Source: www.guardian.co.uk

The Palm Pre has been out in the States for a few weeks now, and seems to be making some headway in the market. Over there it has become known as a comparable option to the iPhone in terms of both aesthetics and features, but without draining the bank balance quite so much (most users will save anything between $30 and $50 per month by plumping for Palm’s latest handset over Apple’s). However, unsurprisingly for a cellular market which has come to compare every new handset to the iPhone as a matter of course; the new iPhone 3GS has exploded in the US, selling over a million units in the first three days.

However, the American market primarily uses the CDMA network, whilst Europeans hoping to get their hands on the Pre will obviously want something more compatible with the existing GSM networks. Thankfully, Palm have come to their aid by unveiling their Palm Pre GSM and announcing that it will be available on the O2 network in the UK.

For the uninitiated, the Palm Pre packs quite a punch in terms of its specifications – not only does it look the business with its sleek, slide design with QWERTY keyboard and 3.1″ 320×480 touchscreen; but also comes with internal GPS, 3MP camera with LED flash, accelerometer and proximity sensors, WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 (with Bluetooth internet connection tethering!), and impressive media compatibility for images, videos and music. All of this is packed into Palm’s brand new mobile operating system, webOS, which has so far received overwhelmingly positive reviews in terms of its speed, functionality and looks.

The final attention grabber with the Pre is its charging station, Palm’s much-exulted Touchstone, a magnetic charging dock that you just place your phone onto to charge… no wires, no plugging anything in, it just works. The only downside is the somewhat strange notion of having to make sure your phone charger is charged before you can recharge your phone…

Palm and O2 are still agreeing the specifics of the deal, but it looks like the Pre will hit British shores within a few weeks. Personally, I cannot wait to get my hands on one and see first-hand if it’s worth going from my Nokia N96 back to Palm for what looks to be a truly spectacular mobile phone. It’s been a long time coming!

I recently upgraded from an N95 (an awesome phone) to its bigger brother, the N96. Though I’ve gone with Nokia for my last few phones as I’ve grown to love the way they work, I think I’ve owned a couple or so phones from pretty much every brand out there by now.

With each one I found the same thing – the phone at launch has certain issues. Always.

My shiny new N96 had pretty lame battery life. The camera took a good 6 or 7 seconds from opening the camera app to me being able to take a picture. The menu was a bit slow to react, the search was sluggish, and my Bluetooth connection was occasionally cutting out while I was transferring my photos. Happily, I’ve had enough phones to know by now that the early kinks of all these smartphones are generally ironed out in the months following its launch, with numerous firmware upgrades. Do most don’t bother with these? A quick trip to Google rewarded me with the update file, which I duly ran and – amazingly enough – it was almost like having a new phone. The battery seems to last a lot longer now, and the camera is much improved, and I haven’t had the Bluetooth issue since. There’s a lot more that has been fixed, too, but I’m glad that all my major problems with the phone were sorted out. I’ve had this experience now with phones from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Motorola. A phone that was a bit of a pain to use before suddenly gets a new lease of life. Sometimes the new firmware will include major updates – take Apple’s new 3.0 OS, for example, which brings copy/paste, MMS and device-wide search capabilities.

So, Google your phone model and see if you can find a firmware update – it’s a must!

Is your upgrade window approaching? If so, you might like the look of this one.

Released on June 19th – timed perfectly with Apple’s latest update to their ever-impressive iPhone – the N97 is definitely one to watch. With phones continuing to become essentially pocket computers, Nokia’s latest offering combines the ease of touchscreen technology with the practicality of a QWERTY keyboard. The screen is impressive in both size and quality, delivers a fully-featured internet experience.

The vital statistics, then:

• 3.5 inch TFT screen, 640×360 resolution, resistive touch (16m colours)
• 32Gb onboard storage (with additional microSD slot)
• 5 megapixel (2584×1938) camera with Carl Zeiss optics
• 16:9 DVD quality video recording @ 30fps
• built-in A-GPS and electronic compass
• 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm
• slide mechanism with full QWERTY keyboard
• WLAN and HSDPA (3.5G)
• powered by Symbian OS v9.4, S60 rel. 5, ARM 11 434 MHz processor, 128Mb RAM

You can find the full specs on Nokia’s website.

The slide opening mechanism is pretty neat, too… though I could see myself playing with it out of boredom and probably breaking it. But how can you really be bored with all the features on this puppy?

While Apple’s iPhone OS is widely considered the current standard for touchscreen devices, the N97 sticks true to the Symbian OS v9.4, which includes a built-in video and photo editor, mobile office suite, and a whole bunch of other goodies. The N97 seeks to improve over its high-spec N-series chums with a redesigned homescreen, giving users the ability to customise the most often-seen part of the phone. You can install widgets on there, too, which grant specific functions; perhaps the most touted of which lets people instantly update their Facebook status.

Feature-rich, touchscreen as well as a full QWERTY keyboard, and even though it may be a little bulky for some people, the overall aesthetic coupled with the funky slide really makes it a thing of beauty.

I’m starting to wish I’d held off on that upgrade to the N96 now…

The third incarnation of Apple’s iPhone line, the iPhone 3GS, which launches in the UK on July 11th, looks to be improving on a good formula. What’s more, its release is wonderfully well-timed, since the v3 update to the iPhone OS went public on the 17th. Clever move!

The 3GS offers improved speed over the 3G (Apple claim twice as fast in some cases), as well as better battery life, a 3 MP camera with autofocus and video recording, voice commands, and a built-in compass. Check out a speed comparison with the iPhone 3G – it really races along:

Everybody with an iPhone or iPod Touch can benefit from the features of the new software however – though iPod Touch owners have to pay a £6.99 fee to update. The improvements include copy & paste and MMS (even if some might say that perhaps they could have been there from the start), a phone-wide search feature (Spotlight), a landscape keyboard to make it easier to type, and plenty of other system-wide improvements.

What with the unveiling of the 3GS also coinciding with the usual upgrade period following the release of the original 2G iPhone, in many ways it’s a great time to get your hands on the 3GS. Even through all the hype and clever marketing, it has to be said that the satisfying user interface and flexibility of the App Store have cemented the iPhone’s place in the market for a good while.

What happens when you love your phone too much to change it?

Or when you are looking to cut the cost of your existing contract?

Or even when you aren’t looking for a lengthy 12 or 18 month commitment? Two words for you – SIM ONLY!

SIM only deals are easy, flexible and at a low cost and are the perfect answer to all of the above queries.At OneStopPhoneShop we offer SIM only packages on O2, Orange, Virgin and T-Mobile. I think the best thing to do, is let the deals do the talking, so below is a summary of some of the best deals on our site but to see our full range CLICK HERE

O2

£15 per month
300 minutes/300 texts
Only 1 months notice required for termination
Receive free O2 goodies – such as free minutes, texts and more!
Please check that your handset accepts O2 SIM cards before purchasing

Orange

£15 per month
200 minutes/Unlimited texts
Only 1 months notice required for termination
Keep the phone you love but get better value for money.
Please check that your handset accepts Orange SIM cards before purchasing

Virgin

£15 per month
300 minutes/500 texts
Only 1 months notice required for termination
FREE voicemail
Up to £35 worth of FREE calls and texts with Virgin’s daily bonus tariff!
Please check that your handset accepts Virgin SIM-cards before purchasing

T-Mobile

£20 per month
600 minutes/Unlimited texts
Only 1 months notice required
Amazing value for money!
Please check that your handset accepts T-Mobile SIM-cards before purchasing