Mobile Phone Deals, Latest Mobile Phone News and Reviews

Most of us at one point or another have contemplated throwing our mobile phones at the floor or wall, but some novel people in Finland have found the answer and started up the Mobile Phone Throwing Championship.

Started in 2000, the Mobile Phone Throwing Championship is open to all ages and is simply a sport in which participants throw their old mobile phones. The winners are judged on distance or technique and the championship is split into four categories.

The main event is a traditional over arm throws, with the biggest distance winning; competitors have three throws to gain their maximum distance. The second category is the Freestyle event, where competitors gain points for their creative choreographs and throws.

There is also a team event, which consists of three people in a team. Each team member throws once and the team with the biggest total wins. The last category is the junior event; this is open to children under the age of 12.

The Mobile Phone Throwing Championships are sponsored by many phone recycling organisations that promoted the recycling of mobile phones. The competitors can either choose a phone from the organiser’s selection or bring their own, as long as it weights over 220 grams.

LG have announced a successor to the hugely popular LG Viewty, an 8 megapixel powerhouse of a phone called the KC910. The KC910 is set to be released in October and boasts an array of high-tech features.

The LG KC910 is quad-band and features a 3 inch touchscreen display, Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity with HSDPA support, GPS, Bluetooth and TV-out support, as well as the impressive 8 megapixel camera with Schneider-Kreuznach lens.

The camera can also record VGA and QVGA video and includes a xenon flash for dark situations. A microSD card slot is also included, which can support up to 8GB and the usual audio and video playback is also supported.

When the LG KC910 is released it will go head to head with the Sony Ericsson C905 and the Samsung Inno8, both of which have 8 megapixel cameras. The LG KC910 is expected to hit the UK in October; prices and contracts are to be confirmed.

HTC have released details of its upcoming new Smartphone the S740. Built to be the successor to the S730, the new S740 has been styled to look like the Touch Diamond and Touch pro but has two keypads; a front mounted numerical pad (as on standard mobiles) and a slide out QWERTY keyboard like the HTC Touch Pro.

The S740 features a 2.4 inch display, which unlike the Touch Pro and Touch Diamond is non-touchscreen. As well as the styling, other features have been lifted straight from the Touch Diamond including a 3.2 megapixel camera, HSDPA and Wi-Fi connections, Bluetooth and GPS/A-GPS.

Also included in the HTC S740 is an internal memory of 256Mb and a microSD card slot. The S740 is slightly bigger and heavier compared to the Touch Diamond, but with the integration of that QWERTY keyboard you can forgive a few extra grams.

HTC say the S740 will be shipped in September; prices are to be announced.

Mobile phone network operator O2 has announced that it has signed a new deal with the England Rugby Club to sponsor them until 2012.

O2 have sponsored the England Rugby team since 1995 and the new deal, worth around £4 million will see O2 keep their logo on England Rugby shirts for all their internationals and the next Rugby World Cup (2011) in New Zealand.

O2 will continue to have substantial advertising rights for the England Rugby Ground at Twickenham, and will have exclusive hospitality privileges for its clients and various competition winners. As well as offering O2 customers exclusive coverage of the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and Premier Rugby (PRL) games, they will also remain the sole provider of telecommunications to the RFU and its players.

An O2 statement added that they were happy to sign the extension and that they would continue to support and promote the sport.

The Treo Pro is the latest device to come from renowned Smartphone maker Palm. This superb phone benefits from the powerful Qualcomm MSM7201 processor, 128MB of RAM and the user friendly Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system.

The Treo Pro sports a 2.4 inch touchscreen and full QWERTY keyboard, which has been designed to take on the new Blackberry Bold. Also included on this Quad-band Smartphone is HSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity, built in GPS, Bluetooth, 256MB of internal storage and a microSDHC card slot that can take up to 32GB.

A two megapixel camera is mounted at the rear, with an 8x digital zoom and video capture. Synchronisation to your computer is easy with the integrated USB connection, meaning that you can use the Windows Mobile operating system to check your emails, write documents and access the internet when you’re out and about.

O2 and Vodafone have already announced that they will be carrying the Palm Treo Pro in the UK and that it will be available in September.

One of the biggest supermarket chains Asda, have announced that it will be cutting its pay as you go mobile phone tariffs from September. This news comes as mobile phone operators such as O2 and Vodafone are raising their prices to recoup lost earnings, as the European Commission puts caps on termination fees - the fees that the networks charge each other for handling calls.

Asda will cut their calls from 16p to 8p and text messages to 4p each. This will make Asda the cheapest mobile operator in the UK, undercutting Ikea which was previously cheapest; Ikea introduced their own phone packages earlier this month.

Asda, who use Vodafone’s mobile network, has introduced their latest price cuts to attract some of the 47 million pre-pay mobile customers in the UK. And with the other mobile networks increasing their prices, Asda is set to take at least some of the market share away from the big operators.

Industry analysts have stated that because Asda and other leading retail giants buy large amounts of minutes from the mobile operators and this is why they can offer a better deal to the consumers. The retail chains are also more likely to use their tariffs to enhance their brand image rather that make money.

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.

Vodafone has unveiled its plans to open an additional 50 stores in the UK within the next year. The 50 new stores are set to create in the region of 200 jobs and take the amount of Vodafone stores in the UK to 400.

There are already plans to open new stores in London, Bristol and Liverpool by the end of October, and Vodafone hope to find locations and finish work on the further stores by June 2009.

Since 2006, Vodafone has been renovating its previous stores to include specific areas where customers can buy accessories and top-ups and search online help files through dedicated terminals, with additional areas for people to talk to an adviser or to get their phone serviced or repaired.

Vodafone have also been upgrading their in-store systems, to make it faster and easier for a customer to obtain a new contract and phone, update their details and pay bills.

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.