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Wimax v 3G: will 3G run into problems soon?

One of the things I didn't get around to reporting on at CES a few weeks back was Intel's Wimax stand.

It had several laptops on display from Dell and Lenovo (among other brands) that had the Wimax processor built-in. For those unaware, such a laptop can receive a Wimax broadband signal, if it's available. In Ireland, Imagine has launched Wimax and is building it out across the country's biggest cities and towns. The service offers speeds of 7Mbs (for €25 per month).

The Intel demonstrator knew all about Imagine. He knew about the frequencies involved and the general project underway in Ireland. This would tend to lend credence to Imagine's claims that Intel is taking Ireland seriously as a Wimax test-bed.

I asked him about competition, especially from mobile 3G networks, who will soon move to speeds of ("up to") 14Mbs and, according to the head of 3 Ireland, may hit 28Mbs by the end of 2010.

He made one interesting point about mobile 3G broadband. While the speeds can be turned up, there is a lack of spectrum to host very many people using the service at the same time. That means that if the numbers signing on to 3G broadband continue to grow at the pace they're doing at the moment, it doesn't matter how fast a download speed an optimum signal can deliver: it'll never deliver more than 2Mbs or 3Mbs at peak usage times.

Right now, though, 3G definitely has the edge over Wimax. The main reason for this is coverage. If you sign up for a Vodafone, O2, Meteor or 3 Ireland 3G dongle, you can use it just about anywhere in the country. (Okay, so there are a few place not covered. But the vast, vast, VAST majority is covered.)

You can also use it in some European countries (although watch out for data roaming costs, which are insanely expensive). At the moment, you can only use Wimax in a handful of Irish cities and not when you're on the road.

Vodafone Ireland readies its national launch of the iPhone

Vodafone Ireland will officially launch the iPhone to its customers within a couple of weeks.

Although the operator has been giving iPhones to select customers for over two months, it has not had the stocks nor the back-end infrastructure in place to make it available nationally. That will change over the next couple of weeks. There's no word yet on pricing.

From Vodafone's perspective, it is now crucial that it finally release an iPhone: O2 has recently improved its iPhone offering (including tethering support) in a bid to hoover up as many iPhone customers as possible before another operator starts to make it available.

Video review: HTC HD2 (Windows Mobile)

I had this amazing smartphone for a fortnight.

In that time, I loved some things about it (its 4.3 inch screen, its slim design, its speed and its Sense user-interface). I was less enthused about one or two features, mainly that its operating system still lacks the fluency of iPhone and Android. It's available from €50 on an O2 billpay contract.

(Please forgive the modest quality of the videocamera: we await restitution of our proper HDV-cam.)

 

A sexy Windows Mobile phone? Some mistake, surely?

Nope. That'll be HTC's HD2.

This Sunday, I'll have a lengthy, hands-on review of what is undoubtedly the finest Windows Mobile smartphone ever made. And yes, that statement does come with a huge caveat. And yes, that caveat is that Windows Mobile devices have sucked for the past five years.

In a nutshell, here's what's good about the handset:

-- gorgeous touchscreen (4.3 inches, capacitative)

-- superfast, thanks to 1Ghz Snapdragon processor

-- flawless Exchange synchronisation and best-in-class Mobile Office applications

However, it's not all roses, as you'll see in Sunday's review.

O2 Ireland finally allows laptop 'tethering' with iPhones

It's been a long time coming, but O2 has finally moved to allow its iPhone customers use their iPhones as broadband modems for their laptops.

You can simply pair the devices using Bluetooth or an iPhone dock.

Naturally, this doesn't apply to all IPhone plans (no pre-pay customers need apply, for example). And even for O2 contract customers, knowing which plan you can use it with and how much you can use is a muddy process.

O2 has put up an FAQ section on the issue here.

 

Unboxed: Nokia's N900

Nokia's much-anticipated N900 just landed on my desk.

Why much-anticipated? Because it's the first high-end Nokia since forever to use a non-Symbian operating system. The 'new' system is a Linux flavour called Maemo. No review here yet, or even first impressions, as I've yet to charge it...

As far as I know, it's not yet supported by any Irish operators (*correction -- Vodafone has it here for €270-€330 on contract -- thanks for correction, Jim!). However, you can buy it online for between €500 and €600, unlocked.

For the record, here are a few of its specs (plenty more here):

-- 3.5 inch touch-screen display
-- Slide-out Qwerty keyboard
-- 32GB internal storage
-- Up to 1GB of application memory
-- 5 Megapixel camera

Three companies under threat: Philips, Nokia and Microsoft

The technology and electronics industry moves fast. One year you can be the toast of the market and the next shrink into oblivion. Take Motorola. Five years ago, when it had the slim Razr-phone, it was a top three market seller. Today, it has sunk without trace in the European market. (It is experiencing something of a revival in the US, thanks to its adoption of Android.) The same happened with Siemens Mobile.

In the online space, we've already seen MySpace -- once the king of social networking sites -- shrivel considerably. Bebo looks like it's losing a lot of users to Facebook, too.

Who else is under threat? And how can they avoid serious contraction?
I think that three companies, in particular, face huge challenges this year and next year. They are Philips, Nokia and Microsoft. Here's why.

1. Philips: In Ireland, Philips ruled television set sales. As recently as 2006, Philips had over 50 per cent of the entire market here. Today, that has shrunk considerably, mainly due to competition from Samsung, LG and lower-cost brands (Sony and Panasonic have remained steady, while JVC and Mitsubishi have tapered off). When you walk into a store to buy a television now, how many Philips sets do you see in front of you? Not nearly as many as you used to. Its marketing seems to have disappeared, too. In fairness, Philips is a fundamentally innovative company. But to compete with the Korean, Taiwanese and Japanese companies, it needs to cut its prices or re-invent its design (or both).

2. Nokia: there was a day, not so long ago, when 80 per cent of all the best new innovation in mobile phones came from Nokia. It pioneered usable web-browsers, mobile business applications, powerful cameras and 3G connectivity. Then, three years ago, the iPhone launched. All of a sudden, touchscreen was in, mobile apps became the innovative metric and the industry took a different turn. Although it kept an eye on all of this, Nokia continued on its own path, concentrating largely on updating versions of its existing products and services. At the same time, emerging markets became a very important segment for the Finnish company. Belatedly, Nokia has begun to turn its attention to mobile applications through its Ovi internet strategy. At the moment, it is losing vital ground in this area, which will be very hard to make up next year or the year after that. Nokia will remain a huge player in mobile phones for some time to come. But it would be a massive achievement were it able to retain its more than 50 per cent Irish market share in 18 months' time.

3. Microsoft: For all its diversification in recent years, Microsoft's major corporate achievement was to lodge itself as the default operating system for PC manufacturers. Windows has never been pretty, but the world has used it anyway, thanks to inertia and the lack of a talented, willing alternative (Apple still refuses to play on the same pitch as Windows). In its most recent quarterly figures, Microsoft shows again just how reliant it is on its computer operating system business. While the roll-out of Windows 7 licences has been very healthy, its online businesses -- the bits Microsoft associates its 'innovation' with -- make pretty horrible losses. It's not that Microsoft's online stuff doesn't work, it's just that none of it is quite as nice or compelling as rivals'. its other great crutch is Office 2010. This has been the default word-processing and 'productivity' software for business for years. Joe Officeworker has just gotten used to it.

The trouble for Microsoft is that both of these bulwarks are starting to look really, really vulnerable. The threat doesn't come from Apple -- a leisure-time mobile device company -- but from Google. When Chrome OS launches, there will be a completely compatible alternative ecosystem for companies and home users to choose. And it will cheaper (as in, free). Microsoft looks like it is adapting a little, especially with its plans to roll out a basic free version of Office 2010. But ultimately, to remain dominant, it will have to slash the prices of both Windows and Office. When it does that, its core revenue streams will shrink. So far, it hasn't come up with much else that makes money.

Blackberry's wireless PowerPoint gadget

Blackberry rolled into town today, showing off a few of its new(ish) phones. This includes the touchscreen Storm 2 which, even on preliminary perusal, seems to perform a lot smoother than the original. (The accelerometer is far quicker, for a start, and the texting is less awkward.) The Bold 2 (9700) and a new violet version of the Curve (for the laydeez, apparently) were also on show.

The most interesting device on display was not a phone, though. The Blackberry Presenter is a very knacky little device that wireless connects (via Bluetooth) to your phone, which should have Powerpoint (or a similar presentation application) on it.

The gadget itself connects via cable to a projector or an external display screen. Presto: your presentation on a big screen controlled from your mobile in your hand at the back of the room. It even has a switch to toggle between PAL and NTSC, in case you're travelling to the US or Canada. We're waiting on an RRP price for Ireland, but are told that it will be €180. (It costs $200 from Blackberry's online shop in the US.)

CES reviews: 2-hour solar charger for iPhone, iPod Touch

This is a really great product. It's from a new company called Novothink. It's an iPhone (or iPod Touch) shell that is coated on one whole side with solar energy cells. Once you put the iPhone or the iPod Touch in there, it will fully recharge the gadget -- from dead -- in two hours (at peak sunlight levels).

The iPhone or Touch will also work normally as it is charging. The gadget has no Irish distributor yet, but can be purchased directly from Novothink.com for $80 (about €50).

Vodafone email accounts "blacklisted" by Hotmail

Thousands of Vodafone email users -- ie people with vodafone.ie email accounts -- can't send emails to Hotmail accounts. Many are claiming that Vodafone has been blacklisted by Hotmail.

Here's what Vodafone.ie emailers get back from Hotmail:

"This is the Vodafone Mail service... I'm afraid we were not able to deliver your message to the following addresses. This is a permanent error; Your mail will not be sent...
Remote host said: Mail rejected by Windows Live Hotmail for policy reasons. The mail server IP connecting to Windows Live Hotmail has exhibited namespace mining behavior...."

As many of you will know, "namespace mining behaviour" can be shorthand for phishing (among other things).

Vodafone customers aren't best pleased. All the more so as the problem has been ongoing for three months, with promises to fix it from Vodafone every couple of weeks.

In fairness, it does not appear to be just Vodafone experiencing difficulties. There are numerous reports around the web of similar problems with sending mail to Hotmail and Windows Live.

No response yet from Vodafone or Microsoft to queries lodged.

iPhone Fuel: battery extender

I like this. It's a protective case that doubles as extra power for your iPhone. Only downside is it makes the gadget a fair bit heavier. Still. Costs €60 from O2 Stores.

Apps.ie heading towards 100 Irish-made iPhone applications

Apps.ie is going from strength to strength. It now has 77 Irish-made iPhone apps up on the side.

Congratulations to all at X-Cake.

Review: Vodafone 360 (on Samsung's H1)

Vodafone has embarked on its most ambitious mobile handset project to date: a new operating system.

The system, called Vodafone 360, is hoped to rival the OS's on iPhone, Nokia and Google's Android. To kick the system off, Vodafone has launched two high-spec smartphones from Samsung.

Here, I'm looking at the high-end touchscreen H1 (which costs €100 on 18 month contracts of €35 and above, with an unlimited data package included).

Overview
The H1 360 has a 16GB hard drive (of which about 14GB is available) plus an additional micro-SD slot for extra storage. It has wi-fi, Bluetooth, a radio, a five megapixel camera and a 3.5mm earphone jack. It also has GPS, mapping software, a web browser, an email client and connects directly to a new Vodafone online application store. It uses a new operating system (based on Linux) which Vodafone hopes will become a rival to Nokia's Symbian, Apple's iPhone and Google's Android.

Design
In terms of looks, Samsung's H1 is up there with slickest, slimmest touchscreen models around. The front-facing rim feels like brushed metal, while the back is a solid heavy plastic polymer. Cleverly, Vodafone has kept its '360' logo in the same colour as the phone's shell, keeping the branding subtle. The 3.5 inch Amoled screen is about the best and sharpest on the market, displaying colours and images vividly.

Operating system
The 360 operating system is based loosely on an open source, Linux format. It's a 'new' system that Vodafone is introducing in concert with Verizon in the US and China Mobile in Asia. The idea is to go head to head with Apple, Symbian and Android in creating a platform for developers to create applications, games and programs for. The applications market is currently dominated by Apple's iPhone App Store. Operators are increasingly desperate to get a piece of this lucrative market.

Using the phone
Coming from other phones, there are a couple of things that take getting used to on the H1 360. The first is that there is no 'home screen', an entry screen that you come back to, to centre yourself after using the device for something. Instead, you can leave the phone in the application menu, the contacts menu or the 'recently called' menu.
But for Vodafone, the main idea of 360 is that you use the contacts page as your standby screen. This updates your contacts' availability status in real time. In other words, if they're on Facebook, it shows you the latest status update they posted. (For those worried about the data implications of this, Vodafone reckons that the 2GB monthly limit will be more than enough to handle this.)
The contacts screen is also the 360's design calling card. It's a flickable 3D view of all contacts and shows 'integrated information' about them. In other words, if a contact has a Facebook or Bebo account, the phone will incorporate this information -- and all the means of contacting them -- into their contact profiles. So when you click on a contact, you can choose to call them, send a text, send an email or connect on a social networking site with them. At the time of writing, only Facebook, Windows Live and Google were supported. But Vodafone says that Twitter is on the way. (For Twitter users, there is free client application available for download from the shop, called Twitta, but it is very poor.) Finally, there is an 'instant chat' option to communicate with other Vodafone 360 users.
The phone has a nice glowing base that indicates a missed call or unread text. In terms of battery life, I got two days from a single charge, with a little less using the phone for frequent web browsing.

Inputting text
For texting, writing and emailing, the phone relies on a Qwerty format, much like the iPhone. Getting used to punctuation, numbers and symbols, takes little to no time at all. The phone uses what is becoming a standard typing recognition system on high-end touchscreen phones, helpfully highlighting a letter or number to show you which one you are pressing. The phone cleverly extends this system into the web-browser. When weblinks are tiny and clustered together, it's hard to pick them out individually. So the system highlights and magnifies the two closest links to your touch and lets you choose which one, to avoid a wrong link.

Touchscreen
One of the most important practical issues with a touchscreen smartphone is how well the touchscreen itself works. The main reason that Apple pulled off its iPhone success is that its screen is so responsive. But it has to be, as a non-responsive screen negates almost all other advantages a smartphone provides. So far, no rival manufacturer -- with HTC coming close -- has rivaled the iPhone's ease of use. Sadly, the H1 is not the device to best the iPhone in this regard. Its touchscreen is pretty decent, though, and rarely hinders use of the device in any serious way.

Getting new applications
Vodafone wants to go head to head against the App Store, Ovi and Android. To do this, it must have an online applications store. So it has created one called 'Shop'. From the phone, you can browse for applications and download them directly over the air. At the time of writing, there were not too many applications available, but Vodafone is promising over 1,000 within the coming weeks. (It is also running a €50,000 competition in Ireland for the best application from an Irish developer.)

Performance and speed
The H1 has a decent -- if not exhilarating -- set of machinery under its hood. It runs on a 600Mhz TI processor, which is about the same as current high-end smartphones. To put in a faster chip would cost manufacturers (and operators) a premium. However, given their multimedia ambitions, the current generation of smartphones really need an extra speedbump: I found that the H1 slowed down considerably when performing some operations. It should be noted, however, that this was an early production model, with some bugs always likely.

Synchronisation
One of 360's other pitches is that you can upload your contacts to Vodafone.ie's 360 service, meaning that you have them available should you lose your phone. For anyone who uses Zyb.com, this will be a familiar process. There is no synchronisation yet available for Outlook, although Vodafone says that this will happen soon.

Music and photos
Music playback on the H1 is adequate. There's plenty of space (about 14GB) to hold music, while it sports a normal 3.5mm headphones jack. The five megapixel camera (with flash) is decent while the camcorder is superb -- as good as any phone tested so far this year.

Conclusion
Vodafone's 360 is an interesting, competent, operating system that is easy to get around. Features such as contacts backup are a welcome, common sense improvement to the mobile phone. Being able to access a friend's total web, email and phone contacts in one go is also very handy. At this early juncture, the main quibbles we had were sluggishness switching between applications and a lack of ability to keep multiple applications open at the same time. Vodafone also has a tough task taking on the giants of Apple, Symbian (Nokia) and Google when it comes to the adoption of its operating system.

Nokia introduces the Tubridy phone

Great news for luddites and men over-45: Nokia has updated its non-internet line of 'common sense' mobile phones.

This comes in the form of the 6303 Classic, which has no 3G, no internet and no wi-fi. All of this means that battery life is somewhat better than your ordinary mobile phone, at over two days on a single charge.

But it's not complete luddite country. The 6303 has a 3 megapixel camera and connects to a computer for the transfer of MP3 files, whatever they might be.

It's available from O2 for €130, from Vodafone for €100 and sim-free for €145.

Why Nokia needs to jumpstart Ovi before it's all over

Nokia needs to take Ovi a lot more seriously.

At the launch of the Nokia N97 in London earlier this week, I had a long chat to a senior Nokia executive about the company's plans for Ovi. I was a little underwhelmed.

In a nutshell, his attitude was that Nokia was so big, developers would be mad not to go out of their way to make applications for it. If they don't, it's their loss, he said.

To me, this smacks of arrogance and foolish inaction. If I were a senior executive in Nokia, I would be making the case that the Ovi Store should be one of the company's top two priorities over the next 12 months. Quite frankly, this is where a huge section of the mobile phone market is heading.

What is happening with Apple's App Store now is a similar phenomenon to what happened with iTunes in the early part of this decade. Apple has stolen a march and is consolidating its position. In the blink of an eye, it could corner the market. Mighty Nokia, which once so dominated the mobile market (and which is still by far the largest handset manufacturer), will be left wondering why they didn't move more swiftly.

So here is what Nokia needs to do, in my view: it needs to pull out all of the stops to get developers making applications for Nokia handsets. It needs a massive campaign to make mobile-users -- and especially smartphone users -- aware of what the Ovi Store is and how it can enhance your handset. And it needs to do this right now.

Most people I know have little awareness of Ovi. That's not their problem: it's Nokia's.