Dark room – check.
Loud music – check.
Zero access to product or service – check.
Underground / no signal – irrelevant… no product to test.

Yes… it must be a handset launch.  And it’s a shame, because the excellent people at 3mobilebuzz had made a massive effort to get us there with Three’s PR team… Thanks to them at least for that – it is appreciated guys.

On the plus side, I do have a device now and initial testing is positive.  It’s a not a smartphone, but it’s slim and feels well built.  The software is nippy and UI is stylish.  Particular kudos to the Three people who have added their brand customisation, but have integrated it really well with the device both in use and style.  The highlighted feature is the ability to upload video to YouTube directly from the handset and then text the link to friends…  It’s nothing that Shozu hasn’t been able to do for the most part for a long time, but the execution is slick and makes this the most normob-friendly implementation of this I think I’ve seen.

Free with a contract from as little as £17 per month for 18 months, I expect this to have great shelf-appeal for people looking for an attractive low-cost phone with the appealing Walkman music playback features plus the lightweight content-creation option.  The ‘Darkside’ experience we ‘enjoyed’ (OK, it was quite fun) tonight will be travelling around Student Unions for the next few month – it will sell in bucket-loads there.

–

As ever we’ll be giving the device a work-over and giving it away in the not-to-distant future.  Don’t say we don’t treat you people nice…

The text on the email continued:

You’ll be able to investigate their [3's] upcoming products and methods of accessing the web – we’ve been promised a couple you won’t yet know about – before the Christmas rush sets in.

Essentially the event is billed as an overview of what 3 will be aiming to deliver this Christmas. As I commented on the podcast, I hope it’s good.

We should most definitely see news about the new Skypephone and some new handsets. Alfie, one of the guests on the podcast, is hoping to hear news about some new Sony Ericsson handsets.

Standby.