When I met up with 3UK last month, they were explaining that generally the main reason they take longer to get phones is that as a company they will purchase a much smaller quantity of any particular phone than the larger networks, and hence their requests for stock and customisations will always take second place.  They also commented that in terms of phones like the iPhone, they felt the costs were too high, both to them and to the consumer.  Well, I think this is about to change…

The day before I met 3UK I heard rumours that their Customer Services staff had been saying they would be carrying the iPhone within 3 months, and both that and a direct question on whether 3UK would be stocking the iPhone were, looking back, not actually answered on the night.

This week I’ve heard more Customer Services staff saying the iPhone will come next month (although personally I suspect it’ll be announced in the next month or so, as opposed to being on sale), and 3UK have put out a statement today saying that they don’t have a commercial relationship with Apple, but that they hope to resolve that in 2010.  That post also states that the Nokia E71 was their best selling phone of 2009, but what it doesn’t say is that the HTC Hero, costing £35 per month, is their current best selling phone.  This shows that buyers are willing to spend £35 per month on a 3UK contract, something that may not have been so apparent a year ago when PAYG and £15-£20 per month contracts were much more common.

Combine all these thoughts with statements by 3UK last month that they felt they should advertise their “Coming Soon” phones better and I think the iPhone is going to be announced fairly soon; in my opinion it’s rare for networks to talk about phones before they are pretty much ready.  With the experiences of the HTC Hero, 3UK know their customers will happily pay more for high spec smartphones, and with the comments from their own Customer Services staff I think this all shows it’s coming to the network.

Now, I might be wrong of course, and I suspect it’s possible they’ll only pick up the iPhone 3G, although I suspect they’ll be able to sell the iPhone 3GS too.  I also suspect that if / when a new iPhone 4th Generation model is announced in June / July, it won’t be seen on 3UK for a little longer than the other networks (due to the commercial points in the first paragraph), but we may well see some form of iPhone on sale on 3UK before too long.

Interestingly, unlike some Nokia phones, it appears that people aren’t having problems getting their 3UK SIMs to work in unlocked iPhones, so that bodes well.  Of course, I would expect 3UK to ship it with their own Skype on 3 and Email on 3 solution, which may take a little while to get ready and released into the App Store.  In fact, I wonder if this is the only thing stopping the announcement happening today, hence why 3UK are happy to start talking about the device…

We’ve received confirmation from 3UK that they will also be selling the HTC Desire (along with Orange and T-Mobile who have already announced their plans to sell the phone).  This is good news for 3UK as part of their plans to expand their Android range to over 6 devices by June, although at this stage it’s not clear if they will only be selling the HTC Desire, or whether they will be carrying the HTC Legend too.

As with all other 3UK devices, it will feature Skype on 3 (Free Skype Forever), Email on 3, Free Windows Live Messenger, and will also have the Spotify client installed too.

Although 3UK have only formally stated “Spring 2010″, we understand it should be available in April 2010.

3UK announced on Friday that they are now selling the Nokia 5230 on their network.  As it’s a Symbian S60 5th Edition phone, it allows 3UK to promote more than just the basic phone features; as well as the typical Skype on 3, Windows Live Messenger, and Email on 3, 3UK have said the phone will ship with a Twitter client (it will be interesting to see which client they have selected for this), an integrated Facebook application, and it also supports the Spotify Symbian client allowing the use of Spotify (in case you want to use Spotify Premium on your 3UK mobile phone, you can add the £9.99 Spotify Premium to your mobile phone bill; see here for more details, although a minimum 6 month subscription will be required).  Oh, and if you are using Spotify on your Symbian phone, Spotify have recently released a minor upgrade for their client, which you will want to download from here.

Although it’s available on a contract, it’s also available on PAYG for £150, which sounds like a good deal…

Except, as raised by others (see Abul’s post here), you can buy the same phone SIM-free and network unlocked for £100 direct from Carphone Warehouse!  3UK have explained that Carphone Warehouse simply have better buying power (with their ability to buy the phones for sale across the whole of Europe), and hence can afford to sell the phone cheaper.

Either way, if you are looking for a nice Symbian phone (albeit without WiFi) which includes a GPS (and hence the new free Ovi Maps), in either Black or White, then head to 3UK or Carphone Warehouse.

A billion minutes may not sound a lot to most telecoms companies, but 3UK have just passed a billion minutes of Skype calls on their network!  That’s an impressive figure.  The billionth minute was made by Stephen Timms (Minister for Digital Britain) to the CEO of Merlin (a medical charity).  It’s nice to see that 3UK have donated a small number of 3 SkypePhones to Merlin to allow them to communicate whilst they are out in Haiti.

This is an impressive figure, and in fact, 3UK have said that they are handled over 3 million minutes of Skype calls are handled every day!

3UK want to promote the use of Twitter, and so for the whole of February and March, access to Twitter will be free!  What exactly is and isn’t included?  Well, 3UK have stated that access to Twitter for tweeting messages and pictures will be free of charge, whether you are accessing Twitter via the mobile browser, or using the integrated client on devices such as the INQ Mini 3G, Sony Ericsson T715, or even the INQ Chat 3G.  If you already pay for Internet access on your mobile phone, then accessing twitter will not come out of your internet data allowance.

Although this is only a 2 month period, this means that right now you can use Skype, Twitter and Windows Live Messenger for free on your device.  As always, 3UK seem to be pushing the boundaries on what could and should be included within the contract, and we hope this promotion can be extended in the long term.

In terms of the majority of the software on the phone, it’s very similar to the INQ Mini 3G that I covered here and here, so what’s different about the Chat, what’s good, and what’s bad?

Well, that QWERTY keyboard is the main physical difference, and it is a very nice keyboard.  It’s similar to the Symbian QWERTY layout, and just slightly different to the BlackBerry layout (the Symbol and Shift keys are reversed compared to a BlackBerry, which makes it a challenge to get used to if you are a long term BlackBerry user).

A GPS is the other key difference to the INQ Mini 3G, and to be honest, it sometimes took it’s time to get a fix, but generally worked ok.  The included Google Maps worked well with the GPS.  Unlike Symbian devices, there is no configuration control over the GPS settings, so no facility for changing the Positioning Server over to Google to help speed up the initial fix.  One downside of Google Maps was it was expecting numeric key input, and that meant pressing the Symbol and the relevant key to emulate a number; it was a shame it wasn’t aware of the QWERTY and mapped keys allowing a single key press for functions.  As with all Brew OS devices, there is no cell ID location function within Google Maps, which limits you to waiting for the GPS to find a fix; if you are used to a device that can also use cell ID location information, then this seems to impact the fast “locate me” type functions when you know roughly where you are and just want to seatch for something local to your position…

In general terms, the integration of the Social Networking apps remains a key selling point of this phone, bringing together Skype, Facebook and Twitter, and linking the first two into the Contact List too.  Personally, it felt like the Twitter app was more of an add-on, with less integration than the other two, and no facilities for downloading contacts or avatars like the Facebook and Skype apps offer.

It’s nice to see the INQ Hub included as standard on the INQ Chat 3G (see here for how to access from the INQ Mini 3G), and overall the phone seemed a nice device.  For a device which can be described as a smartphone (although only just, given it’s limited to Java apps) the battery lasted well over a day, and unless you are using Twitter, Facebook, Windows Live Messenger and Skype constantly, should easily last two days.  With all 3 apps turned on, it still managed to last over a full working day, which is certainly a key timeframe.

Compared to Symbian, the lack of worrying about Access Points and just letting the device go ahead and connect to the Internet for you was a nice refreshing change, although for many it may fell like a level of control has been taken away from you.  Of course, with no WiFi support, the only option is 3G connectivity, which helps with the simplification.

So, overall, you may think my opinion is that this is a good, cheap phone worthy of consideration…? Well, I’m afraid it wasn’t as perfect as I would have liked…  Firstly, start running all those Social Networking apps together, and the phone often freezes when one of them is performing an update in the background, which can leave the phone locked for a minute or two, and although it doesn’t come with the Social Networking support out of the box (yet), buying a Nokia E63 and adding Gravity (plus the 3UK specific Skype and WLM apps) gets you very close, with the additional benefit of a true multitasking OS, and WiFi support too (although no GPS).  If it wasn’t for the device feeling so underpowered, then I would be supporting it as a worthy device, but it did occasionally leave me very frustrated.

So, if you don’t want to run all the Social Networking apps all the time,but want a device with a QWERTY keyboard, and the ability to use your favourite Social Networking sites out of the box, then certainly go and try out the INQ Chat 3G; you may be pleasantly surprised at the functionality on offer given the price, and hopefully a firmware update, or software updates will resolve the responsiveness issues I found.

As always, thanks to 3mobilebuzz for the loan of the device, and if you want more information, or to purchase an INQ Chat 3G, then head to the 3Store to see more.

Truphone have released v3.0 of their Android client, which now offers Wi-Fi calling, so as well as other Truphone users, you can also call Skype and Google Talk users free of charge.  The Tru Friends feature allows you to see whether your Truphone contacts are online.  Also, Truphone have improved the IM facilities for all the platforms they support (Skype, Google Talk, AIM, Yahoo, MSN and even Twitter).

There are a couple of gotchas though; you’ll need to uninstall the old version first, and Truphone are currently only supporting HTC devices (G1, Magic, Hero), but they are planning support for the Motorola Milestone and the new Google Nexus One soon.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

The benefits of this are items such as:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

3UK last week improved their 3UK SIM only offer; if you select the £15 per month option (remember the 3UK SIM Only contracts are rolling 1 month contracts), then you will now get “unlimited” 1GB of Internet Access thrown in as part of the deal.

On top of that, 3UK also provide “unlimited” 3000 texts, Free Skype (via their Skype Free Calls Forever promotion), 300 cross-network minutes to landlines and mobiles, and “unlimited” 2000 3UK-3UK minutes, along with Windows Live Messenger and free voicemail.

The 3UK SIM Only deal now looks even better value for money, although you do need an unlocked 3G capable handset to use it on 3UK.

fring have in the last few days released their fring client for the Android platform too (which is available from here).  It offers VOIP calls via Skype, MSN, or VOIP SIP providers, as well as chat capabilities with those and other platforms (Yahoo, AIM, and even ICQ).  This is good news for fring, and we should see fring continue to develop their Android client in the same way they have with all the other platforms they support.  Although there is some twitter support, this version doesn’t yet have all the features of the Symbian version.

Well, I’ve had an INQ Mini 3G (courtesy of 3mobilebuzz) for a couple of weeks now, and overall, I’ve been quietly impressed by the phone.  From the automatic importing of Facebook and Skype contacts into the Contacts list, to the fact the phone has support for these Social Networking sites, and Twitter support, and all for less than £50!

Now, let’s be honest, I’m used to smartphones, and there are a number of little things that annoy me with the device; the start up sound can’t be cancelled by pressing a key (as per Nokia devices), and the whole menu system is a little bright and colourful for my taste (and with no theme support, no opportunity to change it either), but these are minor niggles, and certainly don’t detract from the phone.

Supporting Social Networking sites directly in the device, combined with the standard 3UK support of Windows Live Messenger makes this a well supported device, and well worth a look.  I liked the fact the homepage supports 3 widgets (I used weather, world clock and an RSS feed of the BBC website, all options built into the phone), although I have heard some people warn there may be a memory leak, as I’ve heard of people needing to reboot the phone after a long time turned on with widgets in use.  That’s a key issue to me; I rarely turn my phone off, so long term stability is key, and it maybe that a firmware / application update is needed to resolve these issues; hopefully they will be addressed before the INQ Chat ships.

The phone also shipped with Google Mail and Google Maps (v2.3.2; nice!), which was useful for people like me who use Google a lot, and the phone can be used with GooSync to sync data from the likes of Google Calendar too.  Personally, I found the calendar a bit simple when entering new entries, but I suspect most people will use the phone linked to Google or Outlook, and not enter directly onto the device (again, I’ve been spoilt by smartphones offering a decent Calendar app).  In fact, the only thing missing is the Last.fm scrobbling support that the INQ1 had, and it’s still not clear why INQ dropped this function, especially with the likes of Last.fm and Spotify moving more into the mobile space…

Again, a personal point, but it uses miniUSB (not the end of the world, although many manufacturers are moving to microUSB), which is used for both the headphones and charging.  With Bluetooth support for a headset in the car, this isn’t the end of the world, but I’m not a fan of the combined port; let’s hope when INQ move to Android next year we’ll see a dedicated headphone socket on their devices.  Whilst I’m looking at the hardware, I wasn’t a big fan of the way the rear cover clipped on (it did have a release button at the top, which makes it better than the Sony Ericsson T715 I reviewed here), but only just, and I couldn’t find any sight of the other 6 coloured interchangeable backs on the 3Store, so right now you’ll be stuck with the red back).

Let’s be honest, for the price and based on the software on this device; if you are not in the market for a smartphone but want connectivity options to keep upto date with your Social Networking sites, then the INQ Mini 3G should be high on your list of options, if not at the top.  Here at UK Gadgeteer, I’ve covered a number of hints and tips over the last few weeks, and INQ Mobile should be congratulated for providing online support, and being willing to engage with their customers.

When the INQ Chat arrives with the QWERTY keyboard, and GPS, it’ll be interesting to see whether INQ can still compete in the mid-tier marketplace against devices like the Nokia E63…

Oh, and finally, a small point, but having performed a master reset of the device to return it, the phone still had all the contacts on it, plus the sign-in details for Skype, so if you ever decide to sell your INQ Mini 3G, be careful about removing all your personal data as well as performing a master reset.

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

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

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

More information is avaialble from Nimbuzz from their website here.

Following on from our previous INQ Mini Tip (here); here’s another Tip, which has existed for some time, but it’s nice to hear from INQ exactly how the function works.  To set the scene, INQ devices don’t support Over-The-Air (OTA) firmware updates (to update the whole phone), but they do support OTA Application updates, allowing INQ to roll out fixes / new features into some of the applications on the device, even if the whole firmware can’t be user updated.

The main apps that support updates are Skype, Facebook and Twitter, and these are the main apps where new features or changes may be required over time.  INQ, via their Get Satisfaction support website, stated the following:

“Application updates are made available from time to time, when new features or improvements are made. When they become available, you will see a notification when you try to log in to the app on your handset. The ‘upgrade check’ happens each time you use an application – if there’s a newer version on our server, your handset will tell you; if not, it’ll simply log you in to the version on your handset.”

It’s nice to know it’s this easy to get updates.  As you may remember, the INQ1 had a number of updates delivered this way after a few months of release.  We should also add that INQ also stated they update their manufacturing build with these new updates, so a brand new phone may not need updates when taken out of the box.  It was also confirmed that at this stage, there have not yet been any updates for the UK INQ Mini 3G.

3UK have now launched the HTC Hero, on one of two price plans.  As we predicted, both come with Internet Access included as a matter of course, which is a good start, and the details are as follows:

• You can buy the phone for free on a 24-month contract, which will cost £35 per month, and give you 750 cross-network minutes, “unlimited” 2000 3UK-3UK minutes, “unlimited” 3000 texts, and “unlimited” 1GB Internet data.
• You can pay £97.86 upfront, and get the phone on a 24-month contract, which will cost £35 per month, and give you the same 750 cross-network minutes, “unlimited” 2000 3UK-3UK minutes, “unlimited” 3000 texts, “unlimited” 1GB Internet data, but will also give you 24 months of Spotify Premium service (worth £240).

It seems obvious which makes more sense for music lovers

However, as always, the small print is the issue; we’re still waiting to hear from 3UK whether the Spotify Premium service comes out of the 1GB per month Internet access, or whether, like Skype on 3, it is exempt from counting towards that quota.  If it’s included, it’s still a fantastic deal, but will be more useful to provide Wi-Fi access to Spotify, and for use with their offline playlist support than for actually streaming the music constantly over the 3UK network.

We should also point out that as it’s the Internet Texter tariff, voicemail access is not free (10p per minute, although it appears to use up inclusive minutes first).

If you want more information on the HTC Hero, head over to the 3Store website now.

Whilst we continue to trial the INQ Mini 3G, we notice that the price has come down from £59.99 to £49.99, making this device even more good value for those looking for access to Social Networking sites (Twitter, Facebook) yet also supporting 3UK’s features such as Skype and Windows Live Messenger (both of which are free, even if you run out of credit).  Plus, even at £49.99 the price includes a £10 TopUp!

We also note the 3UK MiFi device has been reduced in price too, if you are interested in that.

3UK have just announced that they are now selling the Sony Ericsson Satio, a 12 megapixel cameraphone, which will cost £30 per month on an 18-month contract with the Mix’n'Match 300 tariff, or £399.99 on PAYG.  As well as the impressive camera, the phone features touch focus, face detection, and a Xenon flash.  As a 3UK phone, it features Skype on 3 and Windows Live Messenger as well.  The phone features a 16:9 640×360 3.5″ widescreen display for playback of those pictures and videos, but there are other, sometimes overlooked features on this phone, such as the 12x digital zoom, geotagging of photos, image stabilizer, as well as all the other features and applications one would expect of a Symbian 5th Edition touchscreen device, including an accelerometer, HSDPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

In fact generally there aren’t many downsides to this device; the 1000mAh battery worries us slightly, as this sounds a little low for a good day’s usage (why oh why do smartphones force a daily charge), and our only other concern area is how much effort Sony Ericsson put into firmware updates for the device, as often seems needed on Symbian (or other smartphone OS) devices.  Oh, and the final issue with the device (which isn’t really an issue, but something to be aware of); most Nokia specific Symbian applications may not work on the device, so don’t expect the full Nokia suite of apps on this device.  Of course, it ships with Google Maps, which often negates the need for Nokia / Ovi Maps (don’t forget to take out the £5 per month Internet Add-On with this phone, as it will be well worth it), and other apps such as Nokia Sportstracker won’t work either (although a quick look through other Symbian applications should soon find a worthy free alternative).

3UK are continuing to innovate both at the lower end of the price market, and still signing up powerful high spec devices like this too, and this bodes well for next year…