At the back of last year, FON talked about launching a €99 Peek to the European market (via a deal with Spotnik, a new Europe wide mobile network), which we covered here.  Except everything then went very quiet.  Then, when discussing it with Ben Smith of The Really Mobile Project a few weeks back, we realised it was no longer on the FON website anymore.

Well, Peek and Spotnik have announced it’s finally available, and still at that €99 initial price.  This includes 6-months of European wide GSM roaming (ie no roaming data fees for anywhere in Europe), and will then cost €19.99 per month (or €49.99 if you pay per quarter, or best value €159.99 per year if you pay annually).  You’ll be able to link it to 5 email accounts and it’s available now in either Charcoal (Grey) or Pink (Red).

The website says “Buy Now”, although we should point out that the original plan was to charge around €12.90 a month for the service, but this appears to now be €19.99.

Please note although there may be some similar investments / directors behind Spotnik and FON, it appears that at this stage, it’s only available from Spotnik, and not from FON themselves.

For an email only device, but with the ability to handle 5 email accounts, and have no additional costs over the initial 6 month period, I still think that the €99 device is an interesting one.  As I said before; hand one to your child about to go travelling for the summer and you can keep in touch without costing them anything; use it on business to keep up with your email without incurring massive mobile roaming data bills (in fact, if you use the Pibbix voicemail service, you could leave your “normal” phone turned off, and receive your voicemails on this device for free whilst travelling…)

For (some) more information, head to the Spotnik Peek website, and see here for our article on Pibbix.

I’ve been a fan of OpenTable for some while.  Although not a regular user of the service, it’s a service I know about and have in the back of my mind should I suddenly need a restaurant at short notice, especially when travelling.  Once you have an account with OpenTable (no money involved), you can then use their website to search for restaurants in your area and book a table, either for now, or in the future.  You can select the type of cuisine, and even see the rough pricing of the establishment (obviously it only covers places that take reservations, and only those linked to OpenTable, which can mean in some areas it’s only the pricier places).  Although they have the ubiquitous iPhone app, for other platforms such as Nokia they have a handy mobile optimised website to use instead.

Oh, and the advantage of booking through OpenTable? Although you will pay the restaurant as usual, you earn Rewards Points which can build up into cheques to spend at these restaurants.

Even though the mobile optimised website works fine, OpenTable have just announced that they have released a Touch device based app into the Ovi Store to give an even better experience.  This app will allow you to book tables in the US, UK & Ireland, Canada and Mexico, which is a nice range of countries, especially for a transatlantic business traveller (who, if they have any sense, will also have a TruPhone Local Anywhere SIM in their phone giving them a local UK and US phone number terminating on the same handset; see here for more details).

What’s even nicer about this announcement is that OpenTable have realised that Nokia is not moving all devices to the S60 5th Edition, and hence touch devices; we’ve already seen the launch of the Nokia C5 and Nokia C3, showing non-touch devices are here to stay for a while, and OpenTable recognise this, and have stated they will have a non-touch version available “in the coming weeks”.

The features of the app include:

• Search for restaurants by name
• Find nearby restaurants (ie based on your current location) and see real-time table availability
• View restaurant profile pages with detailed information such as photos, menus, maps and OpenTable diner reviews
• Refine by cuisine, price, points and availability
• Send Reservation details via SMS to friends

If you are interested in OpenTable, head to the OpenTable website, or download their touch app from here.  If, of course, you have another platform, then head here for details of their Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, and Palm applications.

Sometimes I get interesting emails that are worth passing on, and this one from 3UK is one of those.  Promoting their new 3UK In Car WiFi, they have undertaken some research, and come up with the following research:

• 71 per cent of British people believe portable Wi-Fi access in a car, where up to five passengers can connect to Wi-Fi devices, would be useful for work and entertainment while travelling

• Car travel with children is so painful that 54 per cent of British travellers would rather stay home and avoid discovering the UK by road

• What’s worse is that almost 10 percent would rather have root canal therapy than endure car travel with the kids

• The M25 is considered the most tedious motor journey by 40 percent of British people, followed by the M1 (22 per cent) and the M6 (20 per cent)

• 8 out of 10 parents have battled with kids when travelling by car because they get bored or restless if left without entertainment

• 60 per cent would be more likely or would consider travelling in a taxi with Wi-Fi

• One in three British people (34 per cent) would use In-car Wi-Fi for social media purposes and emailing friends, followed by one in five (21 per cent) for work purposes and one in six (18 per cent) to stream online videos (eg BBC iPlayer and YouTube)

Some interesting figures in there, however, the key point is that the 3UK In Car WiFi (using a version of their MiFi device), which was launched at The Gadget Show Live earlier this year (see here), is now available for sale for £59.99, which includes the MiFi device, mains charger, car charger, windscreen holder, and 1GB of data which lasts 30 days.  Today you’ll have to head to a 3UK Store, but as from next week they should be available on line in the 3Store too.

This is a very good device, especially for the price, and given this is a PAYG deal, you aren’t forced to keep it running all the time if you literally only want to use it in the car for long family journeys, although I suspect once you / your passengers / the kids start using it, you’ll soon be buying TopUp vouchers every month or two, and given 3UK charge PAYG users the same rate as contract users for Internet access, you aren’t being penalised for going for the PAYG rate.

Well, I’ve been using the Novatel 2352 MiFi device for a few months now, and the most important thing that I can say about it is that it remains one of the first things that I look for when going away travelling (whether personal or business); in fact, using it with a PAYG SIM ready for whenever needed has proved very useful over the time I have had the device for review.  I’ll write up my full findings soon, but this is a device well worth considering.

Of course, it’s about the function of the device as much as the particular device; so things like the 3UK MiFi (which is available for a lot less on PAYG) shouldn’t be discounted.  In fact, you could even buy the 3UK MiFi and iPod Touch bundle for less than you can buy the Novatel device SIM-free (of course, SIM free offers other benefits).

As I’ve said before (see here), the web interface management of the Novatel 2352 makes it easier to use than the 3UK MiFi (although I do have access to information on how to enable the web interface on the 3UK MiFi, as it was apparently disabled in the 3UK-specific firmware), and the need to only press one button for everything to turn on and setup can’t be discounted either, but at roughly 3 times the price, it’s more difficult to justify the purchase of the Novatel 2352.

Of course, the 3UK MiFi is tied to 3UK; if you were looking for a device on, say, Vodafone, you would have to plump for the Novatel 2352; or would you? I’m hearing a rumour that next month Vodafone will be launching a PAYG MiFi type device for sale through their website and stores; whether this will be the Novatel 2352 or not isn’t clear (Vodafone already sell the Novatel in other countries though), and whether the price will be more inline with the 3UK MiFi I also don’t know, but it does look like there will soon be competition in the MiFi world…

3UK have announced an updated bundle for their 3UK MiFi, called the In Car Wi-Fi.  As well as the device itself, and 1GB of data allowance (valid for 30 days), they have included a mains charger (as before), but now a car charger and also a windscreen suction mount, and all for £59.99.  In comparison, normally you would pay £69.99 for just the device, although with 3GB worth of data valid for 3 months.

Suddenly providing Internet access for Sony PSP / Nintendo DS / iPod Touch devices whilst travelling has just got a lot easier, and with the ability to share the internet with multiple devices, this does seem a nice offer; especially with a car charger to keep the device working even on long trips.

This new bundle is not yet available online, but I’m sure it will be soon.

Having launched Truphone Local Anywhere (see here for our details) with support for US and UK phone numbers, Truphone have announced that in mid-2010 they will be adding Australia to those first two countries.  This will allow frequent travellers to have a single SIM with country specific numbers that all route back to the same SIM now covering three countries, and Truphone have already hinted that this is the first of many additional countries to be supported by this service.

The Truphone Local Anywhere gives benefits on both sides; it allows callers in those countries to reach you for the price of a standard mobile call, yet when you are visiting these countries, you pay rates closer to in country rates, as opposed to roaming rates, and when you are roaming, Truphone are trying to get those rates as low as possible too.

Having already announced the UK network is provided by Vodafone, the Australian network being used will be Optus.

In my opinion, as someone who has been keeping an eye on Truphone for some while now, as the list of countries expands further throughout 2010 (and beyond), Truphone is going to become a major player in the mobile space, especially for the frequent traveller, who will be able to use his Truphone SIM (and Truphone local numbers) as his main (and often, only) mobile phone SIM.

The Ovi Maps Beta (which we first mentioned here, when we talked about the new WiFi positioning) has been updated again.  Although it’s not clear whether this was supported in the previous beta or not, Nokia have now revealed that as well as providing WiFi positioning, the new beta also has support for Cell ID positioning too, in essence offering the same range of positioning options as that available in Google Maps.

This is very good news for Nokia, and offers a real alternative to Google, especially, and I can’t stress this point enough, due to the facts the maps can be pre-downloaded onto your phone, keeping data usage down in the UK, but (even more importantly), offering a working solution when travelling abroad without incurring massive data costs too.

With this new beta, they have adopted a red circle on the map to denote the area you may be in when Cell ID positioning is in use (in a similar way to Google’s blue circle), whereas WiFi and GPS will simply have the inner red location dot, as both are deemed to provide sufficiently accurate information (unlike Google, which still shows the level of accuracy with all positioning methods). Also, if you lose positioning information, the red central dot turns into a grey dot showing your last known position, and the “Go to my position” button will instead take you back to this last known position.

You can access the Ovi Maps Beta here.

This is only just been announced, so I’ll provide more comment later, but if you own, or are planning to buy one of these Nokia models:

• Nokia N97 Mini
• Nokia E72
• Nokia E52
• Nokia E55
• Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
• Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition
• Nokia 6710 Navigator
• Nokia 6730
• Nokia 5230
• Nokia X6

then as from today, you should be able to download a new version of Ovi Maps, which not just offers free GPS Navigation in over 70 countries, but offers more too…

• Free Drive navigation
• Free Walk navigation
• Free maps and map updates
• Free Events guides
• Free Lonely Planet guides
• Free Michelin guides
• Free Weather updates

That’s an impressive list, especially the guides and weather being free too.  This is obviously a reaction to Google announcing plans to make navigation free for all, but with Nokia supporting offline navigation (with all the maps and routing being stored on the device) this is likely to be a much preferred solution for many (especially those travelling abroad where roaming data charges would make Google’s solution impractical for many).

We’re also hearing that traffic and safety camera information will be free too!

Nokia have stated they plan to increase the range of devices further in the future (I, like many others have already commented on the lack of the original Nokia N97).

For more information, head to the Free Navigation Forever page from Nokia.

Update: We understand the Nokia N97 is likely to need a firmware update first to be able to support the new version of the Ovi Maps (this is more about a lack of free space on the C: drive than anything in particular within the firmware), and it’s possible that the new Ovi Maps will be included within the firmware itself, and that we may see that firmware before the end of the month.

Update: We have seen a number of comments from Nokia that imply more of their “older” devices will soon be included within this Free Navigation programme, and we hope it covers the majority of S60 3rd Edition FP1 devices, especially those like the Nokia E71 which are still on sale today as brand new devices.

Update: It appears there will be a Free version for the Nokia N900 Maemo device, but this is some way off.

Truphone Local Anywhere (which we have covered before) has now finally launched. There are a number of options, from just buying the SIM as a starter pack (£14.99 including £10 of credit and a UK phone number), to the UK/US Pro pack (£79.99, including £20 of credit, US discounted call rates and a US phone number *and* a UK phone number for 12 months provisioned onto the SIM).  It’s this last point that kept me interested in Truphone since the announcements nearly a year ago; Truphone are happy to allocate multiple country-specific phone numbers onto the SIM, to allow you to be contacted anywhere in the world, but for the people calling you, it’s just a local phone number.

If you only holiday in the US, then the US holiday pack might be better value, which gives you a US phone number for 12 months as well as the UK number, but only gives you 1 month of the US call rates.  If you want the US call rates for longer, you can purchase them for £7.99 a month.  What does the US call rates give you?

• At the normal rates, a US – US landline call would be 50p/minute; with the US call rates that is only 22p/minute.
• Calling US – US mobile drops from 50p/minute to 10p/minute!
• In a similar way, calling US – UK landline drops from 75p/minute to 22p/minute, and US – UK mobile drops from 75p/minute to 10p/minute.
• Receiving a call whilst in the US drops from 50p/minute to 10p/minute
• Sending a text drops from 40p to 8p per text, although there is a 7p charge to receive a text (inline with many US mobile plans), and sending a text to the UK is only 10p per text with the US call rates.
• Finally, without the US call rates, you’ll pay £2 per MB of data; with the US call rates, you’ll ‘just’ pay 75p per MB.

So, for those that actually plan to use their phone whilst abroad (and especially in the US) the Truphone deal looks very impressive, and it’s well worth either buying the US/UK Pro pack, or upgrading your account to include the US call rates for their best rates.

Now, being able to offer worldwide calling plans is nothing new…  Offering a SIM with a local in-country number is not new…  Offering data on a SIM is not new…

Offering all of those together though, that’s the benefit of Truphone; throw in the ability to have multiple in-country phone numbers provisioned onto the same SIM, and this is truly different and well worth further investigation…

… and if you want to investigate further, head to the Truphone Local Anywhere website for more information.

Although only a rumour at this stage, the PeekFON (which we first covered here) currently offers access to email across Europe without paying roaming fees, and FON have stated they hope to bring web browsing and Twitter support to the device too.  However, what’s interesting is that Peek themselves have recently worked on a Facebook application (currently in beta) for their US devices.  It’s likely this may also be available on the PeekFON (there’s no reason why not, and it may help promote the device further).

Also, in the article we’ve already linked to, we indicated the Peek Twitter-only device could not access twitpic, or any other URLs within tweets, both points which we understand are not true, and the device is actually slightly more feature rich than many people give it credit for.  The Twitter-only device is still US-only, whereas the PeekFON will be available here for sale for €99 (which includes 6 months pan-European email, and then the device is €12.90 per month, although no long term contract is required); although as of today, it’s still a pre-register page.

Interestingly, it’s looks like this is actually not a “real” application for the device.  The application is actually a Facebook application, and seems to offer the ability to publish new information to your facebook account via a dedicated email address (so you simply send out emails from the Peek device), and equally it will collect the content from your news feed and regularly email that to your device.  In which case, even more reason to hope this becomes available for the PeekFON for Europe too.

If FON are able to offer a range of facilities on the device, then this will offer a greater range of services than just email, and then the international traveller will be well prepared with a single device.