With its imminent release in the UK the Israeli made Modu 1 handset is anything but new having initially been seen in Barcelona at the 2008 Mobile World Congress. It is, however, still being sold as the smallest mobile handset currently available with an incredibly compact size of 72.1 x 37.6 x 7.8mm and weighing in at just 43 grams.

In order to confirm its claims of being the smallest ever mobile handset the Modu 1 has even been entered into the Guinness World book of records, which should make it far easier for customers to believe its claims.

As well as its size the Modu 1 also has another great selling point and this is the wide range of ‘outfits’ that are available for the handset. The Modu 1 is able to completely change its appearance using the various different jackets that are available for it. These jackets completely cover the mobile device in the same way that jackets or skins do on other mobile handsets and still leave the keys useable and the tiny 1.3 inch display viewable.

The big difference with these jackets when compared to those found on other devices is that they often completely change the physical appearance of the device in terms of its shape and size rather than just adding colours or images to the handset. These jackets will be available from £20 to £50 and will allow users to completely redesign what is essentially a bland rectangle in its basic form.

Source – Idealo

The new Racer Android handset, which has been built by ZTE, will come with a touch screen display measuring 2.8 inches that provides a 320 x 240 screen resolution, HSDPA connectivity, and a 3.2 megapixel camera built in. For storage the handset offers users a total of 2GB on a microSD card.

The various touch screen smartphones that are currently on offer from network providers like T-Mobile and Orange are being sold at a lower price than the Racer but these devices are not available with Android installed and come with entry level operating systems like Qualcomm Brew instead.

In an effort to keep the cost of the new Android handset down to make it more affordable to users the director of mobile operations at ZTE UK, Wu Sa, advised that they decided that rather than installing the new Android 2.2 OS they would use Android 2.1 on the new Racer handset.

At a price that is expected to be under £100 on PAYG the new Racer handset is expected to be the first device that is powered by the Android OS to be this cheap.

Users who choose to go for the Racer on a contract plan will be able to get it on a two-year plan for just £13 per month. So far the cheapest plan to be announced is a two year contract that offers users 500MB of data usage each month along with 300 anytime, any network minutes or texts. With the low cost and the range of plans available the ZTE racer is expected to be a big hit with Android users on a budget.

Source – Top News

The recent launch of the Apple iPhone 4 in the UK caused a great deal of excitement amongst tech savvy consumers that had been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to get their hand on the latest smart phone from Apple. However, shortly after consumers began snapping up the iPhone 4 problems started emerging with regards to signal and reception problems.

The boss of Apple, Steve Jobs, has now revealed that the company is offering free cases to all owners of the Apple iPhone 4, which he believes will help to address the problems that have been highlighted with signal strength and the antenna. The problem was occurring when the device was held in a certain way.

Mr Jobs admitted that the company was not perfect, and that signal and antenna problems were widespread amongst the smart phone industry as a whole. However, he said that issuing iPhone 4 owners with a free case could help consumers to deal with the problem and would help to provide increased efficiency and convenience.

According to reports the cost of supplying all iPhone 4 owners with a case could come to around one hundred and eighteen million pounds based on the price of the cases. However, one official said: “They had to do something. The buzz kept getting louder and louder and louder and the evidence kept mounting more and more and more. They just couldn’t ignore it.”

Source – BBC

The choice of deals, phones, and tariffs available to mobile phone customers in the UK these days is astonishing, and with the excellent choice available for consumers there is something to suit most needs, pockets, and circumstances when it comes to mobile phones.

However, not everyone manages to secure the deal that is most suitable and cost effective for them, and this is something that has been demonstrated in a recent report. According to the report consumers in the UK are wasting millions of pounds every year between them simply because they are not on the right tariff for their needs.

The research showed that if consumers were to switch to a tariff that was more suited to their needs they could save on average just over sixty pounds a year. However, with so many people having failed to secure the right tariff it is thought that around eight hundred million pounds a year is being wasted by mobile phone users.

Many people fail to make the most of their calls, texts, and data according to the report, and this means that they are losing out and have a tariff that is probably more expensive than it should be based on their needs. Others do not go for an adequate tariff, and end up using extra minutes, data, and texts, which they then have to pay for, adding to the amount of money that is being wasted every year.

Source – BBC

Supermarket giant Tesco has recently announced that whilst some providers are focussing on eighteen and twenty four month mobile phone contracts it is going to start focussing on shorter twelve month contracts.

Over recent years supermarket giant Tesco – like many other big name supermarkets – has turned its hand to a range of other services and products such as loans, credit cards, insurance, and even full blown banking services. The retail giant has also launched its own mobile communications sideline, and offers a range of mobile phone deals to appeal to a wide variety of consumers.

When it comes to mobile phone contracts there are a number of options available, but many mobile network providers focus on longer term contract for eighteen or even twenty four months. However, officials from Tesco have said that the company is trying to focus more on slightly shorter term contracts of just twelve months.

Tesco officials believe that in the current financial and economic climate many people are concerned about committing to a longer term contract such as one and a half or two years. The retail giant believes that shorter term contracts will be more appealing to customers that want a little more freedom and flexibility, and who are not too keen on very long term commitments.

David Taylor from Tesco Telecoms said that following the recession many consumers were “really quite uneasy about signing up to such a long-term financial commitment”. He added: “Technology moves so quickly that many customers also want to replace their handsets every year and so being locked into a two-year contract doesn’t meet their needs at all.”

Source – India Times

Since the Apple iPhone 4 was launched recently tech savvy consumers everywhere have been keen to get their hands on one of these devices. However, buying one of these handsets on a pay as you go basis does not come cheap, with Apple charging just short of five hundred pounds to buy one of these smart phones.

However, many of the major network providers are offering the Apple iPhone 4 as part of a contract deal, which means that consumers can get the handset as part of the contract without having to pay anything upfront for the handset. However, whilst this may make it seem as though the handset is effectively ‘free’ the cost is in fact factored into the monthly payments that consumers have to pay.

The high cost of the Apple iPhone 4 is reflected in the monthly prices of the contracts. Most of the mobile networks operators that are offering this phone as part of the package are looking for around sixty pounds a month from consumers, which means that users will pay a fortune over the course of the year.

One of the last mobile network providers to reveal pricing for the much wanted iPhone 4, T-Mobile has also decided to opt for sixty pounds a month for two years for those that want a 16GB handset.

Source – Eweek Europe

With iPhone users as many as 51 percent pay for at least one app every month and for iPod Touch users this figure drops to just 35 percent according to the report released by AdMob, the mobile ad company for Google that uses the Android as its mobile platform. By comparison a mere 21 percent of Android users pay for at least a single app a month.

When looking at the amount of apps users download it was found that Android users downloaded an average of 8.7 apps each month but only paid for 1.1 of these whereas users of the iPhone downloaded an average of 8.8 apps per month and paid for 1.8 of them.

The Android handset at the moment is most popular in the US with a total of 66 percent of the current global user base with the next biggest being China with 13 percent and then the UK with just 4 percent.

The report, which also showed that in May the US accounted for 58 percent of all iPad users with Japan accounting for 5 percent, followed by the UK with 4 percent, China with 4 percent, and 3 percent in Canada.

In an effort to give users a real time view of the most popular iPhone apps currently available the mobile app discovery platform Appsfire has now released its new AppTrends tool which will make this possible. This tool creates a top 20 list of the most mentioned apps on twitter by searching for references to the iPhone apps.

Source – Musicweek

For many users in the UK the HTC HD 2 has quickly become a handset that suits their every need and there is little doubt that its revolutionary utilities and features, which are not often found on smartphones, make it one of the best handsets on the market.

When it comes to creating beautifully designed handsets with incredible features the mobile phone manufacturer HTC is one of the leaders in its marketplace and it hasn’t let users down with the release of its HTC HD 2 smartphone contract.

The level of competition when it comes to either the operating system built into the handset or the applications is fairly limited for the company at the moment. As with other smartphones the HTC HD 2 is a device of the highest specification and to provide the very best in computing and browsing this handset is powered by the latest and highly powerful Snapdragon QSD8250 1Ghz processor from Qualcomm and uses Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional OS.

Users also get a huge range of great features with the handset, like a touch-sensitive 4.3 inch screen capable of displaying 65 000 colours, and a 5 megapixel camera that takes advantage of the fairly sizeable internal memory the handset offers as well as auto focus and dual LED flash.

The HTC HD 2 is currently one of the lightest mobile handsets available on the market with dimensions of 120.5 x 67 x 11 mm making it an ideal handset for those looking for the latest and most compact technology.

Source – Free Press Release Distribution

The video call technology that was promoted by network provider Three when it first launched has now been released by equipment manufacturer Apple in the form of the iPhone’s FaceTime application but the CEO for Three, Kevin Russell, has said that he would be ‘surprised’ if this application popularised the technology.

When compared to the huge popularity of making video calls in countries like Italy many users in the UK are still quite reluctant to use their mobile devices to make video calls, although Russell said that with mobile phone users now using their mobile handsets for internet access on a far more regular basis that this was the main reason for the huge growth in this area.

The speech was given by Russell at the launch of the new ‘One Plan’ tariff by Three, which offers users 1GB of data, 5000 texts and 2000 any network minutes on a SIM Only deal for just £25 a month. With many ‘unlimited’ data tariffs being capped by a fair usage policy he said that this new tariff heralded a new level of transparency about these types of services.

The main ‘One Plan’ deal is a SIM Only package but Three is also offering a selection of mobile handsets for a slightly higher monthly price of £28. Devices like the Nokia 2730, which will be available on a 2 year contract all the way up to the new iPhone 4 32GB, although an upfront payment of £89 would be required for this handset.

Source – Telegraph

Smart phones have become extremely popular over the past couple of years, and amongst the various mobile phone giants that offer smart phone devices is Nokia, which is a well know manufacturer that offers devices of high quality at reasonable prices. Nokia is now said to be making its smart phones even more affordable, with the arrival of the Nokia X6 8GB scheduled for September.

Boasting the same features, stylish design, and practical benefits as the original X6 and the X6 16GB the only difference that this new device has is that the memory is smaller. Nokia officials believe that this is a practical and effective way to make smart phones more accessible to those that would otherwise not be able to afford such a device.

This is a smart phone that will be welcomed by music lovers, and it can hold over two thousand songs. The phone will come with a 3,2 inch high quality and scratch resistant touch screen, a high quality camera, VGA video, built in speakers, and much more. The device is set to hit the UK market in September of this year, so those looking for a practical, mid-range, affordable smart phone may have to wait a few more months.

Prices have not yet been confirmed for the device, and on its blog Nokia simply stated: “The Nokia X6 8GB hasn’t been priced for the UK yet but with an estimated price of 225 Euros, it’s set to be the most affordable Xseries capacitive screen yet!”

Source – Blog