to create rules and control a whole raft of different functions on your Android phone. It’s not free (it costs £3.99), but this seems well worth given the range of controls it has.

I particularly like the ability to make system changes when you run particular apps, so, for example, you can keep the GPS generally turned off (to preserve battery life), but then when you run Google Maps you can turn on the GPS, and turn it off again when you exit.  In fact, the range of triggers is fascinating; Application, Time, Day, Location, State or Event.

LifeHacker here has a tutorial on how to set up the auto GPS function, how to create an alarm in the morning (that also fires up your favourite apps), and to create a “Face Down” task which shuts off GPS, WiFi and Bluetooth, and makes the ringer quieter.

For even more options, this LifeHacker post goes further and discusses the following options: reading out SMS messages (for when you are driving), limited data usage overnight, pop up a menu of music apps when headphones plugged in, mark and find your parking place, and most importantly, it links to the Tasker Wiki, where a whole range of users have added information on their suggested profiles.

There’s also lots of information about the application, including a tour of some of the features on the Tasker website here, which is well worth a look too.

This is one very comprehensive application, which looks like it has the power to really customise the way you use your Android phone.

Last week Nokia released 3 key new firmwares.  Firstly, the Nokia E71 (and I suspect the Nokia E66 and Nokia E63, as they seem to share a common base and seem to get updates at the same time) was updated to v500, although at the time of writing, this was not yet available for either the generic EURO1 codes nor the operator branded versions in the UK, but hopefully it will become available over the coming weeks.

v500 contains the following updates:

• Maps v3.03 Lite which has Free Navigation support
• Music Player upgrade
• Quick Office v6.2 which has Office 2007 support
• Ovi Store upgraded to 1.6.0.18 and Download! Removed
• Ovi Suite included in Memory card
• Functionality improvements in E-mail configuration
• Qwerty keypad improvements
• Emergency call termination with RSK key corrected
• Corrected Bluetooth link drop when an outgoing call is made in a carkit
• Corrected localization issues in world clock
• Fix provided for selecting desired mailbox when multiple mailboxes are configured

Probably more important is the Nokia N97 firmware update to v22, and the Nokia N97 Mini firmware update to v12.  Given the Nokia N97 is always accused of not having enough memory and space on the internal C: drive, then having to install Ovi Maps (over 10MB) to that area is always a burden. Well, this new firmware at least includes v3.03 Ovi Maps within the firmware, removing the need to have that additional 10MB application install (although we note that v3.04 is now out with the added cell ID and Wi-Fi based positioning, so without using a third party app such as Maps Booster, there is still, ironically, a need to install Ovi Maps in addition to the version in firmware for some of us).

The other new features include:

• Ovi Maps v3.03 with free Navigation built-in
• Nokia Messaging stub built-in
• Default screen brightness raised to 75%
• Default theme now the jet black ‘Nseries 2′, giving longer battery life than the previous ‘Nseries 3′
• RAM optimisations
• Miscellaneous bug fixes, including “Default Nokia tune is played as ringing tone for incoming calls instead of the one user has defined in Profile settings. Also sometimes device has stopped alerting for incoming calls. Both issues are now fixed” which has plagued a good few users.

As with all firmwares, you will need to decide between the impact of applying a new firmware (and the need to wipe the phone and start again with all your contacts, bookmarks, application and settings) against the fixes provided by the new firmware.  As always, expect to wait longer (and potentially forever) for operator branded versions to arrive; for example a 3UK Nokia E71 is still on v300, having never released v400 (or v410) for their devices, so the chance of v500 being released is quite small (it’s not all 3UK; an Orange N97 will still be stuck on v10, as they have never released v11, v20 or v21, let alone the new v22).

Nokia E71 firmware information courtesy of Symbian World, Nokia N97 Firmware information courtesy of All About Symbian.

This is a very interesting device, and one I had the fortune to get a sneak peek Hands On with last week.  This is a 5″ tablet phone, which I have to say is a little large to hold up to your ear when on a call, so you might want to budget for a Bluetooth Headset to not look quite so silly, or simply add this to your existing phone with a data only contract (more later).  However, it’s running Android, and features a very nice touchscreen, which can take the knocks of every day life (I saw the blunt end of a knife be punched into the screens of 2 devices and neither suffered any problems with the touchscreen still working fine straight afterwards).  Obviously Dell & O2 don’t condone this level of abuse, and do warn that there are still certain angles where a drop onto a hard floor will still cause serious damage, but at least it’s a little tougher than many, and features something called Gorilla Glass to provide that protection.

The device I saw had a range of additional Android applications installed onto them, so although I can’t comment on what comes as standard with the device, they seem to have full support of the Android Marketplace, and hence there is a whole raft of additional applications that can be installed.

Although I didn’t get long with the devices, they seemed to be coping with many demos without a major impact on battery life, although that obviously needs a longer trial to establish whether it can last more than the common single day of usage.

O2, however, are offering the phone on a whole host of tariff options, ranging from the 30-day rolling Simplicity contracts (the Dell Streak 32GB will cost £399 upfront on all Simplicity contracts) to the high end £60 per month “unlimited” everything 24-month contract (where the device will be free).

24 month smartphone tariffs

18 month smartphone tariffs

The Smartphone tariffs above offer unlimited texts, data and Wi-Fi at thousands of BT Openzone and The Cloud hotspots as well as a wide range of minutes.

12 month simplicity tariffs

30 day simplicity tariffs

Again, it’s nice to see Wi-Fi at hotspots included even on these tariffs.

However, maybe the biggest area of interest will be the Data Only options, where the device isn’t actually used as a phone at all, but instead, concentrates on it’s capabilities as an Internet Tablet…

* The 16GB Dell Streak is free on a £25 a month 24 month tariff until 30 June 2010, after which it’ll cost £49.

Although there’s quite a jump from the £15 per month 18-month contract to the £30 per month 24-month contract, with the smaller outlay of the phone itself, it works out roughly the same cost (within £10) over 24 months on both.

The specs of the device (taken from Dell) include:

• A sharp 5-inch capacitive multi-touch WVGA (800×480) display for a great full-screen experience watching video or browsing the web
• Fast 1GHz Snapdragon ARM-based mobile processor from Qualcomm
• 5 MP autofocus camera with dual LED flash that offers easy point & shoot capability and quick uploads to YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and more
• VGA front-facing camera enables video chat functionality down the road
• A user-removable (and replaceable) battery
• A 3.5mm headphone jack means many of you can use the Dell Streak as the music source (and more) in your car
• Integrated 3G + Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) + Bluetooth 2.1 (think headsets, external keyboards, stereo headsets, etc.)
• UMTS / GPRS / EDGE class 12 GSM radio with link speeds of HSDPA 7.2 Mbps / HSUPA
• A user-accessible Micro SD slot expandable up to 32GB. That means you can store  lots of movies, music, photos or other kinds of files.

On the software side, here’s what you can expect:

• A customized multi-touch version of the Google Android operating system that features Dell user interface enhancements
• Access to over 38,000  apps (and growing) via the Android Marketplace
• Microsoft Exchange connectivity and integration through TouchDown
• Google Voice support
• Integrated Google Maps with voice-activated search, turn-by-turn navigation, street and satellite views
• Quick access to activity streams via integrated social network app widgets like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube

The only downside I can see to the device right now, is that I believe it ships with Android 1.6, although it’s likely that Android 2.1 or 2.2 will become available as an update, but not until later in the year (we’re hearing September).  The device as it stands, though, will be available tomorrow from O2 Stores and the O2 website.

I should point out as part of our “Not Unlimited” campaign, that I doubt that any of these “unlimited” references actually get you unlimited service, but O2 have not yet provided the detail behind what the actual unlimited limits are.

The iPad is coming to the UK on Friday.  Earlier this week we covered the iPad SIM Only deals from Vodafone (here), and today’s we’re looking at 3UK’s similar offering:

• £7.50 per month (1 month rolling contract), 1GB of data per month, no calls
• £15 per month (1 month rolling contract), 10GB of data per month, no calls

Now, let’s just compare those to Vodafone for a second; to get 1GB of data, Vodafone will charge £10 per month, whereas as 3UK are charging £7.50 per month; it’s clear to see which one is better there.

Equally, for £15 per month, 3UK are offering 10GB of data, whereas Vodafone are only offering 3GB of data; in fact, taking this comparison a stage further; the maximum data you can buy from Vodafone is 5GB per month at £25 per month, whereas 3UK will give you 10GB of data for just £15 per month.

Something tells me this £15 per month 3UK option is going to be quite popular…

Of course, not everyone can afford the 3G version; if you select the Wi-Fi only version, then it’s well worth considering the 3UK MiFi option, which will allow you to connect a number of devices to a 3G connection at the same time, and still offers similar options:

• Purchase the device for £54.99 (includes 1GB of data), and then you can purchase 5GB of data per month for £15 per month (1 month rolling contract).
• Purchase the device for £49.99 on PAYG, and then you can purchase 3GB of data for £15 or 5GB of data for £25.

Given that the PAYG data rates are higher than the iPad rates, it’s well worth considering whether or not the savings that can be made with the cheaper data actually offset the higher upfront purchase cost of the iPad 3G, or whether the benefit of the 3UK MiFi and it’s ability to connect multiple devices is more important.

Finally, and on a completely different topic, 3UK informed me this week that the Nokia E72 is now available from 3UK on contract (in both Black and White).  As a result of this change, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is no longer available, although refurbished handsets are still currently on sale.  The Nokia E72 is a very nice QWERTY device and well worth a look, especially with the free SatNav that Nokia are offering as part of their Ovi Maps strategy.

Last week there were two options with Spotify; you could either go for Spotify Free (although you needed an invite in the UK, since it became so popular again when they released their mobile clients), or you paid £10 per month for Spotify Premium.  Spotify have now made things a little easier, and are offering 4 options, depending on exactly what you are after.

Firstly, there is a new Spotify Open option.  This does not need an invite (and in fact the Spotify Free option remains invite only, but is still available); and has one other key difference with Spotify Free – there is no Spotify Radio Mode, which was very useful if you didn’t know what exactly you wanted to listen to, but need know what sort of music you wanted.  Also, you are limited to 20 hours per month.

Also, there is a new option, Spotify Unlimited, which sites between Spotify Free and Spotify Premium, yet only costs £5 per month (a price that many said they would be willing to pay when the Spotify Premium originally came out).  It does support the Spotify Radio Mode, and like Spotify Premium is ad-free, and does not have a 14 day limit of accessing Spotify from abroad that the Spotify Free and Spotify Open options have.

However, if you want to have access to Spotify music when offline, or play Spotify music on your mobile (whether online or offline), listen to Spotify’s exclusive content, or benefit from enhanced music quality, then you’ll still need to take out the Spotify Premium subscription.

Having a greater range of options is a good thing, and many people may decide the £5 per month is a price worth paying for online access to a very large (though not yet complete) catalogue of music.

Some useful pieces of information;

• If you have Spotify Free, and you buy a subscription to Spotify Unlimited or Spotify Premium, then if you let your subscription lapse, you will return to Spotify Free, not the newer Spotify Open.
• You can no longer buy a day-pass, but for just a little more you can now get a whole month worth of Spotify Unlimited.  Technically you’ll sign up to recurring payments, but if you cancel before the end of that month, you’ll only pay for the single month, as there is no long term tie-in contract.  You will obviously continue to get the higher level of service until the end of the month; so you could pay and cancel the next day, but still benefit from a months’ worth of service.

After a few months in beta, Nokia have now released Ovi Maps v3.04, which adds better positioning with the use of Wi-Fi and Cell ID positioning directly into the product.  They’ve also improved the graphics handling to make everything that bit smoother.  Something that has been added since the beta phase is that they are also providing Qype user reviews (similar to the User Reviews available in Google Maps).  It’s nice to see continued innovation from Nokia on their SatNav product, although it would also be nicer if they could provide better information over what version of maps are installed, and to notify you when new maps are released.

Finally, if you haven’t already bought a Nokia phone recently, and are in the market, you’ll be glad to know that for some models, Nokia are now including a car holder and a car charger in the box (Nokia N97, Nokia N97 Mini, Nokia 6710 Navigator, Nokia X6), whilst others will at least have the car holder without the charger (Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia 5230, Nokia E52, Nokia E72).  Obviously these accessories will only exist in the latest SIM free stock from Nokia, whereas most UK stock will already be sat on the shelf, or be via the network operator (who will have bought stock in advance), so don’t be surprised if your new purchase doesn’t come with these; in which case, head to somewhere like Mobile Fun and pick up accessories from them.

A couple of weeks ago, SanDisk kindly supplied me with a SanDisk Mobile MicroSDHC memory card for review.  Although it’s difficult to review something that “just works” I can say it seemed nice and fast when used in a camera (via an adaptor I already owned).  I also used it in a mobile phone where there was less apparent speed increase over the original memory card, but I do wonder if this was being limited more by the phone than the memory card.  Also, the phone rarely does fast reading / writing from the card to notice a difference; whereas with the camera, it seemed faster in both writing new pictures to the card, as well as playing back and reviewing pictures already taken.

As it’s designed for use in a mobile phone, the Sandisk Mobile MicroSDHC card came on its own, which is understandable.  For most people this will be fine, although providing an adaptor to allow the MicroSDHC card to be put into a laptop’s / netbook’s SD card slow would have been nice, for fast transfer of photos and music.  Having said that, I mainly upload photos from my mobile phone direct to online websites, and downloading / updating my music collection on my phone is a rare occurrence too, and often performed over Bluetooth for simplicity, so maybe the lack of an adaptor isn’t so bad after all (plus the memory card will obviously work with existing adaptors).

So, if you are in the market for a new memory card, don’t just go for the cheapest; think about whether you should invest in a device to keep your data safe, and then look at brands such as Sandisk.  Oh, and the Sandisk website also has a compatibility facility for entering the details of your device, and it will tell you which products are compatible with it (although I note it assumes you will buy the correct size, so for example if you select a device with an SD slot, it only shows you SD cards, not miniSD or microSD devices).

Thanks to SanDisk for the review memory card.

Having already covered the Nokia C6 a couple of times, there’s not a lot to say about this device, except it does appear to be a very interesting proposition…

Featuring the S60 5th Edition touchscreen, including the N97-style homescreen widgets, this device combines the feature spec of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, adds a sliding QWERTY keyboard, upgrades the camera to 5 megapixel, and does so without adding too much extra weight or volume.  This device, as I have already said, it likely to sell very well, especially as Nokia are looking at a €220 SIM free price (that’s about £200), so we can expect it less than that on PAYG, and I would expect as little as free on 18-month contracts.

I could repeat all the specs of this device, but it’s best to head to the Nokia PDF Datasheet for the best information (here).

Even better, the phone is due to be actually available in Q2; showing Nokia has finally moved towards reducing the time between announcement and availability, which is a good move.  Of course, as it features a GPS, that means free navigation software too. One thing to be aware of; although it will launch in Black and White, in time there will be additional colours, such as Blue.

Nokia also released the Nokia C3 (below), which is a S40 QWERTY device.  This will have a SIM free price of €90 (£80)

Although being S40, this phone features email, chat, information on the homescreen (posting and status updates).  Looking at the spec, it seems to rival the INQ Chat 3G, so this should be a popular device too for those wanting QWERTY, but with the Nokia badge. This will also be available in Q2.  Again, more information on the spec is available direct from Nokia here.

Finally, Nokia announced the Nokia E5, which will not be out until Q3, and will most likely replace the Nokia E63 (which makes sense as the Nokia E63 is S60 3rd Edition FP1, whereas the Nokia E5 is S60 3rd Edition FP2).

This, again, is  QWERTY device, and will feature a GPS with free navigation (a step up from the Nokia E63), and increase the camera to 5megapixels too.  At €180 (£160) SIM free, again, this is competitively priced to be even more popular than the Nokia E63.  Given this will be aimed more at the business market (although I would expect certain UK networks to pick it up and release it for everyone), the extra delay between now and release is unlikely to be a big issue.

I’m really impressed by these phones, I’m not going to rush out and buy them all, but for the mid-market they are aimed at, these devices will sell really well.  My only criticism is that the C-Series now has an S40, a S60 3rd Edition and a S60 5th Edition device, making it difficult to associate one OS with a range, but that’s not so different from the old 4 number range, which covered all 3 OSes as well.  For those who are looking for a top spec flagship phone, these aren’t it, and that should be announced in the coming months…