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O2 unveils green phone ranking

Save the Earth with an Eco handset

Mobile phone network O2 has started a rating system for mobile phones, just to show how green a purchase they are for potential buyers and existing phone owners.

This new Eco Mobile rating system shows how a handset affects the environment as a whole, on either an existing purchase or even an upcoming one. O2 has figures from a survey that 44% of mobile phone purchasers would be influenced on how green a new phone is and this would affect their decision on buying a mobile.

The Eco Mobile rating scheme has already determined the Sony Ericsson Elm is the greenest phone around today, with its recycled plastics, low volume packaging and presumably noise related features - which cancels out background noise on calls, saving the caller the need to shout to be heard.

Sony Ericsson’s Elm is at the top of the list of 65 mobile phones from six different manufacturers, and rates at 4.3 out of 5. Other handset manufacturers that make up 93% of phones with O2 are Nokia, Sony Ericsson, HTC, LG, Samsung and Palm with Apple being notably absent.

The second highest score was 4.0 out of 5, where six phones jointly tied as runners up to the Elm. These were the Nokia 1800, Nokia 6700, Samsung GT-S8500, Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini, Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini pro and the Sony Ericsson Zylo.

This rating is calculated from data supplied by the phone manufactures and is made up from: the overall environmental impact the phone has over its lifespan, the raw materials used, impacts caused by manufacturing, its longevity and energy efficiency with how easy it is to reuse or recycle.

The Eco rating system was developed in partnership with Forum for the Future, who are independent sustainability experts and this initiative is key within O2’s Think Big programme.

O2 unveils Apple’s iPhone 4 on pay as you go

Former UK only iPhone seller’s latest offer

The original UK reseller of the Apple handsets has made available the latest iPhone 4 on prepay, at the starting price of £495 with O2.

The 16GB version of the new Apple mobile is just £5 shy of £500, where the 32GB iPhone 4 model comes in a £595. Apple’s own online retail store has the 16GB iPhone 4 at £499, with the 32GB version selling for £599 - where there’s not a great deal of difference between the costs.

O2’s tariff backing up the Apple phone has 300 text message and 500MB data allowance a month, if the phone is topped up with £10-£14. To obtain 500 text messages, the top up fee is £15-£29 and the unlimited message deal is priced at £30 a month.

This deal isn’t as attractive as Vodafone’s offer last week, where the purchase price of the phone includes a data allowance of 250GB a month, along with 1GB of free BT Openzone WIFI access.

O2 reportedly lost the exclusivity to selling Apple iPhone handsets in the UK when they opted to be the sole network provider to the Palm Pre mobiles, where the popularity of that series of phones has yet to make the impact O2 had once perhaps hoped.

T-Mobile and O2 offer prepay BlackBerry Pearl 3G

Budget RIM device comes to the masses

UK mobile phone networks T-Mobile and O2 have announced Research In Motion’s BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9105, on pay as you go deals at £249.99.

The BlackBerry Pearl 3G is their candy bar budget phone, with 14 keys instead of the 20 that accompany the USA version. Also dropped, is the Suretype keypad for a T9 version in the UK model where this is the first Pearl to have 3G access along with the first on 802.11n.

We have also just learned this week version 6 of the BlackBerry OS will be made available to the handset in due course, which is the very same mobile operating system that ships with the upcoming BlackBerry Torch 9800.

T-Mobile offering in the pay as you go market comes with 6 months free internet and BlackBerry mail, with unlimited texts if topped up with £10 a month.

O2’s offering ships on a bespoke pay as you go BlackBerry tariff, with a 500 text message allowance with free messaging and 500MB data limit for £15 per month.

In the past T-Mobile has sold the previous generation of the Pearl, the 8110, at £180 with free email and internet access for a year - although the deal this time around doesn’t appear to be as attractive.

So, what can you offer me for £15 a month? - The Conclusion

Recently, we began a feature that surrounded £15 a month tariffs, comprising of what exactly they can offer within minutes, texts and data allowances. This also takes into account the free handsets accompanying those deals, in addition to SIM Only offers from the same networks.

Previously, we brought you news of the tariff details from the mobile phone networks Three, T-Mobile and Orange. This week we will wrap up with Vodafone and O2, followed by a break-down and what’s best within certain criteria’s.

Vodafone

Vodafone offers a few different contracts over 24 months and an 18 month period with numerous handsets, along with a few SIM only deals.

What Vodafone presented to One Mobile Ring as their “Option One” is a 24-month contract that comes with 100 minutes, with 500 texts and a 500MB data allowance.

There are 12 phones on this deal, which are the Samsung Monte, Samsung Monte Pink, Nokia 5230, LG Viewty Smile, Nokia 6303, Sony Ericsson Elm, Samsung Genio slide, LG Viewty Lite, Nokia E63, Samsung Solid Extreme, Samsung Vodafone 360 M1 and rebranded Huawei Vodafone 845 phone.

There is also a variation to “Option One”, which tips up with 300 minutes at any time of the day and to any networks, with an unlimited text message allowance.

There are 9 phones available on this deal, which are the Samsung Monte, Samsung Monte Pink, Nokia 5230, LG Viewty Smile, Nokia 6303, Sony Ericsson Elm, Samsung Genio slide, LG Viewty Lite, Nokia E63, and the Samsung Solid Extreme.

Another Option One is a 24 month contract too, and comes with 100 minutes, 500 text messages where the only phones on offer are the Nokia 6700 Slide Purple and Nokia 6700 Slide Silver.

What Vodafone presented to OMR as Option Two is a 18-month plan, that comes with 100 minutes at any time of the day and to any network, along with 500 text messages.

There are 9 phones on this deal, which are the Samsung Monte, Samsung Monte Pink, Nokia 5230, LG Viewty Smile, Nokia 6303, Sony Ericsson Elm, Samsung Genio slide, LG Viewty Lite and the Samsung Solid Extreme.

Vodafone’s SIM only deals start with 200 minutes at any time of the day and to any network, with 3,000 text messages on a 30-day contract.

Vodafone also has a SIM only deal that comes with 300 minutes at any time of the day and to any network, with unlimited text messages and a time limited offer of unlimited Vodafone to Vodafone calls

Vodafone does retail a yearlong SIM only deal too, which comes with 600 minutes with unlimited text messages and a time limited offer of unlimited Vodafone to Vodafone calls.

O2 has both 12 and 24 month contracts on offer with free handsets as well, along with SIM only on-line deals.

The offer O2 presented to One Mobile Ring as their 24 month Handset tariff is accompanied by 100 minutes, with an unlimited text allowance.

There are 17 phones available on this deal, which are the HTC Smart White, HTC Smart Black, Samsung Jet Ultra, Samsung Monte, Samsung Solid Extreme, Samsung Genio Touch, Sony Ericsson C903 Black, Sony Ericsson W995 Pink, Sony Ericsson Elm, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia X6, Nokia 6700, Nokia 6700 Slide Silver, Nokia 6700 Slide Pink, Nokia 6303i, Nokia 2330 Classic and LG POP.

Also on offer with O2 is their 18-month Handset tariff, which is accompanied by a 50 minutes at any time of the day and to any network, with an unlimited text allowance.

There are 14 phones available on this deal, which are the HTC Smart White, HTC Smart Black, Samsung Monte, Samsung Solid Extreme, Samsung Genio Touch, Sony Ericsson W995 Pink, Sony Ericsson Elm, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia 6700 Slide Silver, Nokia 6700 Slide Pink, Nokia 6303i, Nokia 2330 Classic and LG POP.

O2’s SIM only deals come in three varieties, one with no contract, another with a 30-days and there’s also a 12-month contract.

O2 has a Pay & Go you Simplicity SIM with 100 any time any network minutes, unlimited UK texts, with 500MB of Internet browsing.

The Simplicity SIM only, 30-day contract offers 300 any time any network minutes, unlimited UK texts and unlimited O2 to O2 calls or UK landline calls.

An O2 Simplicity SIM 12-month contract comes with 600 any time any network minutes, unlimited UK texts and unlimited O2 to O2 calls or UK landline calls.

The Break Down

Breaking down all that’s on offer in the £15 tariff market place is a mean feat in itself, with close to 30 tariff deals from the various mobile phone networks. Taking into account the minutes on offer isn’t enough in choosing a tariff any more, it’s the text limits and more importantly these days - the data allowance. The most important question too is sometimes over looked, what handset accompanies the tariff, or what choices do I have.

After collating all of the details from companies such as T-Mobile, Orange, Three, Vodafone and O2 we have made some One Mobile Ring Editors choices as to what tariffs stand out. The following decisions do take into account the tariffs minutes, text and data allowance along with the handsets they have on offer.

The tariff with the highest range of phones has to go to O2, with 17 handsets to choose from on their standard 24-month tariff with 100 minutes and an unlimited text allowance.

The majority of the networks did actually offer an almost identical range of phones in their £15 tariffs, where the diversity across all the carriers weren’t as varied as we initially thought they would be. They were mostly budget models and non-popular handsets, where one network stood out by offering refurbished higher-end models and that was Three.

The tariff that came on top by providing the most minutes per month was Three, with their Internet Talker 500 24-month plan. This tariff comes with 500 minutes a month to any network, which beats even its closest rivals in minutes alone by 200 on Vodafone and T-Mobile.

There is a slight covet for the Internet Talker 500, where the minutes are traded off against the number of text messages sent in a month. That 500 figure is therefore taken down by 1 minute for every text message sent, whilst every minute used in calling takes the 500 text messages allowance down by 1.

We still believe this is an outstanding tariff, as although an unlimited text allowance offering sounds attractive on paper - 500 minutes in practice is a lot more useful.

Thrown in with the Internet Talker 500 is 5,000 minutes to any other Three mobile phone numbers, a 500MB data allowance a month where you also get free voicemail, Skype-to-Skype calls and Windows Live Messenger use.

Whilst we were writing this piece Three reduced this tariff from £15 a month, to £13 and therefore undercut the remit of the “So, what can you offer me for £15 a month?” feature. At the same time we believe they rejigged their handset deals, where most of the phones accompanying the deal now come in it at £17 and £18 - also slightly over the feature’s remit.

Three also offers the best SIM Only ‘30-day’ contract, which comes with 300 minutes, 3,000 texts, 2,000 Three-to-Three minutes and a 1GB data allowance with free voicemail, Skype-to-Skype calls and messages with free Windows Live Messenger use.

T-Mobile came close with their ‘30-day’ offering but they did come out on top with a 12-month SIM only deal, on minutes alone. This offer comprises of 600 minutes, 500 texts, with their flexible booster package of either unlimited texts, unlimited internet or unlimited T-Mobile calling.

Nokia C6 handset now available on-line from Nokia

Latest social networking phone from the Finish Fone makers

nokiac61

Nokia’s new C6 Qwerty based keyboard mobile phone has gone on sale, via their own website at a cost of £289 SIM free and unlocked. The new mobile phone is also around on a contract with O2 and Vodafone, or just on a pay as you go deal with Vodafone.

Nokia’s latest mobile has a similar look to their flagship N97, along with its cut down version of the N97 Mini. The C6 tips up with a 3.2-inch 640×360 resistive touch screen, along with a slide-out physical Qwerty keyboard and a 5 megapixel camera whilst running their own Symbian S60 OS.

The budget social network orientated phone from Nokia has a wide range of social networking features built-in, along with access to various email systems from Gmail to Yahoo.

C6’s Qwerty keyboard slides out from under the screen, unlike their previous N97 handset whose keyboard slid opened in an angular fixed position when exposed.

Nokia’s on-line store was the first to show the C6 arrival within the UK, with other resellers and mobile phone networks closely following suit as the phone starts to arrive them with all.

Link

HTC Profile

The company HTC has been around since the late 1990s, producing devices and handsets for many companies, although you might not have been aware you were using their products as they didn’t carry the HTC name. Instead, those devices carried names such as iPaq under first Compaq, and then Hewlett-Packard when the companies merged.

HTC has been synonymous with the PDA and mobile phone market for all those years. Many may have used their smartphones on the Orange network under the rebranded SPV handset range, or Xda with O2 all throughout the last decade.

In 2007, they stood up on their own two feet and came out from under the shadows of their OEM clients, to produce the first HTC Touch handset that beat Apple’s iPhone to market for some time in the UK.
Since then they have gradually grown to the market presence they now have and with a distinctive quality of devices, with their latest flagship HTC Desire being a testament to that very fact.

These days, many associate HTC with the Google Android OS for mobile phones, where they produced the first handset running the platform in 2008 with the HTC Dream or T-Mobile G1. To date, HTC has produced a dozen different Android models worldwide and the majority of them in use today.

Their origins can be traced back to Microsoft Windows Mobile run devices, with the iPaq’s and SPV handsets all running versions of that very operating system. HTC has had a lot of ‘firsts’ in its history from the first colour screen palm sized PC in 1999 to more recently, the first 4G Android phone in the USA with the HTC Evo.

Windows Mobile has featured heavily in their success along with their OEM partnerships. This was first seen with the original colour screen palm sized PC running the Microsoft Palm-size PC 1.2 Color OS, on a device for Compaq known as the Aero 2100 that launched January of 1999.

Their partnership with Compaq and subsequently HP went on from there to the first PDA running the Microsoft Pocket OS in 2000, with the Compaq iPAQ H3630 and then progressing to the first Microsoft Wireless Pocket PC device with the Hewlett-Packard iPAQ H1910, only two years later.

From then on a number of the HTC phones were found in the UK under the Orange SPV series or the O2 Xda range, with the first Microsoft powered Smartphones arriving as the initial O2 Xda and Orange SPV models. Some notable milestones within those rebranded handsets came from the first 2.8-inch LCD screen model with the O2 XDA II mini and Orange SPV M500. Then came along the very first 3G Microsoft Windows 5.0 phone, with the Qwerty keyboard based Orange SPV M5000 and O2 XDA Exec.

HTC has also made phones for other well-known companies such as the Treo 750 for Palm in 2006, where HTC produced a few handsets for them around that time. More recently, HTC made the Xperia X1 for Sony Ericsson although that partnership bore little more fruit after that phone.

2007 saw the first phone of theirs under the HTC name with the HTC Touch, a full touch screen handset running Windows Mobile 6 and their own TouchFlo overlay on top of that OS. Since then HTC haven’t looked back and have gone on to produce a veritable range of touch screen devices running Windows and Android, all to suit many markets from budget to the more ‘flagship’ expensive handsets.

Dell Streak on sale SIM free and unlocked

PC maker’s Android Tablet device is now available without a contract

Dell’s much-acclaimed Android tablet has just gone on sale unlocked and SIM free via the company’s own website, free from the shackles of a contract at £449. Previously the device was exclusive to O2 and the Carphone Warehouse, where now the Android tablet is available to all and sundry.

The Dell Streak is a 5-inch multi-touch screen Android tablet, running from a fast 1Ghz Qualcomm SnapDragon processor with a bundled in 16GB microSD card, along with a 5MP camera accompanied by an accelerometer, GPS, WIFI and Bluetooth.

It’s currently running the latest version of the Google OS, with plans to have version 2.2 of Android on the device soon with the added benefits of Adobe Flash 10.1. O2 does have the Streak without a contract on a pay as you go deal at £399, only it’s still tied to the network where Dell’s own offering isn’t bound in such a way.

We’re due to be seeing the Dell Streak for a review soon, so we’ll keep you posted as to our own thoughts on the Android Tablet.

DELL

Apple iPhone 4 goes on sale today

Latest Apple mobile phone is now available to buy

Apple’s much awaiting iPhone 4 handset has gone on sale from today and for the first time with a new Apple mobile phone it is available on many networks and not just the one, as the last iPhone 3G was only available on O2 when it launched.

This new mobile sports a brand new design unseen before in the series, along with a new operating system and a higher megapixel count within the camera amongst other new features.

Some of the key features in the new iPhone 4 range from FaceTime, their own video calling ability over WIFI and all from a camera on the front of the handset, where the image is shown on the mobile’s 3.5-inch 960×640 multi-touch retina display.

There is now a 5-megapixel camera with an LED flash, capable of HD video recording driven by Apple’s A4 processor and all running from the new iOS 4 - which has just been made available for older handsets and the iPod touch.

All this is encased in a new stainless steel case design, which has taken the title of the thinnest smartphone in the world.

Networks from Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone, O2 and Three have all made public their prices where even Tesco have gotten in on the deal with a low £19 cost for the handset, only on a £45 per month contract.

iPhone - don’t get a monthly deal

I’d quite like an iPhone but don’t want to be tied to a two-year contract. When looking at the TCO of most plans, you’re looking at something starting at £900 even for the most basic plans (75 minutes, 250 SMS and 1GB data).

Consider that O2 offer the iPhone on Pay as you Go from £449 (£440 on Orange) and you start to wonder what the extra £550 gives you. When averaged out on a two-year plan that gives you nearly £23 a month to play with. O2 offer a 1 month rolling Simplicity deal specifically for the iPhone giving you 300 minutes, unlimited texts and unlimited data & WiFi for £20 a month with a 1 month commitment.

Even with interest taken into account, getting a PAYG iPhone on your credit card and partnering it with a SIM-only deal from the same network is the cheapest way to buy giving you the benefit of a generous allowance and tieing you in for the shortest time.

If you want to be truly independent, you can get a SIM-free (unlocked) iPhone for around £800. You can get them cheaper, but they are usually hacked versions where you cannot update the software or you will relock the device to the original network.

Vodafone do not offer the iPhone on PAYG at the time of writing.

HTC Desire coming to all major UK networks

Like the Nexus One, and then some

Android fan blog, Phandroid (see what they did there?) report that all the UK networks have now announced plans to sell the HTC Desire.

The Desire is basically HTC’s own brand version of Google’s Nexus One. Similar looking and with virtually the same feature set, the Desire replaces the trackball seen on previous HTC models with improvements to HTC’s Sense UI. Running Android 2.1 powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon, this top-end smartphone’s availability across all UK carriers will help the popularity and uptake of the OS.

T-Mobile are likely to get it out first, with a release planned at the end of March. The other networks are harder to pin down, giving more flexible timescales like ‘springtime’ or ‘Q2’ and ‘first half’. Anyone who wants to buy one will see these as code words for ‘eventually’.

OneMobileRing

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O2 unveils green phone ranking

O2 unveils Apple’s iPhone 4 on pay as you go

T-Mobile and O2 offer prepay BlackBerry Pearl 3G

So, what can you offer me for £15 a month? - The Conclusion

Nokia C6 handset now available on-line from Nokia

HTC Profile

Dell Streak on sale SIM free and unlocked

Apple iPhone 4 goes on sale today

iPhone - don’t get a monthly deal

HTC Desire coming to all major UK networks

Like the Nexus One, and then some

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Like the Nexus One, and then some