As discussed before here, Sony have now (finally) released the new PSP-Lite firmware (v3.90) which includes Skype support. You additionally need the PSP Skype Headset. This offers a full Skype experience, including SkypeIN and SkypeOUT. It is currently only available via the Network Update facility direct on the device, but a PC download option should appear soon.
According to Engadget, Sony has had to delay the launch of their Skype service, as the hardware involved failed Skype certification. This should only be a delay of a few weeks.
At CES, a new term seems to have been common - MID. MID is a Mobile Internet Device, and according to Intel, the big difference (compared to UMPC devices) will be that although UMPC devices are high spec units running full OS (eg Windows XP), MID devices are lower spec devices running Linux. Intel will be supplying the chips and chipsets, and various manufacturers will be producing the actual devices, but they are likely to have touchscreens, WiFi (and/or WiMax), and will run Mobile Internet Linux. Skype have confirmed that their Skype client will come preinstalled on these devices. For those devices with webcams, Skype video will also be supported.
These devices are similar to the Nokia Internet Tablets, which already supports Skype, and with Skype coming to PSPs, and the 3 SkypePhone, Skype seem to be bringing their proprietary client to many different platforms.
Everex have announced their Cloudbook PC, which is a rival to the Eee PC. This includes the gOS Operating System (a Google optimised version of Ubuntu). It has a 1.2Ghz VIA processor, 512Mb memory, 30Gb Hard Drive, DVI output, 4-in-1 media card reader, a1.3 megapixel camer, and should last up to 5 hours. It has WiFi, and like the Eee PC, does not have Bluetooth.
The preinstalled software includes Firefox, gMail, Meebo, Skype, Google Documents & Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, Google News, Google Maps, Wikipedia, Google Product Search, GIMP, Blogger, YouTube, Xine Movie Player, RhythmBox, Faqly, Facebook and OpenOffice.org 2.3 (includes WRITER, IMPRESS, MATH, DRAW).
It will be available before the end of the month in the US, no UK availability information has been announced.
Sony have confirmed that Skype will be coming to the PSP-Slim via a firmware update later this month, but that it will not be available on the original PSP.
The Skype functionality includes SkypeIN and SkypeOUT though, which the 3 Skypephone doesn’t have.
The rumour mill is in full swing, in advance of International CES (Consumer Electronics Show), and this one caught our attention. Apparently the next PSP firmware update will include Skype support. More details should be revealed by Sony next week.
Don’t forget, today is the last day to enter 3mobilebuzz’s competition to win some 3 SkypePhones. More details in our original article here.
We’ve just published our review of the 3 SkypePhone here.
Thanks to 3mobilebuzz, we’ve had two 3 SkypePhones here for a while now, and we want to list some of the nice features of the device.
What is it?
It’s primarily a mobile phone, but it comes with a Skype client built in, and 3 offer the phone with free use of Skype (subject to a fair use limit of 4,000 minutes and 10,000 Skype chats within a 30 day period). It has a 2 megapixel camera (no flash), Bluetooth, and ships with a USB cable, a CD-ROM with software and an electronic manual (there’s a real paper manual in the box too), a charger, and a wired headset.
How Much is it?
Firstly, the 3 SkypePhone costs either £49.99 on PAYG (Pay As You Go), or is free with an 18 month, £12 per month contract, and you can port your number from your current mobile to 3 if you want. To keep the Skype element working, you either need to keep the phone under contract, or topup the PAYG version with £10 every 30 days.
How Big is it?
The phone is 100 x 44 x 13.6mm and weighs 86g, which makes it very pocketable, and easy to use. Some people find the phone a little too small, although we had no problems.
What’s the Call Quality like?
Others have claimed that the call quality is as good as a normal mobile phone - our testing, with both phones with 2 bars of signal, about 100 miles apart, was not so good, with the other tester claiming it was worse than the quality of being on the receiving end of a SkypeOUT call. We will continue to test these phones, to see if it was an isolated incident.
What’s SkypeCHAT like?
Very good. If you are sitting there testing the service, you can see it takes a little while for the chat message to get through, and often the phone beeps to notify you of an incoming chat a little while before the chat gets displayed, but it works well, even coping with multiple chats happening at the same time. At the moment, this is a unique feature of the 3 SkypePhone - the existing Skype clients for the 3 X-Series devices do not support SkypeCHAT, although 3 have indicated this should become available during 2008.
Other nice features…
Any missed Skype calls get sent to your 3 voicemail box (which is free to access). This means you only have 1 place to check for messages.
Internet access can be bought for just £5 per 30 days. If you have the PAYG version, you can use half of your £10 topup credit for Internet access. We found this easy to achieve via the My3 menu item, and had no problems in downloading a selection of Java applications afterwards - Google Maps, Mobile GMaps, Opera Mini all downloaded and worked fine, and gave us the ability to use up some of the (fair use limited to 1Gb) Internet access.
One point to note - the new location feature within Google Maps which we covered here does not currently work on the 3 SkypePhone, which is a real shame.
Also of note is that the 3 SkypePhone forums are available to access directly on your 3 SkypePhone via http://3skype.mobi
As we mentioned before, you can connect your 3 SkypePhone to your laptop, and we found no problems in doing this, having already installed the Modem software to manage the connection. Whether this is strictly within the T&Cs is still an outstanding question, but it worked fine, and maybe a suitable option for people who just occasionally need to access the Internet whilst away from home / work / WiFi coverage.
There’s a button on the side of the phone that acts as a task switcher, which is useful to switch between various running applications, Skype, and the main standby screen.
Downsides…
No SkypeIN - we can understand not including SkypeOUT (as that reduces the potential revenue for 3), but SkypeIN is a key feature for many people who are the target market for a 3 SkypePhone. 3 have, however, hinted that this is likely to be available during 2008.
The Skype client is a little limiting - eg although you can create a Skype account direct on the device, you cannot edit your profile and set a Full Name for the account. Although we used a PC Skype client to update our two test accounts, it took a fair bit of effort to update the displayed name (you can edit the contact name in the addressbook, but this does not update the Skype client page, which is a shame).
The 3 SkypePhone’s Bluetooth doesn’t seem to be fully supported by some devices - eg Garmin / Parrot Bluetooth Handsfree devices could be made to pair, but could not synchronise the phonebook. This maybe a limitation within the Parrot software, but something 3 should be working with Parrot to fix (Garmin use Parrot software, so any fix should eventually be available via Garmin too).
The USB port is used for charging and for the wired headset, so you can’t charge the phone whilst in the car (unless, like us, you use a Bluetooth Handsfree).
As a brand new device, they are currently few accessories for it - no desktop cradles, no dedicated phone holders (Brodit springs to mind), few cases - these should come, and we hope that 3 encourage the main players (Brodit, Krusell etc.) to support the device, and then 3 promote these products via their own website.
Other points to note
As long term Nokia users, we are used to firmware updates, which were previously performed at Nokia Service Centres, but more recently the phones have supported firmware upgrades via the PC. The 3 SkypePhone supports updates to the Skype client, but not to the phone itself. It’s currently unclear if 3 will ever update the base phone firmware (they may not need to of course), and if so how this would be achieved.
We occasionally got “Incoming Skype Call” and at other times the name of the calling party. With some of our earlier comments, it does feel a little like the Skype client needs an upgrade in the New Year to address some of these concerns.
Overall opinion
A definite hit for 3, and for Skype. These phones should be, and are, selling like hotcakes, and at the price of £50 provide a feature rich mobile phone even if you ignore the Skype facilities. With SkypeIN support, and an update to the Skype client to deal with a few minor issues, this will continue to be a big seller.
3mobilebuzz are running a competition, and the first prize is three 3 SkypePhones, second prize is two 3 SkypePhones, and third prize is a single 3 SkypePhone…
All you have to do to win is to email Jack@3mobilebuzz.com with your reason as to why you should win a SkypePhone. It, however, needs to be a link to something - a blog post, a forum post, a picture (eg Flickr picture), a video, or even something like a Facebook group - basically, a link to something. The more creative you are, the more likely you are to win.
The deadline for submissions is Monday 17th December. If you decide to enter, please mention UK Gadgeteer, as the website that encouraged the winner to enter also gets two 3 SkypePhones.
More details (and the T&Cs for the competition) are available here.
Crundy, a user on the 3 SkypePhone forums, has created a PC application to get around the lack of SkypeIN / SkypeOUT on the 3 SkypePhone itself.
More details in the rest of the article.
This page links to any major review we have written. We will try to keep this page up to date, but we will always announce any new reviews on the homepage.
Reviews
Apple iPod Touch (hopefully coming soon)
Apple iPhone (hopefully coming soon)
Nokia N810 (coming soon)
Nokia N95 8Gb (hopefully coming soon)
According to the 3 SkypePhone Forums, if, on your 3 SkypePhone, you go into Launcher -> Messenger, you’ll find Windows Live Messenger is now supported on the 3 SkypePhone. 3 have confirmed that although this will remain “Free for Life” for Pay Monthly customers, those on PAYG need to note that Messenger is “Free until end of 2007″.
Also, Matt from 3mobilebuzz has mentioned in the forums that there’s a possibility of allowing you to sync your phone at some point in the future. He commented when asked “How about google calendar? I would find that pretty useful.” with “3 are looking at expanding the Google offering, but they are unable to reveal further information at this point.”
Here’s a handy tip that not a lot of people know about. There is a Skype robot which allows you to post to your Twitter account from within Skype, and it even works on the 3 SkypePhone. Here are the simple instructions:
Another useful way of using the free Skype IM facilities on the 3 SkypePhone.
Please note, this service (as best we can tell) is not provided by either Twitter or Skype, and so you are providing your Twitter account details to a third party, who UK Gadget Blog do not endorse in any way. Make you own mind up, before using this service.
Thanks to Robert at pacificIT for the content, and 3mobilebuzz for alerting us to it.
There’s a new firmware available for the N800 - the new ITOS2008 firmware, which brings a number of features from the N810 to the N800. However, right now, the ITOS2008 is still in Beta, and it’s more for developers than users. For example, the new Navigation software on the N810 is not yet available for this version, and you’ll lose Skype too. Best to wait a few more weeks for the final firmware to be released.
If you look at the CD that comes with the 3 SkypePhone, you’ll discover you can install USB drivers that allow you to use the phone as a modem via usb. This will result in you getting a nice fast internet connection wherever you can get a 3G signal. You can also connect via Bluetooth to achieve the same thing.
There are a number of payments options open you to for Internet access. If, for example, you have chosen the PAYG 3 SkypePhone, then you can use your £10 topup (which is needed every 30 days to keep Skype working) for the Internet Add-ons, which are:
Now, 50p is nothing compared the charges for WiFi, unless you are a regular traveller, in which case you will either have an unlimited WiFi package, or a 3 USB modem already. Any spare credit you have, you can use to make calls (12p/min) or send SMS texts (12p/text).
Remember, without the Internet Add-On, Internet Access is £1 per Mb, so even the 50p per day is very worthwhile.
However, despite the fact that people are using their 3 SkypePhones this way, and despite the fact that people have mentioned this in the 3 SkypePhone forums, we should point out that the conditions attached to the Internet Add-Ons state you cannot use it as a way of getting Internet access on a laptop (ie another device tethered to the phone, whether via a wired or wireless connection). As such, please be aware this method is likely to be against 3’s T&Cs.
Update: Having said that, if you buy the 3 SkypePhone on contract, you can add X-Series or Broadband Add-Ons to the service, of which some of these options seem to allow use of a tethered device. Please confirm this directly with 3 though, as we have been unable to confirm this so far.
Thanks to Chris at Tamebay for the inspiration for this article.
3UK providing some useful information at the bloggers update session today. Firstly, 3 announced that they will soon be releasing a PAYG (Pay As You Go) USB Modem. This will be useful to occasional travellers fed up of paying for and relying upon hotel WiFi systems that don’t work as well as you like and never quite reach the bedroom.
Also more interesting was Adam Davis’s comment on the 3 SkypePhone. Adam is “Head of Marketing and Product Management UK Handsets” at 3UK, and said the following; “The important thing next year is improvements to the phone. The problem is different things are wanted in different territories, but we are looking at things like improving the camera, HSDPA, SkypeIN/OUT. But the bottom line is the price must not increase.” For some of us, the idea of SkypeIN and SkypeOUT would make the phone an interesting proposition on top of our normal mobile phone, and hence we believe once these features are available, 3 could be selling even more of these devices.
On that point, it’s worth pointing out that the iSkoot Skype product (which 3 use on the 3 SkypePhone) supports SkypeIN / SkypeOUT, so iSkoot already has the knowledge to get these things working.
Thanks to Ken at UK Mobile Report for some content.
As expected, the 3 SkypePhone has a fair use policy, which is 4000 Skype minutes per month. This doesn’t sound too bad, until you remember that a normal phone, such as the N95 on 3, when purchased with a £5 X-Series Silver option, has 5000 Skype minutes per month.
Although the 3 SkypePhone is a very interesting proposition, you may be better looking at the X-Series range, albeit with a higher monthly charge (but more facilities and minutes thrown in too).
Right on cue, the 3 SkypePhone was announced this morning. Skype-Skype calls and Skype Instant Messages will both be free as long as you remain on contract, or you topup your PAYG (Pay As You Go) account (*). It will also be able to access the rest of 3’s Internet Services.
(*) Minimum topup of £10 every 30 days will keep Skype services running.
Although we originally said it would be available in 4 countries, it’s actually going to be available in the UK, Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy, Ireland, Macau and Sweden. For the UK, it’s £49.99 on PAYG, and free as part of a new contract, and should be available on 2nd November (this Friday) in 3Stores, with other countries following in due course. It is available for Pre-Order from tomorrow.
One thing few people are reporting on - it’s rumoured the phone will not support SkypeOut…
More details and full specifications in the rest of the article.
