I received some limited information from 3UK yesterday, about a new £10 per month plan.  This is aimed at the many current customers who topup with £10 a month; in essence, 3UK seems to be saying “instead of spending £10 per month on topups, take a £10 per month contract, and this means you won’t need to topup each month, and we’ll even throw in a new phone in the deal”.

Given 3UK’s current lowest plan is a £12 per month contract, and that’s a promotional rate, it’s not clear whether this will be a promotional tariff or a permanent plan (as permanent as any mobile tariff ever is).  Also, I wouldn’t expect the high end phones such as the Nokia N97 or HTC Hero being available on this plan, but it’s interesting that they are looking at providing a low end tariff.

This post was written in advance of most of the Mobile World Congress 2010 Press Releases and companies announcing new products, so what do I think will be announced across the week of the event…

Firstly, HTC will announce a replacement Android device to replace the Hero, possibly with a QWERTY keyboard too.

Nokia will announce a new top of the range N-Series device to replace the N97, and hopefully not following the trend of the Nokia N96 and the Nokia N97 in not really being a fantastic / perfect device to head up the range.

Nokia will announce at least one new E-Series device, possibly using a form factor not seen within the E-Series range before.

INQ will announce something; either a concept of their Android devices due later this year, or an actual phone, possibly also announcing more operators who will be taking their phones.

Sony Ericsson seem to have already announced a range of new phones:

• The X10 Mini and the X10 Mini Pro (which adds a QWERTY slider), both Android devices
• The Vivaz Pro; a QWERTY slider version of the already announced Vivaz, both S60 5th Edition devices and shown below
• The Aspen, a Windows Mobile device

The Vivaz will be available in Q1 2010 along with the X10, whereas the X10 Mini, X10 Mini Pro, and the Aspen will all appear in Q2 2010.

The most important thing seems to be that the main mobile companies are back on form, and releasing devices worthy of discussion…

This week Nokia released the v21 firmware for the Nokia N97, and also a v11 firmware for the Nokia N97 Mini.  As always, don’t expect your operator-branded device to be able to download this firmware (it’s currently only available via Nokia Software Updater on your computer) for a few more weeks (at least).  We’re keeping an eye on the firmware status, and will report back with how quickly the UK operators released this version too.

We’ve noticed some operators haven’t been keeping their devices up to date at all recently (hint: it’s Orange); to the extent that for some of their phones, whilst Nokia has released 2 or 3 firmware updates since the middle of last year, Orange customers won’t have seen any of those updates.  This is poor show; if you want to produce custom firmwares, then you need to offer support for your device throughout the life *of the device*, not just the initial sales period, or even just the warranty period of the phone; you need to support it for a lot longer…

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brightkite have released their Symbian app (we first talked about it here over a year ago!), and it’s available in the Ovi Store here right now.  As you may work out from the screenshot, it’s for the touchscreen devices, and so is limited to S60 5th Edition devices (Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia N97, Nokia N97 Mini etc.) but even so, it’s an interesting step in the right direction.

In fact, maybe combining this with the Maps Booster application I discussed this morning would provide that nice alternative to Google Latitude I was looking for…

If you own a Nokia N97, then you should find that the free Ovi Maps software is now available.  It’s not yet integrated into a firmware update, but instead is available from the built in Software Update tool.  However, you’ll need v20 firmware already installed, so where does the Nokia N97 UK network operator branded versions stand…?

Well, for most UK network operators, they have offered v20 for some time, and hence if you don’t already have the new firmware, you can apply it and then pick up the Ovi Maps update (although you need a fair amount of free space on the C: drive, so if it won’t install, hopefully the v21 firmware which will include the new v3.03 Free Ovi Maps should be out at some point in the next few weeks).

Most.  Not all.  This week, it’s Orange in the doghouse, for still being on v10 firmware, and not yet having made v20 available for their customers.  Nokia have said they are working to ensure v20 is available to all, but yet again, things are complicated by the UK networks.

It’s nice to see the Nokia N97 finally included in the list of supported devices for the Free Navigation Forever campaign from Nokia, but personally, I still want to see Nokia offering it to S60 3rd Edition FP1 devices…

I’ve covered Swim before, a tool for automating syncs on your Nokia (Symbian) phone.  I use it every day with GooSync to keep my Google Calendar and my local Symbian calendar in sync with each other, but one problem was that Swim only worked on S60 3rd Edition FP1 phones.

Well, the team behind Swim have apparently been working direct with the Symbian Foundation to resolve the issues, which they have managed to do succesfully, so they have now released an updated version with S60 3rd Edition FP2 support (eg Nokia E72) and S60 5th Edition (Nokia N97, Nokia N97 Mini, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic) too.  It should be noted that the updated version only supports these new platforms, and for regular FP1 users, there is no new version at this stage.

This is one of those utilities you really should consider with Symbian, and it’s a shame it’s still not included automatically by Symbian; if, for example, you go and buy an Android phone (especially a Google Experience one), you simply enter your Google details, and your calendar (even multiple claendars, if you are a power user of Goolge Calendar) will be automatically kept up to date with your device with no further intervention by you… it’s these little integration points that make Android so popular at the moment…

Nokia BetaLabs have released an update to their Nokia Messaging for Social Networks beta product, which now features improved Facebook access, and also adds the first round of Twitter support.  Nokia have also commented that they will be adding other Social Networking sites over time.

As well as the initial version, which offered to let people view, post, and comment on messages, share their location and status while keeping up with their Facebook friends, the new version adds the following Facebook features:

• Upload pictures and videos
• Events: View upcoming events, birthdays and import to device calendar
• Search friends
• Click-to-call / click-to-SMS / click-to-FB Email

In terms of the Twitter support, it includes the ability to see your friends’ tweets, reply to them, and open links in their tweets, but more advanced functions like Direct Messages, Trends, and Follower information all have placeholders, but are marked as coming soon.

The application also has some location sharing features, which are built on top of Ovi Maps, and it also offers a Homescreen widget.  This app is, however, limited to the Nokia N97, Nokia N97 Mini, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and the Nokia X6 right now.

This does look an interesting application, and may, over time, become a useful tool for those wanting to keep online from their device.  This is the sort of functionality we are seeing built directly into other phones as they ship (eg the INQ Mini 3G, and the INQ Chat 3G), so it will be nice when Nokia are shipping this by default on their phones to offer a similar experience as other manufacturers are managing.

Although not the first UK mobile network to provide a statement on the Nokia N900, Vodafone are the first to announce that they will be selling the phone as from January (according to their website).  This is good news for this popular Maemo device, and the word on the street is that the amount of firmware customisation by Vodafone will not be too heavy.

As the phone is still at the “pre-register for updates” stage, Vodafone have not yet released pricing, but it’s likely to be inline with the Nokia N97 and Nokia N97 Mini pricing and tariffs.  It’s also interesting to see the iPhone 3GS is still marked as “Coming Soon”, whereas the Nokia N900 already has a date attached to it.

If you are interested, head over to the Vodafone website and register for updates.

Oh, and the other network? 3UK have already indicated they are unlikely to carry the Nokia N900 as it’s a little bit of a niche device for them…

It’s been a busy few days.  Firstly, Nimbuzz announced a fairly major upgrade within their client such that they now have much better twitter support within their application (shown above).  The full feature list for this new version includes:

• Full Twitter client – Timelines, Tweet, DM, Searches, Trends, Profiles and much more!!
• Kinetic scroll – available for Symbian 5th edition touch screen phones  (e.g. Nokia 5800, Nokia N97, N97 mini, Nokia 5730, Nokia  X6 )
• Chat History – see all your past conversations
• Pop-Up notification – for new chats and other events whenever Nimbuzz runs in the background
• DTMF tones in calls – now you can press 1 in a call
• NimbuzzOut rate calculator – see the rates for calling to different countries
• Upgraded UI -  new chat screen layout & contact list layout

Also, NokiAAddict wrote a handy guide to setting up and configuring the Nimbuzz client to support a SIP VOIP account, which may be useful for those trying Nimbuzz for the first time, but want the additional benefit of standard SIP support, and as NokiAAddict are UK based, the guide shows using a UK VOIP provider.  See here for their article.

Then, Skype announced the launch of their Symbian client entering Beta for a select range of handsets (S60 3rd Edition FP1 and FP2, but no S60 5th Edition touch devices at this stage).  This includes:

• Free Skype-to-Skype calling
• Call phones with Skype credits or subscription
• Receive calls on your Online Number
• Instant Messaging
• Group conversations
• File sending and receiving

Now, remember that this Skype client uses the 3G / WiFi connection to actually make the call, Skype are recommending users have an unlimited data contract, and of course, for 3UK users, you will still be better using the slightly more limited Skype for 3 application, as this uses the 3G voice infrastructure for the call, and doesn’t come out of your data allowance.  More information can be found here and the user guide can be found here.

Finally, Truphone have just announced a major design update to their iPhone application.  This new version includes:

• New look and feel
• Streamlined sign-up
• In app guided tour
• Tru Friends presence
• Speaker phone support
• Improved IM and chat with multi-chat switcher
• Full Twitter integration

What’s certainly clear is that all these 3 companies are innovating in the mobile space, and offering their customers alternatives to traditional mobile calling plans.

Having recently released an Android version of their fring client, fring have now announced an updated Symbian S60 client which offers video calling, allowing you to video call your fring and Skype contacts.  Initially for S60 devices (both touch devices such as the Nokia X6, Nokia N97, Nokia N97 Mini as well as the traditional non-touch Nokia N95, Nokia N95 8GB, and Nokia N82 devices).

For more details, and a video showing it in action, head over to fring’s website here.

Vodafone have now launched the Nokia E72, with stocks due into stores in the next few days.  It will be available for free on the following 18 months contracts:

• £35 per month for 600 minutes, “unlimited” 3000 texts, “unlimited” 3000 minutes of landline calls (each call lasting less than 60 minutes), “unlimited” 500MB internet access
• £40 per month for 900 minutes, “unlimited” 3000 texts, “unlimited” 3000 minutes of landline calls (each call lasting less than 60 minutes), “unlimited” 500MB internet access
• £45 per month for 1200 minutes, “unlimited” 3000 texts, “unlimited” 3000 miuites of landline calls (each call lasting less than 60 minutes), “unlimited” 500MB internet access

For those wanting a updated Nokia Symbian device with QWERTY and a 5 megapixel camera, then this may well be the phone for you.  For those after a touchscreen Symbian device, the most recent options are obviously the Nokia N97 Mini and the Sony Ericsson Satio.

For those worried about that 500MB data limit, there are options with Vodafone to purchase higher data rates; eg for £15 per month, you can get 3GB, but are limited in some uses (file sharing, VOIP), or for £25 per month, you can get 5GB without limit. Alternatively, if you go over the 500MB limit, for the rest of the month you’ll be transferred to the £1 per day until the 1st of the next month (for 15MB per day, and then they’ll charge you £2 per MB).  Interestingly, on some Vodafone pages they clearly and simply state the limit, and don’t use the word “unlimited” at all (mainly those designed for existing customers), whereas the pages aimed at new customers are littered with the term…

Vodafone have just released the Nokia N97 Mini for sale in the Vodafone Shop.  It’s free on the £35 per month (24-month contract) tariff, or £40 per month (18-month contract).  This is pretty much the same contract as you’ll get with a Nokia N97 today, but if you are after the slightly smaller device (with a slightly lower spec too), then this might be the device you are after.

Available for many generic product codes (with other operator specific codes apparently to follow in the next few weeks), Nokia have this week released the v20 firmware for the Nokia N97, which is heading towards providing the software the phone should have shipped with when first launched.  There are a couple of rumours that Nokia has pulled this update, but either way, the firmware update should be available to all over the next few weeks.

The new features include:

Usability Improvement

• Kinetic Scrolling: Allowing kinetic scrolling in the menu, contacts, and other applications with long lists
• More Space: The new memory allocation brings around 20-30MB more space for applications and themes
• Visually enhanced Music Player and Photo Menu
• Improved accessibility to Symbols and Numbers: Holding a key for 1 seconds will activate the alternative character, no need to press the blue key first
• Improved memory and battery performance
• Improved image and video stability

New Experiences

• New Homescreen Widgets: CNN, MySpace, ESPN, Elle and more have now been added
• Newer Version of Ovi Maps: More features and a new service menu
• Voice UI Improvements: Support for Voice over IP

Now, despite the Nokia N97 having User Data Preservation (UDP), it appears a number of early adopters have found a range of problems with the new firmware, and the only solution was a hard reset (and then only restoring data, not a full restore of all data and applications); this doesn’t bode well for Nokia; neither Apple nor Android devices seem to suffer from these types of problems after upgrade problems, and Nokia really need to resolve them on their flagship devices.

Changelog details courtesy of Symbian World.

We’ve been talking about these two devices for a while now, but what exactly are they, and what’s the difference, and, possibly more importantly, which is the “flagship” device for the Nokia N-Series?

Well, the Nokia N900 is a Maemo based Internet Tablet (following on from the Nokia N810, N800 and 770 Internet Tablets), but it adds phone capabilities, and not just to improve data access, but to also act as a phone.  Having said that, there does appear to be an element of just bolting the phone software on top of the existing platform; the phone application is pretty much the only application that supports the portrait mode (at launch). We make the point about “at launch” because many of the apps included on the device are by third party developers, who may well provide portrait support in their apps faster than Nokia and Maemo can achieve the same for the core applications.

The device includes a 5 megapixel camera, 3.5″ 800 x 480 touchscreen display, 32GB onboard storage, plus microSD support, A-GPS with Ovi Maps, 3.5mm headphone jack, FM transmitter, TV-Out, Bluetooth, and DivX Support.

Now, the Nokia N97 Mini is another key device launched at Nokia World.  It is basically a slightly cutdown Nokia N97, although it still features many of the high technical specs of the Nokia N97;

• It has 8GB storage, as against the Nokia N97 32GB
• It has a 1200mAh battery, compared to the N97’s 1500mAh
• The screen drops from 3.5″ to 3.2″, but retains the resolution

The main other difference is the removal of the D-pad on the keyboard, which is replaced by a set of four cursors keys to the right.  Of course, it will retail at a slightly lower price too.

So, which is the flagship device; well, that’s for you to decide; the Nokia N97 Mini is a smaller, lighter, lower spec device than the Nokia N97, but that slight size reduction may make it more popular at time goes on; as for the Nokia N900, it is lacking some of the all round features of Symbian S60 (and application support), and so right now, we reckon the Nokia N97 remains the top device, but whether it can retain this crown throughout 2010 as Maemo apps improve is another question…

If this report over at World of Nokia is correct, it appears that Vodafone have decided not to carry the Nokia E52 after all (although it may be they are limiting the phone to business customers), and instead will be selling the Nokia E72 from October (we’ve heard the 22nd October, although that may change).  The Vodafone Coming Soon certainly lists the Nokia E72 and the Nokia N97 Mini, but has no mention of the Nokia E52.

Also, Dan at World of Nokia is reporting that Vodafone have secured a 2-3 month exclusive of the Nokia E72 (until the end of the year), although whether this is one colour, or all variants, is not clear right now, but if you are looking to upgrade to the Nokia E72, you may need to move to Vodafone, or wait until 2010 for any other network to offer the device.

This may explain why 3UK have stated that they are not going to carry the Nokia E72; in the sense that due to the Vodafone exclusive, they can’t carry the phone for over 3 months, and that’s so far away that’s it’s not worth promoting until much nearer the time.  Only time will tell whether 3UK sell the Nokia E72 in the New Year, although with the Nokia E63 and the INQ Chat already covering them with 2 QWERTY phones they may not need the Nokai E72 at all.  The INQ Chat just has the higher spec (having a GPS too), although it does not have the power of a smartphone OS, something that INQ will be resolving next year with their move to Android.

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.

These are pictures of a Nokia prototype called RX-51.  Now, the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet was the RX-44 and the N800 was RX-34, so it’s fair to say that with a product code of RX-51 this is likely to be the new Internet Tablet running the new Maemo 5 OS, and it may well be labelled the N900 by Nokia when announced (expected next month at Nokia World).

Mores pictures and technical specs after the break…

(more…)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some content courtesy of The Guardian [Via TRMP]

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

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

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

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