Mobile Phone Deals

The Sony Ericsson W980 phone is the latest offering of the Walkman branded phones to be released in the UK. The W890 is designed to give users the best available sound from a mobile device, and bundled with the handsfree HPM-77 headphones, the W980 is set to deliver a new height in music playback.

The W980 has a built-in FM transmitter that allows the user to listen to their music on any other device with an FM receiver, be it a home hi-fi system or car stereo. Internal storage is a healthy 8GB and can store up to 8000 songs and the eight band equaliser can be made to your custom listening preferences.

Navigating through your music also got easier, thanks to top mounted music controls that let you play, pause and skip your tracks effortlessly. Other features include a 2.2 inch internal QVGA screen, 3G connectivity with HSDPA support, USB and Bluetooth connections for transmitting data and a 3 megapixel camera.

The Sony Ericsson W980 is available now; prices and contract vary between networks.

Motorola have announced that they will be releasing three new mobile phones aimed specifically for the pre-pay and pay as you go markets. The three devices are the ZN200, W388 and the W396. All the devices have limited specs, but should have a humble price tag to go along with it.

The Motorola ZN200 has the best specs out of the three, and features quad-band GSM as well as GPRS and EDGE, a 1.9 inch display and Bluetooth and USB connections. The internal memory is a modest 30MB and the ZN200 comes with a microSD card slot for up to 2GB of storage for pictures and music.

Next up is the W388, a candy bar styled phone that features a 1.8 inch screen, GPRS support and USB connection. Other features include a microSD card slot that supports 2GB and a FM radio/music player.

The third device is the W396, a clamshell phone with similar specs to the W388. The W396 is dual-band, has a 1.8 inch display, UBS connectivity, microSD card slot, FM radio and media player.

Cheap and cheerful they are, but expect them to make waves in the pre-pay and pay as you go sectors. Prices and release dates are to be confirmed, but you can look forward to seeing them hit the UK within a couple of months.

As other phone manufacturers move more towards candy bar style touchscreen devices, it’s nice to see that Nokia are still producing new and stylish clamshell phones to the masses. Nokia’s latest clamshell design, the 3610 Fold isn’t going to win any gadget contests but is still stylish and practical.

The Nokia 3610 Fold is designed for users that want an uncomplicated phone that doesn’t have all the fancy gizmos of high-end devices, and it shows in the 3610 Fold’s specifications. The main display is a 2 inch QVGA screen and the secondary screen is a 1.36 inch display.

Other features include quad-band GSM so it will work wherever you want it to, a 1.3 megapixel camera with auto-focus and a multimedia player. There is 30MB of internal memory and a microSD card slot for up to 4GB.

The Nokia 3610 Fold has Bluetooth and USB connectivity for transferring music and pictures and when it hits the UK will be available in four colours, blue, red, rose and green depending on the network.

No news on the release date or price, but expect it to be around £100 for the sim free version.

Vodafone have announced their new music shop exclusively for their customers, the Vodafone Music Store. The Vodafone Music Store has over 700,000 tracks available from the newest songs and albums, to classic tracks and also has access to exclusive Vodafone performances, which you can download to your PC or phone.

Music purchased through the site will either be added to your monthly bill if you’re on a contract or be deducted from your pay as you go credit. Downloads cost from 99p for individual tracks and £5.99 for full albums, and music bundles are available from Vodafone including 15 songs for £7.50 or 7 songs for £5 a month.

Music can be downloaded onto your PC, phone or both, but to download directly to your phone you will need a 3G connection. The downloaded tracks can also be burned onto a CD up to 10 times before it is locked.

For more information or to check out the music visit the Vodafone Music Store website.

LG are hailing their new KC550 phone as the cheapest 5 megapixel camera phone to hit the market. The KC550 is aimed at the mid-range market so there are a few features that have been omitted, such as 3G and Wi-Fi which are not featured.

However, you do get stylish looking slider phone reminiscent of the LG KG800 Chocolate, a large 2.4 inch widescreen display, a microSD card slot for up to 4GB of storage, USB and Bluetooth connectivity and of course, a 5 megapixel camera.

The KC550’s camera is certified by Schneider-Kreuznach and has an LED flash for low light situations and can capture video up to a resolution of 720×480 at 30 frames per second. The device also features an accelerometer so you can play motion- sensitive games, of which there are six to choose from. A multimedia player is also included, but you will have to use the LG headphones as there is no 3.5mm headphone socket.

The LG KC550 is available for free on contract or a very attractive £160 for the sim free version. The LG KC550 is ideal for anyone who wants high quality pictures without the need for all of the fancy extras (and of course the price) of high-end devices.

HTC’s new Smartphone device, the Touch Pro has similar specifications to the hugely popular Touch Diamond, but boasts a full QWERTY slider keyboard tucked away underneath. The HTC Touch Pro features a 2.8 inch touch sensitive screen, TouchFlo 3D navigation system and is 3G, HSDPA and Wi-Fi enabled.

Like the Touch Diamond, the Touch Pro has the Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system controlling it, for easy access to the internet, emails and applications and a 3.2 megapixel camera for capturing photos on the move. The Touch Pro is 6mm thicker and 50 grams heavier than the Touch Diamond, but it’s a small price to pay for a practical and responsive QWERTY keyboard.

The Touch Pro also features Bluetooth and USB connections, GPS and A-GPS, TV out, Multimedia player, 4GB of internal storage and a front mounted VGA camera for video calling. The Only question now is which one do you want, the Touch Diamond or Touch Pro?

The HTC Touch Pro will be available in the next couple of months; contracts and price are to be announced soon.

Research In Motion (RIM) are to release their new Blackberry Bold 9000 Smartphone next month in the UK. Vodafone and 3 have already announced they will be carrying the phone, which the first Blackberry device to be released on the 3 network.

The new elegant and sleek design is reminiscent of other Blackberry devices, and features a full QWERTY keyboard, Trackball navigation and widescreen display. The Blackberry Bold is a quad-band phone as you would expect from the markets leading business phone and features tri-band 3G HSDPA network and Wi-Fi connectivity.

The Blackberry Bold comes with 1GB of internal storage as standard and has a microSD card slot for up to 8GB extra. Due to the upgraded processor (624 MHz compared to older models 312 MHz), the Bold is capable of running all of the applications and multimedia programs effortlessly.

Other features include Bluetooth and USB synchronisation, 2 megapixel camera, built in GPS and comprehensive multimedia player. The Blackberry Bold is due out in September and will be released on Vodafone first, followed by 3 soon after, prices and contracts are to be confirmed.

Due to the release of Sony Ericsson’s new Cyber-shot phone the C902, Sony have teamed up with Academy Award nominated director Mike Figgis (director of Leaving Las Vegas starring Nicolas Cage and Elizabeth Shue) for a unique film making project called Life Captured.

The competition gives you a chance to produce a day-in-your-life film from your mobile phones pictures. Entrants must use their phones to capture five pictures of their day and choose from four categories; morning, afternoon, evening or 24 hours. The pictures will then be uploaded to the website, where you can see the other entrants’ pictures as well.

The competition is open to 21 countries including Romania, Russia and South Africa and lucky winners will receive the new Sony Ericsson C902 Cyber-shot phone, with five of the best entrants being invited to London to see their film premiered at the Raindance Film Festival in October. The overall winner at the festival will receive a grand prize that is to be announced at the films premier.

Closing date for the competition is the 10th August. For more information and to enter visit the Sony Ericsson Life Captured website.

The ROKR E8 is the latest mobile phone/media player from Motorola and ticks all the right boxes when it comes to media playback on a mobile phone.

The candy bar shaped ROKR E8 comes with ModeShift technology that switches the device from a phone to a media player and to a camera with a touch of a button. The phone also features a navigation wheel for scrolling through your music, contacts and images effortlessly.

The ROKR E8 includes 2GB of internal memory and a microSD card slot to add an additional 4GB if required. The media player supports the usual audio formats like MP3, AAC, WAV and WMA and has a 3.5mm headphone jack and A2DP stereo Bluetooth for connecting to wireless speakers.

Being a small device, the ROKR E8 has a 2 inch QVGA screen and only weights 100 grams.

Probably the biggest drawbacks of the phone are that it only has a 2 megapixel camera with no flash and the phone lacks Wi-Fi and 3G, which is becoming more and more popular with other manufacturers.

The Motorola ROKR E8 is out now and contracts and prices vary.

A recent survey into how much mobile phone user’s pay has reported the users are overpaying by a whopping £8 billion a year. This is due to people not checking the terms and conditions of their packages and not shopping around for the best deal to suit their needs.

There are a number of ways that you can cut the cost of your phone bills, and the first thing to do is look at how often you use your phone and for what e.g. calls, texts or internet. Once you have figured out how often you use your phone you can then decide whether to have a pay as you go mobile or a monthly contract.

There are advantages and disadvantages of both agreements. The advantages of pay as you go are that you only pay for what you use, and you are not fixed to a contract. The disadvantages are that the minutes and texts you use can be more expensive than a monthly contract, you have to top up the credit when you run out and a handset is not provided so you have to buy one yourself.

The plus points of having a pay monthly contract are that you get minutes and texts bundled in, you will always be able to use your phone as the credit never runs out and the handset is heavily subsidised or free. There are some disadvantages though; you have a fixed contract for 12 or 18 months and minutes and texts that you don’t use, you still paid for.

Searching around is still the best way of finding the deal to suit you, as different networks offer totally different packages.