Have £460 ($732), British residency, and a hankering for gently-sculpted, mega-thin phones running Gingerbread? Well, then, you might want to consider browsing over to Play.com, where Sony Ericsson’s rather attractive Xperia Arc has recently gone on pre-order — certainly not the cheapest phone in the world, but at least that’s an unlocked, unbranded price. The site is listing the phone as “due for release” on April 1st, though — just like any handset in the world — that’s subject to plenty of wiggle room, especially this far out. Get out your credit cards, folks!
Oh, there’s no need to act like you’re surprised, fellow Brits. As promised, HTC’s going to dish out its latest budget Froyo Android and flagship WP7 slider to the UK next month. Just a quick recap: the “pearl white” Gratia — which is the international version of the Aria — sports a humble 600MHz processor, along with a 3.2-inch 480 x 320 LCD and a 5 megapixel camera with VGA camcorder. As for the 7 Pro, it packs the bog standard WP7 specs (1GHz Snapdragon, 8GB storage, and 5 megapixel camera with 720p recording), as well as a slide-and-tilt 3.6-inch 800 x 480 display that reveals a landscape QWERTY keyboard underneath — the tilting part still a first for WP7. Sadly, it doesn’t look like any carriers have picked up either handset yet, nor has HTC shed light on their standalone costs, but hey, patience is priceless.
We’ve seen countless individuals integrate their phone, PMP or tablet into their whip, but for years, we’ve all been thinking the same thing: “There has to be an easier way.” Turns out, there is. One Mr. Romin has seemingly unearthed the solution, which involves a Lilliput FA1042 touchpanel, a Belkin AV dock adapter cable and a critical piece of software by the name of Centrafuse. Working in conjunction, he has enabled his monitor to actually control the iPhone, and when firing up a YouTube video, the content plays back on the big screen while the controls remain visible on the handset. It’s a nifty setup, for sure, and we’re downright excited to see this rig get installed in a vehicle far too small for American roads in a fortnight or so. For now, catch it working in action just past the break.
Alright, folks — if you’ve already got a T-Mobile UK account in your back pocket, you can breathe a sigh of relief, because that ugly new data cap doesn’t apply to you. It took the operator just a day to realize that putting a hazy “fair use” restriction of just 500MB per month on existing accounts wasn’t going over too well with its customer base, so they’ve conducted a “further review” and decided that they’ll instead only be applying the rule to new and upgrading customers as of February 1 only. We wouldn’t call this an outright win by any stretch — the policy is still enormously restrictive, vague, and a pretty clear-cut disadvantage of the competition-reducing Everything Everywhere hookup, and it looks like they’ll still end up tagging you as soon as you try to upgrade your plan or your hardware anyway… but we’ll take whatever reprieve we can get.
In one of the most insensitive announcements in recent PR history, T-Mobile UK is telling its customers who want to download or stream online video to their mobile devices to “save that stuff for [their] home broadband.” The carrier, one half of the UK’s biggest operator Everything Everywhere, had up until now offered one of the better monthly allowance deals with a 3GB data consumption limit on Android phones. It still is, in fact, since its new changes aren’t coming into effect until February 1st, but come that fateful Tuesday, T-Mo’s understanding of “fair use” will shrink down to 500MB each month — after which point you’ll still get to browse the web and email for free, but any video content will presumably be subject to an extra charge. It’s not clear how “that stuff” will be handled by T-Mobile once you cross the frugal new threshold, nor is it clear whether customers who signed up for big bodacious 3GB of data will be set free once this new lockdown on mobile video is in effect. Godspeed to you all.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Update: T-Mobile has responded with a clarifying statement we’ve added after the break. There will be no surcharges for use over 500MB per month, but once you cross that line, any downloading activity will be “restricted.” By which the company seems to mean “restricted to whatever WiFi connection you can scrounge up,” because its 3G airwaves will be off-limits.
If you live in a technophile city like Taipei, you’ll have been enjoying underground 4G for a long time now, but in London the rule is that you have to bid adieu to your mobile connectivity when diving into a tunnel. The city’s Mayor has been active in encouraging (forcing?) the major British carriers to install the necessary equipment to provide coverage on the Tube, and now we’re hearing that ambition has stretched beyond the nation’s borders as well. The Daily Telegraph reports that Vodafone, O2, Everything Everywhere, and Three from the UK along with Orange, SFR and Bouygues from France have agreed to share the cost of putting together a £20 million ($30.8m) project for making cellular coverage possible while traveling through the 31.4-mile Channel Tunnel between the two countries. The goal is to get things up and running by the Olympics in 2012, though we’ve no indication as to what speeds those wireless data transfers will reach. Still, having some bars is better than none, right?
Those cursed limited supplies of the Nexus S have forced the Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy’s UK outlets to push back the phone’s retail debut by a couple of days. The Gingerbread flagship will now be sailing in on the 22nd of December and even then it’ll be available only in “key” stores. Online purchases are encouraged, with an “instant ship delivery” getting the phone out to your nearest Carphone Warehouse branch for collection. Pre-orderers should presumably be getting their handsets on Wednesday too, while the £430 unlocked price has also been confirmed. So it’s still good news, you’ll just have to be either lucky or good to get your hands on one in time for the Queen’s speech.
The UK price for the Nexus S just became a whole lot (nearly 22 percent) more attractive, thanks to the Carphone Warehouse slashing the SIM-free purchase option to a sweet £429.99 ($668). Contract-saddled pricing has also taken a tumble, as the Nexus S can now be had for free on two-year agreements costing £30 ($47) per month. Good news all around, then, but be aware that the handset is now listed as being on back order, having been “in stock” earlier in the week. Speaking of delays, we’re also hearing Best Buy’s guaranteed Christmas delivery — something proudly signposted on the Nexus S online order page — might very well miss Santa’s delivery window. A couple of our readers have received emails from the retailer advising them that their Gingerbread packages will be shipped “within the next 1-2 weeks,” but might not get there by December 24th. So happy holidays and best of luck!
We told you that this would likely go on forever. Nokia just announced that the company has filed claims in the UK, Germany, and The Netherlands alleging that Apple’s iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad are infringing upon Nokia’s patents. This adds 13 more patents to the 24 already asserted in the ITC and US federal claims. Here’s a particularly snippy remark made Paul Melin, vice president, Intellectual Property at Nokia:
“The Nokia inventions protected by these patents include several which enable compelling user experiences. For example, using a wiping gesture on a touch screen to navigate content, or enabling access to constantly changing services with an on-device app store, both filed more than ten years before the launch of the iPhone.”
The new Nokia patent claims are wide ranging covering user interface, on-device app stores, antenna structures, signal noise suppression, messaging functionality, chipsets, caller ID, display illumination, integration of multiple radios, and data card functionality. Click through for the full press release.
Unlimited data. No, for real this time. While US carriers are tripping over each other to claim the death of uncapped data allowances, the UK’s 3G-only network operator is bringing them back like a pair of retro sneakers. Three‘s grandly titled The One Plan takes all limits and fair usage gotchas away and just lets you suckle bandwidth to your heart’s content. And that explicitly includes tethering your phone to your laptop and using it as a 3G modem — very classy. New and old customers will benefit from this, meaning that if you’re already on this plan you’re in line for a free upgrade. The offer’s effective now and contracts start at £25 a month with a minimum term of one year. We’ll be highly impressed if Three’s network, never mind this deal, survives a full year of being bashed over the head by iPlayer streams and YouTube uploads, but here’s hoping, eh?
