Tag: T mobile
Google Android phone video review round up
Most of all though manufacturers and networks began to see the operating system as a potential rival to Apple and one by one they came out of the closet and announced they were backing the Google OS on mobiles.
Vodafone interested in buying T-Mobile
Last month we told you that T-Mobile may well be on the verge of a sell out or merger since a spokesman from their parent company, Deutsche Telekom, expressed disappointment at their results in the UK market.
The FT is reporting this morning that it could be Vodafone who is in pole-position to mount a takeover.
If a buy-out was to go ahead it would make Vodafone the largest mobile phone operator in the UK. Currently O2 is the biggest, with a 27% share but if Vodafone’s 25% share was supplemented by T-Mobile’s 15% then they’d have a whopping 40% share.
This might be the proposed moves downfall though. Competition regulators may veto the takeover in the interests of market fairness.
Both Vodafone and T-Mobile have refused to comment so far although shares in both companies have risen in the market this morning.
(via The FT)
HTC Hero (er, sorry, G1 Touch) prices on T-Mobile
While HTC was making a song and dance over the Hero, T-Mobile launched their own version of the same handset only in black and with a name noticeably devoid of the actual manufacturer – the T-Mobile G1 Touch. I wonder if Peter Chou and his men have scratched HTC somewhere on it in very small letters?
The important difference – apart from the colour, obvs – is that T-Mobile has got some prices for us. It’s available for free – good start – from £40 a month on Flext which gives you £225 of effective credit to spend on any mix of UK and international calls and texts, picture messages, 08 numbers, voicemail and includes “unlimited” data.
T-Mobile MDA Compact V with CoPilot out this month
T-Mobile is launching a smartphone of their very own into the wild on 21st May known as the MDA Compact V, or the HTC Diamond 2 to anyone else.
It’s a 3.2″ touchscreen device running Windows Mobile 6.1 (upgradeable to 6.5) and the big push is that, like all good TVs these days, it comes with a bunch of internet widgets on the desktop for easy web app access.
It’s got a 5-megapixel snapper with flash and it comes preloaded with a week-long trial of sat nav software CoPilot. However, from 1st June the first 10,000 people to buy the handset will get the benefit of the trial software for a whole year.
The MDA Compact V can be yours free with contracts over an extortionate £50 per month. iPhone 3G anyone?
T-Mobile draws 18,000 karaoke singers to Trafalgar Square
Last night, in central London, 18,000 Londoners gathered to belt out karaoke hits in Trafalgar Square in the latest T-Mobile advertising stunt. The crowds convened at 6pm, and massive queues snaked into the central area. Pop star Pink showed up, too, and you can see in the video above.
After a couple of warm-up tracks, former T4 host Vernon Kaye led the crowd through several rock hits including “Hey Jude” and “Is This The Way to Amarillo?”. The staff at the nearby Texas Embassy confirmed to me that no, this wasn’t the way to Amarillo.
The Karaoke session follows a mass dance-off that took place in Liverpool Street Station in January and was subsequently used in adverts for the company. If you attended the karaoke fun last night, then don’t be surprised if your rendition of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” ends up soundtracking the company’ latest handsets.
Sky launching 'green button' on-demand ads
In an attempt to charge their advertisers more for their content without pissing off viewers too much, Sky is launching a ‘green button’ service for advertising. Much like the red button service that lets people find out more information about a program, the green button will enable ‘extended advertising content’.
Advertisers will be able to encourage users to press the green button during a trail, and it’ll take them to a location where they’ll be able to find out more, or watch an extended version of the advert. It could even feature entirely new footage.
Warner Brothers will be trialling the new technology for the upcoming release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and a campaign for T-Mobile will also be live from launch.
But why would anyone ever use it? Except in a few cases, like the Superbowl, most people regard adverts as a necessary evil to get the content they want. Unless companies used this service very imaginatively, then I can’t see viewers really getting too excited about this one.
(via Brandrepublic)
Android 1.5 to hit G1 owners in May
T-Mobile G1 owners yearning for an onscreen keyboard, video recording and Latitude for Google Maps need yearn no longer. Well, not much longer anyway. Android 1.5, better known as ‘Cupcake’, will be hitting handsets in May.
T-Mobile has sold 100,000 G1 handsets since its launch in October, six months ago. That might not seem like much compared to the iPhones dominance of the smartphone sector, but it’s not bad for a completely new OS, brand and device. It’s T-Mobile’s most popular handset, too.
The Cupcake update will be delivered over-the-air to phones, so you won’t have to do anything except maybe hit ‘yes’ once or twice. The onscreen keyboard should help ease complaints that you have to flip out the QWERTY to enter even small bits of text.
T-Mobile has also announced that it’ll be releasing a second Android handset in 2009. This isn’t the G2, or the HTC Magic, which is coming out on Vodafone and will be available this weekend to people who’ve preordered.
No, it’ll be completely new device. A device that we know absolutely nothing about – because T-Mobile won’t tell us anything. Damn them. When we find out, we’ll let you know.
T-Mobile
T-Mobile asks users to Pay Once for a BlackBerry Pearl
You may have thought that there were only two ways to go about organising your phone bill but T-Mobile has come up with a new solution – Pay Once. It’s not quite as deliciously inviting as the name suggests but it’s certainly interesting to see a fresh approach to the tariff structure.
The way it works is that you pay £179.99 in exchange for a silver BlackBerry Pearl 8110, like the one in the picture, with a 2-megapixel camera and GPS, and in return you get as much data as you can crunch in a year. There’s no voice or texts included, so you’re still topping up for that lot but, then, maybe you won’t need to if you use VoIP and web based SMS services?
It works out as around £15 a month to put it into some kind of perspective, so we’re not necessarily talking about a bargain here, just a different way of doing things. Nothing’s set in stone as yet but the idea is that, once your year is up, you’ll either be able to Pay Once Again at the same cost with an upgraded handset or slightly less if you just want to keep your Pearl. Interesting.
I don’t think Pay Once will change the world but, marketing aside, an extra package probably doesn’t cost T-Mobile an awful lot in the long term, so what the hell? It’s probably worth a punt for them and it certainly keeps them looking progressive.
Pay Once is available from 1st May and I expect to see it doing very well.
BlackBerry Pearl 8110 Review:
T-Mobile plotting Android home phone and tablet
Remember, before we all had mobiles, the days of the home phone. Having to drag the cable across the hallway and under your door if you wanted to have a private conversation without the rest of your family listening in? That mysterious ‘Mercury’ button?
Those days are mostly at an end, but there are a few people still buying landline phones. As a result, companies are still making them – including T-Mobile who, rumour has it, will be bringing out an Android version next year. There’ll be a docking station that lets you sync it and recharge the battery.
On top of that, there’s a 7″ Android tablet in the works too. There’s very little detail being shared, but it’ll apparently let you ‘check the weather’ or ‘manage data across a wide variety of devices’. Sounds good. More when we get it.
(via Electric Pig)
T-Mobile offers push e-mail to all for £3.50
A friend of mine was just complaining about their G1 being fantastic apart from having no push e-mail service, but it seems as if T-Mobile has answered her prayers today. The UK part of their network has released such a deal for all handsets – eventually – for the price of just £3.50…
