Mobile Phone Deals, Latest Mobile Phone News and Reviews

O2 have announced that it’s new PDA, the XDA Zest will be available on both pay and go and contract tariffs. It will be the first O2 XDA device to be offer on their pay and go tariff, and is hoped that first time PDA users will opt for the new device instead of a standard mobile phone.

The O2 XDA Zest is manufactured by computer hardware firm Asus, and is basically a re-branded version of the Asus P552w. The device features the Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional operating system, 2.8 inch touchscreen display, a 3.2 megapixel camera and secondary front camera for voice calls.

Wi-Fi and HSDPA are also supported as well as Bluetooth 2.0, USB synchronisation, built-in GPS and A-GPS, Pocket Office for viewing Word, Excel and PDF files and a media player supporting various audio and video formats. A microSD card slot is also available and can take up to 16GB of memory.

The O2 XDA Zest is due out sometime this month and will cost £249.99 on O2’s pay and go tariff, and will be free with some contracts.

Nokia have announced a new version of their popular 5130 XpressMusic mobile phone. Designed as a low budget phone and touted as one of the cheapest music handsets on the market, the new Nokia 5130 XpressMusic is set to be popular with the pay-as-you-go sector.

The Nokia 5130 XpressMusic is a quad-band device and has a 2 inch display, dedicated music buttons, a 3.5mm headphone socket and FM radio. Other features include a not too shabby 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth and a microSD card slot that can take up to 8GB (1GB card supplied with the device).

Of course being an XpressMusic handset, the Nokia 5130 has a media player that supports various audio and video formats, and the dedicated music keys on the side make it easy to play, pause and skip through your favourite tunes.

The Nokia 5130 XpressMusic ticks all the boxes for an entry level device, and with a price tag of around £70 and lots of features, is set to be very popular. The only downside is that it won’t be released until early next year, meaning you won’t be getting one in your Christmas stocking.

O2 have announced that the iPhone 3G will be offered to their Pay and Go customers in the UK from the 16th September. It does however come with a hefty price tag; £349.99 for the 8GB version and £399.99 for the 16GB iPhone.

You will be able to purchase the iPhone from O2’s dedicated stores, Apple stores or the Carphone Warehouse and the price will include a year’s Wi-Fi and browsing for free, but terms and conditions apply like the excessive usage policy.

O2’s standard Pay and Go tariffs are available with a range of free minutes to O2 and landline numbers, but text messages are not included and will cost 10p each. Existing O2 Pay and Go customers will have the option of upgrading to the iPhone and could be eligible for an extra 10% of your top up being converted to call time.

Pay and Go tariffs and terms and conditions are available from the O2 website.

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.

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.

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.