Next.

I’ve set my expectations to way below zero. I most definitely look forward to being utterly amazed and surprised. However I do have to wonder what more you could do with Facebook on a phone beyond what we’ve basically seen already.

I suppose I could have all my photos (and video) uploaded immediately to Facebook by default, rather than having to tap ‘share on Facebook’ on Windows Phone (for example).

It could be a useful technique for Facebook to help show the way for other manufacturers. We shall see. I wonder just how influential an ‘official’ phone can be nowadays given the various offers we’ve seen from the likes of Hutchison’s INQ Mobile or HTC’s own ChaCha with the nice blue Facebook buton.

Just when you thought Facebook couldn’t get any bigger and more powerful, comes the news that it is strongly considering launching it own phone.

Marky Z’s social network is said to have teamed up with HTC to create the first official Facebook phone.

via Turn Up For The ‘Book: HTC to Build First Official Facebook Phone | Phones4u News & Community.

Now, I was of course at Nokia World for much of the day where I couldn’t move for Lumias, but the reason I wanted to check out Phones4U was to get a real-world perspective from a retailer as soon as humanly possible.

I’m delighted to say that their representative, Cain (the deputy manager), didn’t disappoint.

To be clear, I wasn’t looking for a feature overview or an in-depth walk-through (although I appreciated the opportunity to sit and examine the device in the peace and quiet of their B2B room downstairs). I wanted their first impressions. I wanted to look in the eyes of a chap (or lady) who sells handsets daily and see what he made of the Lumia.

If you’re harbouring a bit of cynicism over Nokia’s entry into the Windows Phone world, prepare to be surprised. Cain lays it straight. He reckons they’ll sell very well. Indeed he pointed out that they’ve already had folk coming into the store today to have a look (driven, perhaps by the Phones4U social media outreach?).

Right, here’s the video:

[Note: I didn't take Cain's card so I'm really hoping that I've spelt his name correctly.]

[Further note: A geeky point -- I edited this video on the train. I imported the video from the Sanyo Xacti into my iPad 2, did the editing then published it via blip.tv's app when I got into WiFi. Love it!]

Do you like what you saw from today’s Nokia World show? Are you keen to get a look at the Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone? Well then, do not pass Go. Head straight for your nearest Phones4U store across the United Kingdom.

*EACH* Phones4U store has a Nokia Lumia 800 on-site right now. Today. Ready for you to play with. I kid ye not. It’s a special promotion that the team there have created with Nokia.

I’m impressed with the ingenuity. What a super idea!

It’s going to result in a heck of a lot of foot traffic to Phones4U I’m sure.

But it’s not just about looking, oh no.

You can actually pre-order immediately.

And I’ve got prices too. You’ll be able to pick up the Lumia 800 from Phones4U from just £26 per month (I’m presuming that’s on a 24-month contract — I haven’t checked that precise stat as I got the £26 from the chap I interviewed today — more on that in a moment). If you’d like to push the boat out a bit, Phones4U are offering a little more for those on £31+ price plans:

In addition to being offered the chance to test drive the Nokia Lumia 800 FIRST in ANY Phones 4u store before deciding to preorder, customers will also receive a FREE accessories package when they preorder the Nokia Lumia 800 on £31 and above tariffs, exclusively from Phones 4u. The accessories package, worth £49.99 includes a Nokia BH-111 headset in white, for wireless music and calls in quality stereo sound, and a Nokia TPU silicone soft cover in white.

Yes please. I think that’s worth the extra.

The £31 price plan is available from either Orange or Vodafone, both on 24-month contracts. If you pre-order now (either in-store or online) you’ll get your brand new Lumia on the 16th of November.

We heard a lot about retail collaboration at today’s Nokia World. Phones4U are getting stuck-in dramatically, thus:

Four of Phones 4u’s ‘top’ UK stores – Oxford Street, Stratford Westfield, Birmingham High Street and Leeds Briggate – will receive full store takeovers that include Nokia demo hubs with live devices and plasma TVs, and 3D Vortex Windows, all showcasing the new Nokia Lumia 800. A dedicated hero pod with live demo device will also feature in ALL Phones 4u stores across the UK

I look forward to seeing that.

I was at the Phones4U Oxford Street store today — I filmed a hands-on there. Standby. I’m about to post it.

Carphone Warehouse latest deal brings music to our ears, by tuning into Nokia’s latest music phone on just a £15 contract.

The 5800 XpressMusic arrives gratis on one of the most affordable tariffs around, on O2 with unlimited texts and 100 minutes allowance per month to any network and at anytime. Hurrah!

As compared with other offers around, it doesn’t appear to be for a time limited period only on a fixed number of months, although the contract duration is for 24 months. Then again, what do you really expect for a free handset that normally costs £249 – they have to make their money back somehow.

How other network tariffs measure up against each other for the 5800 is of distinct interest, which we found both to our delight and amusement. Starting from the highest cost; Orange’s own offering will be on a £35 contract we’ve been informed, O2 comes in at £30, T-Mobile also £30 (£20, for the first three months), Vodafone and Phones4U are at both £25.

How the others fair in their call allowance per months is also a tad interesting. With T-Mobile coming in with 700 minutes, Vodafone has 200minutes. The other networks are either not entirely upfront with their details, or even lack the complete acknowledgment the phone’s existence on their website.

The 5800, just in case you hadn’t already read the plethora of copy already on MIR has a reasonable 8GB internal memory for around 6000 tracks with instant access to Nokia’s music store. Coupled with a 3.3megapixal camera and Sat-Nav abilities, it’s a formidable beast.

More can be seen here, on the 5800 Carphone Warehouse deal.

We brought you news of the 5800 coming to Orange, way before anyone else on the planet in December last year. The handset was spotted at their partner camp in Florida by us, in which we wrote up the exclusive here.

Initially, Nokia had screamed foul at us for pre-empting such a thing arriving as the phone was only brought along to show case new mobiles. Seeing as it was ‘deliberately’ placed on the table of all the phones Orange sold, we rightly and ever so correctly, assumed it would be on their network soon.

Isn’t it great when we can predict the future.

UPDATE: It now appears, possibly in a gut reaction to the CPW announcement, Phones4U also now has a £15 deal for the Nokia 5800 on a T-Mobile contract. The plot thickens!

In fact, it took me longer to get my act together to take some photos of the new layout than it did for the Phones 4U staff to fix their issue. Well done

It can’t just be me that sees these things, can it? Have you noticed any silly lack of planning on at your local phone retailer?

Well at least twice a day I walk past what would appear to be the flagship Phones 4U store on Tottenham Court Road and most days I’m treated to an unobstructed view of some poor normob’s personal details. Name, address, phone number; it’s all there in plain sight as they cross their fingers and hope they pass the credit check for that shiny new device perched on the desk in front of them.

(For the non-Londoners: Tottenham Court Road, or TCR is traditionally where people go to buy high-tech goods although in recent years it’s popularity has dwindled somewhat.)

When I strolled past the other day and took some snaps with my N95 at lunchtime nobody was actually buying a handset, which is fortunate really as I couldn’t in good conscience post a photo of some poor unwitting sap’s home address on the Internet.

So yes, that photo you see on the left is one of at least five points of sale desks with the salesman’s monitor facing out into one of the busiest streets in London just a few strides away from the exit of one of London’s busiest tube stations (the prime real estate directly outside the exit is actually taken up with a very well designed and stylish Carphone Warehouse).

Now, as you’ll notice the N95 didn’t do a great job of capturing the text on the salesman’s screen.  But a 1080p high-definition camera such as the one we use for the MIR Show would easily pick up all the information on the screen.

I’m sure the Information Commissioner’s Office would have something to say about this.

In the meantime, if you really must purchase a phone from a high street store, I recommend going into the operator’s own shop or buying online… speaking of which, I always buy from the operator’s website but does anyone have any experiences to share from using a third party website to order their contract handsets?

You see, on Wednesday I took a trip down to my local high street, a busy one at that; in all I would hazard a guess that there are at least eight different phone shops – Carphone, Phones4U, T-Mobile, Orange, Vodafone all of that. With so many shops about you would have thought that the big retailers, mainly Carphone and Phones4U would at least hire staff who own basic knowledge on computers and mobiles, right?

Wrong!

I popped along to the O2 store to grab a SIM card for the iPhone, and the lady in there was helpful; I didn’t require much out of her, just a SIM, which she got. She couldn’t use the till though, so that took a little longer than I anticipated, but I got what I needed, and she was polite.

I then popped into the Carphone Warehouse. After my post about wanting a new phone I got quite a few responses, and e-mails. I got a particularly useful one from a chap called Mike (thanks), and he listed a few phones, namely the LG KS360. I was pretty interested in it – although not a fan of LG, it looked interesting.

A man approached me in the Carphone and he asked me if I needed any help, I replied I was looking for a phone, an LG, but I couldn’t remember the name of it. He pointed out one on display, and I said it had a QWERTY keyboard. The response I got…

“Huh, a WERTY keyboard? Oh look this one here has a keypad!”

Oh deary me.

I was surprised to say the least, seeing as I was standing next to a display of Laptops, and if my Mum and Grandma know what a QWERTY keyboard is (bearing in mind, my Mum is hardly the most technological-aware or apt person), I was left just a tad dumbstruck.

I proceeded to ask if he could check to see when the phone may be in. I was hoping he would go to the computer, and do a basic search or something.

Wrong.

He picked up the “Buyers Guide” and started flicking through that.

Maybe I was wrong to think this, but isn’t that produced for the benefit of the consumer?
I don’t know… At that point I asked for the guide myself and walked out.

I didn’t give up there though, all I really wanted to know was when this phone was going to be released, or if at all. Seeing as I’ve read quite a few reports that it’s due out around now in the UK, I wanted to see if this was true.

So I popped into Phones4U situated next door to the Carphone. There I was greeted by a lady this time, and I asked her if she knew if an LG phone with a QWERTY keyboard was out. I could tell by the “What-the-hell” face she had, she didn’t have a clue what I was on about, but she at least didn’t make up a word to repeat next to me. I did a gesture of “Air-Typing”, and she finally got what I meant, and took me over to the business mobile section. She pointed out some Blackberry’s (forgetting I asked for an LG).

I asked her again if she knew of any LG phone that fitted what I was asking for, and she pointed to an LG in front of me (not what I wanted), and then said no. No looking on the computer, nothing.

I said thanks, and left.

I’ve spoken to some very nice and helpful people in these shops before, but it just seems that on Wednesday they weren’t about. And yes, I had forgotten the name of the model, but wouldn’t it make sense to have a look on the computer?

What is more horrifying is the general lack of knowledge; the Carphone and Phones4U staff are not only just selling mobiles, but Laptops now too… Yet they don’t even understand basic terminology.

I’ll pop back soon and see if I can speak to someone who knows what they are talking about!

Also, I should praise Orange, I was speaking to a man in there, and he was very polite, and helpful. Thanks!