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alangreenwell · Sep 18, 2007, 04:28 AM

The o2 store is down, has this got anything to do with the impending announcement at the London Apple store?

The UK Apple store is still up, however!

richwig83 · Sep 18, 2007, 04:44 AM

I noticed that too... its been down all morning!!! I hope its the iPhone and i hope it costs about 100quid!!!!!! NO chance...

alangreenwell · Sep 18, 2007, 05:02 AM

I have a blackberry pearl with two months left on the contract, but I think its time to cancel the contract and get the iphone. Running two phones side by side with my work phone for a couple of months.

Heres hoping they are released today.

alangreenwell · Sep 18, 2007, 05:04 AM

Now the apple store is done, I need an iPhone

richwig83 · Sep 18, 2007, 05:09 AM

Me too... i'm over due an upgrade!!!

jebjeb · Sep 18, 2007, 05:13 AM

£269 inc vat. No specs of the actual hardware yet.

jebjeb · Sep 18, 2007, 05:14 AM

On Sale 9th November in UK

jebjeb · Sep 18, 2007, 05:15 AM

No 3G. Bugger.

Unlimited data with £35, £45, £55 plans. Partnered with Carphonewarehouse for sales.

alangreenwell · Sep 18, 2007, 05:17 AM

That's ages away.

jebjeb · Sep 18, 2007, 05:19 AM

Sure is a while away but maybe (dreaming here) they will suprise us with a 3G version by then

.

Impressed with the "unlimited" data at £35 but one must remember that O2's Unlimited Blackberry plan actually means a max of 75 MB per month! This nearly inspired me to contact the ASA regarding false advertising.

Lets hope that unlimited means at least a couple of GB per month.

jebjeb · Sep 18, 2007, 05:21 AM

Steve responds to why no 3G.

"The 3G chipsets are real power hogs. Handset battery life cuts power to 2-3 hours." Yeah yeah, we've heard it before. "Our phone has a talk time of 8 hours and that's really important when you want to use your phone for internet and music. 3G needs to get back up to 5+ hours, something we think well see later next year."

Blah. At least O2 has made arrangements to use over 7,500 wifi hotspots around UK. Hope that is included in monthly price.

jebjeb · Sep 18, 2007, 05:22 AM

BTW, I'm getting this all from Engadgets feed

jebjeb · Sep 18, 2007, 05:26 AM

WiFi hotspots are included in monthly fee. That's good.

They are giving all the excuses that Wifi is faster than 3G etc. Just give us the ability to have 3G or to revert to EDGE/GPRS so we can get around the arguments of battery life!

jebjeb · Sep 18, 2007, 05:28 AM

18 months contract. That is better than the rumored 2 year.

Download limit: "1,400 internet pages per day would break the deal as part of fair usage agreement." Is this just one of those silly simplifications of how many webpages it takes to use up x amount of data. I guess we will find out the actual size limit later.

JonoMarshall · Sep 18, 2007, 05:58 AM

Originally Posted by jebjeb

WiFi hotspots are included in monthly fee. That's good.

I'm not convinced by this, Cloud are a subscription based service, hmmm.

Also O2 invest (insert correct figure here) zillions in 3G over the last 6 years and are now rolling out and investing in 2.5G, pfff?!?

I'll wait till the 3G revision for sure, hopefully the camera and storage will be addressed by then too.

jebjeb · Sep 18, 2007, 06:19 AM

£4.2 billion if I recall correctly. That's what they spent on their 3G licence (forgetting about actual setup costs).

That was my main reason for thinking their was a chance that they would release a 3G version here first. However, O2 and Apple know that there will be plenty of people willing to pay for a non-3G version so they may as well release it here before the hype toned down.

I am still considering one due to the less than expected costs. I currently use around 800MB of data a month but that is mostly through my MacBook Pro whilst teathered to my 3G mobile via Bluetooth. I can get an iPhone for £269 for only £35 a month with "unlimited" data plus now that 3 has released their data package via external data card for £10/month for 1GB or £15/month for 3GB. I currently pay a total of £42.50/month for the equivilant £35 plan plus 3GB of data over the handset with T-Mobile. For basically the same price I can get an iPhone plus a 3 3G data card (with only the 1GB but that is all I need).

It is worth me considering. I am strongly thinking of just waiting until O2 has the Nokia E90 in stock and that the "unlimited" data plans are available for non-iPhones as they said would happen on the 1st of October.

jebjeb · Sep 18, 2007, 06:21 AM

Also, I guess they have just done a deal with Cloud to include their service with the iPhone plans. Just because they are subscription based now does not mean that they can't do a deal like this. Steve (or was it the O2 chap) did say it was included in the plans.

alangreenwell · Sep 18, 2007, 07:04 AM

The Cloud service is no great deal as far as I am concerned. My mobile web browsing is limited to using the web to find phone numbers, checking news pages, and not much more.

However it might be ok for siting in the airport.

I am more concerned with the functions, such as visual voicemail, photos and music. Currently while travelling I carry a Blackberry, iPod, and a Jobo photo store (which can be relegated to my photo bag where it belongs). I would be very happy to replace those lot with one device.

While I am on it, what about someone bringing all of the credit debit and store cards under one piece of plastic?

chasg · Sep 18, 2007, 04:08 PM

Hey jebjeb, why would you go for the Nokia E90?

I'm an O2 customer, and I've been trying to upgrade to the E90 for a month now (but it never seems to arrive in any of their stores...). I've been stuck with an XDA IIs for a year and a half, and it stopped talking to my Macs about a year ago (I was using PocketMac to get them to talk, but it, well, stopped). I was considering the E90 as a replacement because WinCE is not attractive to me.

What I'm wondering is, now that the iPhone is close, why you'd still consider the E90?

I'd love to have a phone that plays nice with my MBP (I used to carry a Palm for PDA use, and a mobile for calls and I thought I was being clever by getting a phone that combined the two but none have been Mac friendly) and it'd be really great to have high speed data for my Mac when on the road (I have to admit, the £10 for 1GB of data on 3 sounds very interesting, I wonder if any other carriers have anything else as attractive?)

But I'm still wondering, as you're obviously someone who has thought about it, why the E90?

Chas

jebjeb · Sep 18, 2007, 05:21 PM

G'day, Chas

E90 has all the kit plus a very decent display. I don't like the N95 which has a very similar feature set but without the keyboard and large display.

The E90 is 3G plus HSDPA so I could have one device that provides me very fast internet on both the phone functionality plus when tethered (via bluetooth or cable) to me MacBook Pro.

Most of the sites I work at do not have Wifi and I need to punch around large (3-4MB) attachments so speed is important. The iPhone will not help me there. Even forgetting about speed, from what I have seen, the iPhone cannot be tethered to a machine and I am not sure if you can transfer over a file to attach to an email in the iPhone. Basically it means I would need the separate data card. This involves having to plug something into the laptop, connect and then work away. With an E90 (or even the solution I have been using for well over year now with a 3G Nokia 6280) I can just connect via Bluetooth and then do what I have to do. The phone can remain in my pocket and I can walk around to meetings with just the laptop and not a bag/external modem etc.

Like you, I have been looking for an E90 for ages but it keeps getting delayed as Nokia have had some production difficulties. Vodafone has them but their call and data plans are just plain silly. They can not offer me any more than 120MB of data a month (for an extra 3& on the monthly contract) through the phone. I either pay £2 per extra MB or get a data card as well which defeats the objective.

O2, especially as they will offer the "unlimited" (still need to find out what that means in MB/GB per month) data package on all phones. If they can give me an E90 at a decent cost with the right plan, then I would be interested.

I am not ruling out the iPhone but I would hate to be stuck with a Gen 1 which was a compromise from the start and then not be able to change over (until my contract expired) when Apple releases the 3G version.

I had a XDA IIs as well (at least I think it was the IIs... does it have the slide out qwerty keyboard?) before I got the 6280. It also stopped working with Pocketmac!

It is just that I have a very neat solution at the moment. I can browse the web on the phone (although it is a pretty small screen but a decent res at least), connect my laptop via bluetooth from my pocket and get 80kB/s. One device, one contract, one data limit. Easy. I would just like to have this with a better phone and, ideally, HSDPA for the extra speed.

I'm afraid that if I go with an iPhone, I am doing it just because I like the kit and not because it can do the job. If I want the whizbang stuff of the iPhone, I am probably better off getting a new phone (possibly an E90), working the same way I do now and getting an iPod Touch for the cool stuff.

chasg · Sep 20, 2007, 12:20 PM

Wow, great info, thanks!

You've actually clarified some things for me. The only thing I don't know is if the iPhone is going to be available for upgrade by existing customers. If it is, then I'll go for it. If not, then I'll upgrade to the E90 anyways, and sell it when I get an iPhone :-)

Thanks again for the considered reply!

Chas