Ask any geek about the Galaxy SII and they’ll nod appreciatively. The device is rather wonderful — the screen is huge! Of course, it’s famed for being super slim — a real testament to the company’s continuing ability to turn out good looking yet functional devices.

Have a look then at this sponsored video from Samsung. It’s a ‘street squad’ video involving a young lady by the name of Alex go shopping with the aid of both the Galaxy SII and her friend, Annabel. During the video we see Alex demonstrating an array of features on the phone, from video calling to Foursquare to video recording and sharing.

I found it rather illuminating to see Samsung pitching the handset features in this manner. I think females watching the video will be rather impressed.

What do you reckon?

You can watch more Street Squad videos from Samsung at their youtube page.

I came across Samsung’s latest promotion — Samsung Stage — this morning. It’s to promote their mobile devices, more specifically, of course, their rather gorgeous Galaxy SII.

I’m on record as saying I’m not a big fan of the SII battery, however I’d like to clarify that the rest of the device is gorgeous. You can’t avoid admiring how slim it is, or the multimedia capabilities.

The competition is neatly described in this (sponsored) video:

If you’ve got a talented child — or, if you’ve got a particular talent yourself — then you’d be well advised to get stuck into the Samsung Stage competition as you could win $25k. To qualify, all you need to do is take a 2-minute video demonstrating your abilities and submit it. Doing so with a Galaxy SII should, I imagine, only enhance your chances.

All the details are at the Samsung Youtube site. There’s already quite a few entries.

Now then, it’s not every day that you get to see leading mobile device blogger, Chris Davies, strapped into a rally car and thrown around a dirt track as he does his level best to unbox Samsung’s latest device.

The phone in question is the Samsung Galaxy SII running Android.

Some bright spark at (I presume) Samsung decided to ask Chris and the SlashGear TV team to do a bit of a different unboxing. Indeed, the sponsored video explanation email I got earlier reads:

Chris Davies from Slashgear.com unboxes the new Samsung GALAXY SII at top speed in a Rally Car

Heh. I admit I smiled broadly at the mere notion of Chris being on camera. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him appear in any of his unboxing videos apart from the odd limb or reflection — so it was a nice change to see him doing a Jeremy Clarkson.

I was looking forward to some pantwettingly delightful scenes as the car was thrown around the track by the rally driver, however I have to say, Chris did a brilliant job of keeping a straight face and ensuring the facts kept coming.

Here are two favourite quotes from the video:

“It’s also got TouchWiz — OH MY GOD — two-point-zero on it, with Samsung’s customised interface.”

“It’s got full access to the Android Market… WOW WE’RE GOING FAST…”

Super job Mr Davies!

I’m a Vodafone UK customer. I have opted-in to their special European data roaming deal that gives me 25mb of roaming data per day, in return for £2.

Now that’s cheap. Very cheap, when Vodafone will normally take £1 per megabyte from me without thinking.

Unfortunately, Vodafone’s Price Plan Cretins (known in the business as VPPC’s) decided that after this 25mb daily allowance, I will be billed an excruciating £1 per megabyte.

So they’ve almost got it working nicely. I suspect that the viewpoint from the VPPC committee is that 25mb should be enough for anyone to ‘use the internet on their phone’ in a given day.

My primary handset is a BlackBerry Bold 9780 (running 6.0 of RIM’s OS). RIM know what they’re doing in the context of mobile data compression technology. Sanyu Kiruluta from RIM’s EMEA Developer team made that perfectly clear when we put her on camera to discuss ‘the data capacity crunch’ a few months ago.

One of her key points:

“We tell developers: Only send the necessary data, only send it when necessary.”

This philosophy is, I believe, born of the fact that when RIM were starting out, data was a scare commodity. You had to make really good use of the available GPRS bandwidth. You had to allow for continual service interruptions and for poor network bandwidth. So RIM optimised the hell out of everything.

Let me highlight just how important this is for the mobile marketplace.

You see it is very, very easy to get rather frustrated with the mobile network operators for not delivering in today’s always-on culture. It’s really easy to get annoyed by the stupid battery consumption problems that almost any modern smartphone suffers from. I regularly explode at my network operator’s inability to deliver me service when I need it. I am continually banging the table (at industry roundtables) demanding a ‘boost button’ so that I can get prioritised data access services so that my connection will be faster, when I need it.

I really cannot stand sitting on the bus and watching my bandwidth from the cell seem to disappear almost immediately when the teenager sitting across from me flips open his bog-standard smartphone and starts streaming an HD Youtube video. For no apparent reason, other than he’s bored.

“That’s not an efficient use of the mobile network infrastructure,” I scream. To myself.

I remember being at an HP roundtable a while ago — years ago. One of the tech guys there wanted to illustrate just how fragile our mobile infrastructure was. He got four Nokia N95s, all on the same network. He then proceeded to make a video call between a pair of them. All was fine. The picture was excellent. He then got the other pair fired up and tried to connect them on their own video call. Everything went to shit. The original video call began to break. The new video call couldn’t show any video signal at all. I could virtually feel things breaking at the local cell tower. This was a few years ago.

Things are a little better now.

The mobile networks have invested substantially in shoring up their data capacity capabilities. It was o2 UK, if memory serves, that recently announced it was spending something like a million pounds a day building out it’s network in the wake of the meltdown caused by so many iPhones blindly shooting their data loads all over the place.

Just how bad is the data demand from a smartphone? Well, there are all sorts of facts and figures around that we could resort to. We could quote the ‘average’ smartphone data usage. We could argue or support Vodafone’s 25mb daily roaming limit — is this 25mb limit a perfect allocation of data for your average consumer? Quite possibly. I doubt my mother would use more than that in a given day.

But having set out the semi-interlinked points above, let’s get to the main point of today’s post: The flipping Google Nexus S.

I went out and spunked the cash on Samsung’s Nexus S. It was, I reasoned, about time I had a proper up-to-date Android phone. There are plenty of test ones around MIR Towers, but I thought I needed to have one to play with and experience.

I’ve been doing just that. Now and again I take the SIM card out of my BlackBerry and stick it into the Nexus.

I’ve not had much time to do anything to the Nexus, beyond setup my Gmail (3 accounts) and have a quick look around the phone. I’ve downloaded one or two apps from the Marketplace — and I’ve installed a beta version of Swype to replace the dire standard on-screen keyboard.

That’s the extent of the configuration.

The first flaw with the Nexus S is that, if you use it the way you’re meant to do, the battery hits 50% before you can type ‘mobileindustryreview’. My annoyance at this experience is only heightened by the helpful Android fanatics who feel obliged to point out that I’m, “doing it wrong.” I need to switch off real-time email delivery, apparently. That, “chews a lot of battery”, I’m told. Duh. And, “you should put your screen brightness down loads.” That is another genuine suggestion from a 35-year old IT expert I know.

Well, obviously. I only used to get through the day with my T-Mobile G1 Android phone by using one of those power saving apps that basically switched everything off, from the WiFi to the screen. It effectively bricked the device continually unless I specifically wanted to use it, at which point, the app would scream and scream as the battery dripped charge.

I refuse to do this with a £500 handset.

It is not the battery that’s the problem for me though.

Oh no.

It’s the sodding data use.

I’ve been coming to France for two days a week for the last three months. Vodafone’s 25mb for £2 days deal has been keeping me going. The moment I enter France and the BlackBerry selects a new network, I get the friendly ‘hello, you’ve got 25mb’ message from Vodafone.

And that’s all I get from Vodafone, despite giving the BlackBerry a good amount of data use throughout the day.

The Bold has four email accounts constantly being updated. Three Gmail accounts, one BlackBerry ‘Instant’ email account. The BlackBerry Twitter super-app is live and updating every 20 minutes. Google Maps is constantly monitoring my location. Smrtguard is pinging the server to keep an eye on my phone’s location (and doing a backup every evening). Google’s own Gmail app is always live and pinging. I use that to access my 20gig email archive as necessary across the day. BeReader updates regularly across the hour, keeping my Google Reader feed updated and ready for review. SmartWiFi sits in the background monitoring my cell location — when I get home or when I get to my hotel (where there’s a WiFi network), the app switches on my WiFi and begins routing all my traffic across that connection. Text messages are flying in and out. And BlackBerry Messenger typically runs read hot most days.

Now then, battery wise, the BlackBerry will typically last a full day. On some particularly heavy days, especially when I’m using the telephone portion of the device, the Bold will get to 11pm with about 20% battery. It’ll go a further few hours before the horrible RED battery display appears — then it really does need a charge.

The key point? I get full usage out of it.

But what about the data?

Well I don’t actually know. What I can tell you is that I never, ever get a message from Vodafone saying I’ve gone over 25mb in a given day, when I’m roaming. Never.

If I was sending copious amounts of photos, I suspect I could force my device to exceed the 25mb roaming limit, but my normal heavy usage never seems to break it.

Can you guess what happened with the Samsung Nexus S?

Yeah. It’s not good.

The Eurostar arrived out of the tunnel into France and the Nexus S switched on to the local French network. I got the familiar text from Vodafone letting me know I was now eating into my 25mb of allowance and that they’d charged me £2.

About an hour later, I arrived in Paris. I got into a taxi and as we pulled away, I got another text from Vodafone. I’d used up my 25mb allowance already and I was now burning £1 per meg.

I was astonished. I quickly checked Google Maps to see what route the taxi driver was taking. Boom: I got a text to let me know I’d blown £5.

And my Nexus S battery was down to 53%.

To be clear I’d hardly used the phone. It had been in my pocket since I’d entered France.

I was astonished.

This, then, is the difference between a BlackBerry and an Android device. I can only assume that the BlackBerry’s proprietary compression and communications layer is ridiculously efficient and that the Nexus S is behaving as though it’s connected to WiFi and sucking as much data as it wants.

Of course, I know the solution. I need to switch off the mail sync. I need to effectively prevent the Nexus from doing anything. Indeed switching off the data roaming capability would probably be the best way ahead — and then I could switch it on when I need to check my email. But goodness me I wonder if checking my email would actually end up using a few meg? If that means syncing contacts, calendars and mail, for all three accounts, every single time?

I suppose I could try using the mobile web to check my email when I’m abroad using the Nexus S. That would at least limit the data usage to a distinct refresh.

Goodness knows what it’s doing when I have it on in the UK? The Nexus S must be burning through 100mb a day just sitting there.

This is why I continue to use a BlackBerry.

No wonder the mobile networks are having problems coping with the ‘data crunch’. I wonder if operators concerned about increasing network demands should be heavily discounting BlackBerries for their subscribers to help keep the pain away.

Well. It’s good. Rather good, in fact.

I installed the Swype beta on my new Samsung Nexus S to see how it would perform. I have been rather impressed.

Have a look at how I got on. Oh, and sorry for the whispering. There was a large lady sitting opposite staring with a very disapproving look as I quietly narrated the video. She really put me off.

You can pick up the Swype for Android beta here. If you’ve got an Android device I strongly recommend you check it out.

For the MIR geeks, do you remember when we first saw Swype demonstrated? I managed to snag a (semi?) exclusive demonstration from one of the executives at CTIA back in 2008. The video is here.

Do you see just how much like an iPhone it looks?

This promo video also helpfully explains just what demographic each of the handsets (Ace, Fit, Glo and Mini) are aimed at. In case you were wondering…

(When you click, it’ll pop-up a nicer, bigger video)

And while I’m at it, here’s the a look at the Samsung Wave II:

Both devices are looking very good — I’m looking forward to getting a closer hands-on at MWC in 2 weeks time.

I was hoping for a more aggressive pricing strategy, but I’m still pleased to have seen a decent tablet entrant to the marketplace.

Have you tried one yet? The 7″ form factor is rather sweet. I like that it fits precisely into my inside suit jacket — and I mean precisely! (In this position the Tab will also do a good job of stopping a bullet or a crazed knife attack to the heart.)

Perhaps one of the most astonishing features of the Tab is the camera. It feels highly weird — but rather exciting — to use a 7″ viewfinder. And the quality’s not bad either.

Interestingly, amongst the general population I’ve observed, the Tab appears to hold similar cachet to the iPad. And the additional camera(s) really set it apart (“oh, much better than the iPad”).

Do you know someone who owns a Samsung Tab? I now know about 6 people who have one. I think the fact you can pick one up in Carphone Warehouse here in the UK (slightly subsidised) is helping the units get out to the larger consumer market.

So a million units by Christmas? Or even by early Q1 next year? Very good performance Samsung.

I’m pleased the industry hasn’t left it all to Apple…

Well then I’ve now had the Samsung Omnia 7 from Three for just under a fortnight and I’m very much enjoying the Windows Phone experience. This has been aided in no small part by the riotous Three data network upon which the Omnia has been screaming with joy. Seeing the 3G+ icon and watching the operating system’s little blue dots zip along swiftly has made me feel very good.

My primary handset is a BlackBerry (Torch — at the moment) on Vodafone’s slightly ailing data network that, no matter what awards they purport to have won, doesn’t always feel at all fast. Especially when I’m in Richmond, where Vodafone hasn’t quite discovered the secret of telecommunications beyond a creaking ‘no signal’ Edge network. In order to try and give the Omnia a bit of a work out, I forwarded all my calls.

And whilst I am most sincerely wedded to RIM’s QWERTY messaging devices, I really did appreciate the Omnia running Windows Phone 7. The screen is huge and wonderfully lit. The curving on the casing makes it feel a lot thinner than anything else in it’s class. The camera is good. The operating system does not get in the way of things happening. Now and again I had to relax into the Microsoft Bosom and accept that it-will-work, rather than demanding some kind of clear demonstration of success. For example, when you tap the little dots to the right of the screen whilst viewing a photo, you are presented with the option to share a photo with one-tap. I would routinely tap to share the photo to my Windows SkyDrive, see the animated blue dots at the top of the screen dance a little and then boom… I’d be … well. I just worried that the photo hadn’t actually uploaded. My worries were unfounded though. It all just works. Obviously some kind of background process was in operation as I didn’t stay on the screen too long. Plus Three’s data network makes short work of even the largest files, especially at 3.5G+ rates.

During setup I configured my ‘Live’ account (e.g. my Hotmail address) and was rather impressed to see my Hotmail contacts already waiting for me when I hit ‘People’. Those Hotmail (or MSN) contacts who’d recently changed their status were also displayed. Responding to their updates requires just a tap. Adding in Google or Facebook (or, in my case, multiple Google Apps accounts) was ridiculously simple. Just the username and password, everything else is sorted by the OS — no exceptions. Contacts were synched, calendars were updated — again, everything just worked. I didn’t have to organise anything — and since most of my address book records are reasonably well organised, the People app worked beautifully, collecting information from Facebook, two Googles Apps accounts and Windows Live into one contact record.

Sharing is a delight. Indeed I felt like I wanted to do more sharing and more interaction thanks to the operating system.

I didn’t tire of the interface either. I was a little concerned about how I would feel about the ‘swipe right/left’ UI that involves incomplete words. (Marketplace is titled ‘Marke’ — and you have to scroll right to see the rest of the word). It actually works really nicely. I’m particularly impressed at how the email works.

The little sounds and transitions are nice too. The way the screen builds when you turn the device, or if you send or delete an email is pleasing.

The Marketplace works swiftly and easily. No arsing around. No ‘would you like to install this application?’ and ‘are you sure’ silly prompts. Tap ‘install’ and woosh, the phone starts downloading and installing the app.

Keyboard input is painless and you really can type fast once you’ve got used to the keyboard — much like the iPhone. Although I really do like the auto-suggest options where the OS shows you an array of possible words. Very useful. Very quick.

The Maps app, powered by Bing, is very pleasing to look at. I like how the map fades in as you zoom and eventually turns to a satellite photo when you zoom closer. I was less impressed by Bing — when I was filming on camera I searched for ‘Tottenham Court Road, London’ and the only result Bing presented on the Maps was ‘Gala Casino, Tottenham Court Road’. Rubbish. Usable — because I could see Tottenham Court Road and the surrounding area, but a little bit silly. Come on Bing! Everything else — from finding my location to plotting directions worked fine.

I’m going to play a little more with ‘Office’ — Word, Excel and PowerPoint, along with Outlook and OneNote. I didn’t get much of a chance to use them during the two weeks as I was mostly stuck in my email, taking photos, answering calls or messing around with Marketplace.

Another element I need to examine more closely is the entertainment capabilities. I don’t have a credit card setup on Zune and I wasn’t able to add that from the device. And I’m an Apple user by default so I had to mess around with VMWare Fusion running Windows Vista to download Zune (the iTunes equivalent). I managed that, but not without a few Microsoftian hiccups (‘install service pack 3′, ‘install failed’, ‘seriously, install service pack 3′, ‘error’, ‘restart’, ‘install failed’). That is one area that the Windows Phone 7 team need to show to love. Carrier billing will no doubt fix that too. So I’ll add a credit card soon and give some of the games, paid-for apps and other content a test. From what I’ve seen of the Marketplace, it’s regularly updated and there’s lots to see.

I’m hearing lots of whispers about better-than-expected results for Windows Phone across the industry and — well, we’ll need to wait until sales figures are announced — but I wouldn’t be surprised if they show positive reception by consumers.

I used to have to hide my pained look whenever I came across someone who’d purchased a handset running Windows Mobile 6.5. Invariably the devices were phenomenally well specified but the slugging 6.5 was abhorrant. Now, when I come across consumers who’ve plumped for WP7, I am genuinely pleased for them — and they too appear to be happy.

My first impressions of Windows Phone? Excellent.

The Samsung Omnia 7? Top marks.

And Three? Yes, yes and thrice yes.

[I should point out that the areas I generally frequent have got really, really good 3.5G+ Three signal.]

I’ve done a video walkthrough of the phone and the OS — I’ll have that online shortly.

You can pick up a Samsung Omnia 7 free for £40/month on a 24-month contract with Three. That includes 2,000 minutes, 5,000 texts, 1GB of data and 5,000 Three-to-Three minutes.

Michael at MobileBurn highlights a tweet from o2 Germany pointing out that the all new Samsung Galaxy Tab Android tablet will hit the network in October costing €99 up front with a €27.50 contract.

If you translate those prices directly to sterling, that equates to £82 up front and £22 per month. Now I reckon the o2 UK prices will be slightly in advance of that, but at this level, could you see yourself picking one up soonish?

Or no? Too much of a gimmick? Far too happy with your iPad?

I wonder how the operator subsidy is going to change the market dynamics. I think there’s a lot more people who’d be clamouring for an iPad if it was £49 or £99 up front with a monthly contract, rather than around 500-700+ pounds straight on the credit card.

Well then, it’s what we’ve all been waiting for isn’t it? A decent iPad alternative running Android. At least, that’s what the Samsung Galaxy Tab looks like.

It’s 7″ in size.

It’s got an integrated SIM card that will deliver HSUPA/HSDPA, Edge and 802.11n.

It runs Android 2.2 (“Froyo”).

It’s got a camera — two of them. One 3 megapixel main camera (with flash) and another front-facing 1.3 megapixel one.

And you get 16GB on-board expandable to 32GB. Plus you can play full HD 1080p videos (and record at 720×480).

What’s fascinating is the reaction I’m seeing from around the marketplace. I’m seeing genuine excitement, especially off the back of the recent Samsung Galaxy Android handsets. In particular, I’m seeing executives from around the industry discussing the implications of deploying Tabs (or other similar Android tablets) across their companies.

The real challenge will be looking at the array of security aspects associated with deploying these devices in the enterprise. (There’s actually a Good solution that I’ve been looking at… But more on that in the coming days.)

What’s your view?

Here’s the press release from Samsung:

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in mobile technology, today announced the launch of the Samsung GALAXY Tab (Model: GT-P1000). Powered by Android Operating System 2.2, the Samsung GALAXY Tab is the first of the company’s tablet devices, representing a new category of mobile products for Samsung.

The Samsung GALAXY Tab brings together all of Samsung’s leading innovations to provide users with more capabilities while on the move. Consumers are able to experience PC-like web-browsing and enjoy all forms of multimedia content on the perfectly sized 7-inch display, wherever they go. Moreover, users can continuously communicate via e-mail, voice and video call, SMS/MMS or social network with the optimized user interface.

“Samsung recognizes the tremendous growth potential in this newly created market and we believe that the Samsung GALAXY Tab brings a unique and open proposition to market. There is a new and emerging consumer demand that Samsung can satisfy since mobile is in our DNA. This demand continues to grow and develop as users tap its limitless potential,” said JK Shin, President and Head of Mobile Communications Business, Samsung Electronics. “The Samsung GALAXY Tab has been designed to enable consumers to maximize their online experience wherever that may be. The Samsung GALAXY Tab is pushing the market in new directions and Samsung believes this is only the beginning of its innovations as pioneers in smart media devices.”

A new concept of mobility for media

As a new category of device, the Samsung GALAXY Tab brings a wealth of mobile experiences. Its striking 7” TFT-LCD display delivers exciting mobile experience for watching films, viewing pictures, e-reading or sharing documents. In design, its light (380g) build provides perfect portability, with its svelte dimensions making it easy to grip and use. Supporting the latest Adobe Flash Player 10.1, the Samsung GALAXY Tab fully supports swift, seamless viewing of every single page of the web.

The ‘Readers Hub,’ Samsung’s unique e-reading application, provides easy access to a vast digital library – from classical literature to the latest bestsellers and reference materials. At the same time, Samsung unveils ‘Media Hub,’ a gateway to a world of films and videos, and ‘Music Hub,’ an application giving access to a wide range of music tunes.

The Samsung GALAXY Tab has made rich communication truly mobile; it presents a level of converged technology that moves beyond mobile or PC to an entirely new category. Users have new powers to consume, create and communicate from wherever they are.

Powerful, always-on communication

With 3G HSPA connectivity, 802.11n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth® 3.0, the Samsung GALAXY Tab enhances users’ mobile communication on a whole new level. Video conferencing and push email on the large 7-inch display make communication more smooth and efficient. For voice telephony, the Samsung GALAXY Tab turns out to be a perfect speakerphone on the desk, or a mobile phone on the move via Bluetooth® headset.

Powered by a Cortex A8 1.0GHz application processor, the Samsung GALAXY Tab is designed to deliver high performance whenever and wherever you are. At the same time, HD video contents are supported by a wide range of multimedia formats (DivX, XviD, MPEG4, H.263, H.264 and more), which maximizes the joy of entertainment.

While the front-facing camera allows face-to-face video telephony over 3G, the rear-facing camera captures still images and video that you can edit, upload and share, all without any hassle. As online content explodes, the Samsung GALAXY Tab is the best portable solution for every lifestyle that needs a constant connection.

The Samsung GALAXY Tab will be launched in Europe in mid September, and in other markets including Korea, the US and Asia in coming months.

The main Tab site is here: http://galaxytab.samsungmobile.com/

The rather swanky Samsung Galaxy S device has just arrived. Ben Smith over at The Really Mobile Project is loving his, commenting last night that, “It’s ridiculously fast!”

So fast, that Ben has started reaching for his Galaxy first, before his BlackBerry, to check email and so on. Interesting! I’m going to check it out and see what I think. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Posted via email from MIR Live

If you recall a few weeks ago I posted an exclusive from the Vodafone 360 team announcing the upcoming arrival of the Vodafone 360 Samsung H2. I’d taken a look at the H2 and found it a rather nice improvement on the Samsung H1 (the original top-end 360 handset).

Well, I’ve got some news straight from the lion’s den at the 360 team: No more H2.

In fact, no more bespoke 360 handsets.

Henceforth Vodafone is going to focus on enhancing the 360 services rather than worrying about it’s own bespoke handsets.

Here is the formal statement from the company:

Vodafone’s core strategy remains to offer the best range of smartphones in all markets in which we compete. We have decided to accelerate our Vodafone 360 services strategy, making 360 services available on as many devices as we can as soon as we can. From now we will be focusing all efforts on expanding the range of handsets and platforms that support Vodafone 360 and in developing and enhancing the suite of Vodafone 360 services. Consequently there will be no further development of bespoke Vodafone 360 handsets, and activity on the H2 ceases with immediate effect.

We have always been clear that Vodafone 360 is about a suite of services, not just about bespoke devices. Our intent was always to provide services across as many handsets as possible on as many platforms. Today Vodafone 360 is available across a wide range of over 100 handsets and on 5 platforms and this will continue to expand going forward.

On one hand I feel this is quite a shame, because I did identify with the broader strategy (if not necessarily the precise implementation along the way). I liked the vertical concept of owning the hardware, the services, the network and of course, the customer experience. But, as I have pointed out many a time, if you’re going to do this, you need to do it properly and with full conviction — and the necessary resources.

I think it’s a good step for the company. I think it makes sense to ship the responsibility for hardware design back to the OEMs rather than have the Vodafone teams obsessing over it. The H2 was always going to be compared to the rest of the company’s range — and goodness me, it must have been a challenge deciding over handsets to push in a given month. Do you push the company’s own H1/M1 360 phones? Or do you push the latest Sony or Nokia? Lots of questions and lots of problems.

So services is the way ahead. They’ve already been doing a lot of work spreading 360 across all the major platforms they support. Here’s an example:

That’s the Vodafone 360 implementation on the Sony Ericisson X10 Mini-pro (as I saw it, pre-release, a few weeks ago). As you can see, you’ve got the 360 shop, updates, music shop, apps and so on all available at a touch of a button.

In the coming months, expect to see almost every capable Vodafone ranged handset to come preinstalled with an array of 360 services such as those above.

The challenge now Vodafone? Get it right. I don’t mean half-right. I don’t mean almost-there. I don’t mean ‘leave at 4.30pm’ and do a sort-of-ok job. Let’s see best-in-class. You’ve got the right people, good resources and a phenomenal brand to work with. Brilliance and nothing but, please.

Push the boat out.

Show us what you can do. And really, really augment the OEM efforts. I want to see consumers purchasing a Vodafone Nokia N8, for example, rather than an o2 Nokia N8, *because* of all the cool stuff offered by the Vodafone 360 services.

It’s a big ask. You can do it.

(Read: You’ve got no excuse now.)

[ Excuse me whilst I go and stick my head in a bucket of cold water now. I'm not used to exhibiting positivity when it comes to Vodafone 360. Give it 6 months and I hope we'll see some seriously good results. Otherwise I'll need a job lot of sleeping pills. ]

Height: 125mm

Width: 60.8mm

Depth: 11.7mm (smaller than the H1)

Weight: 137g

Memory: 16GB internal, MicroSD for another 32GB supported

Data speeds/Support: HSDPA 7.2/HSUPA 5.76/UMTS/GSM Quad/WiFi 802.11n/Bluetooth 3.0

Screen: 3.7″ widescreen, multi-touch Super AMOLED WVGA (800X480)

Video supported: H.263, H.264, MPEG4, DivX, WMV, and AC3

Sensors: Geo-magnetic, Proximity, Accelerometer, Light

Camera: 8MP Autofocus and Image Stabilizer camera with 4X digital zoom and LED flash – 720p HD video recording

Chipse: QCOM MSM 6290 and SEC S5PC111 (1GHz) app proc – hardware support for 2D and 3D graphics acceleration

Browser: Opera 10 with Flash, Webkit 3.2 Widget Engine and IBM4 J9 Java with multitasking support

Linux3 developer SDK available for native apps on LiMo

I’ve had hands-on with the phone for about 30 minutes and I can tell you that the device itself is an absolute delight. It’s modern, rounded, sleek, very zippy and it makes excellent use of the fast chipset and the graphics acceleration. Swapping between applications and services is smooth and fast. The Vodafone 360 proprietary social tools (the little profile squares, if you remember them) run really, really nicely. Plus the touchscreen is much more reliable.

And what about some pictures?

And did you say video?

I am a lot happier with the Samsung H2 than I was with the H1 — it really is a super flagship device for the 360 range — but I’m most impressed at the changes the 360 team have obviously been working on. But more on that soon.

Note: Expect to hear more news about the Samsung H2 as we get further into Q3.

Now then, if you’re a developer and you’re after an opportunity to a) show off your skills and b) make a bit of money, do take a look at the Samsung Bada Developer Challenge.

There’s a whopping 2.7 million dollars of cash waiting for you. The winning application (‘the champion’) will get $300,000. First prize get’s 100k, second gets 60k and third prize gets $40k. So not too shabby at all.

However there are also 10 spots for ‘special winners’ who will each receive 30k each. Nice.

But that’s not all — there are 56 device phase winning places who will each receive $8,000 each.

So, in total, there are 300 winning opportunities — every single one will receive a Samsung Wave phone too.

Given that the winning app for Vodafone’s 360 platform was a Flickr-based app, if you’re a half-decent developer with a bit of imagination, I reckon you could do very, very well with this competition. Another key point: Winners will receive favorable consideration for employment opportunities within Samsung. Very useful.

You don’t need a device to get started though. The first phase of the competition simply requires you to have created your application in the simulator.

More information here: Samsung Bada Developer Challenge

Blake over at IntoMobile picked up the news from Samsung that they reckon their Super-AMOLED screen is a heck of a lot better than Apple’s Retina Display for the iPhone 4.

IntoMobile reports:

A Samsung representative spoke to the Korean Herald, saying that quadrupling the resolution on the screen would only increase the clarity at most only three to five percent. They also said that this type of display is too power-hungry, draining it almost 30 percent faster than Samsung’s Super AMOLED technology.

Nice. Good to see a bit of discussion about the technologies. I like to see companies defending their technology because when one side (i.e. Apple) makes a claim, unless you’re a super-genius, the chances are you don’t know enough to make an informed opinion.

So you make best guess and assume that Steve’s right.

Whether he’s ‘right’ is very much down to your own opinion — but at least you can use the comments from Samsung to help make up your mind.

I’ve got this statement in from Nokia on the subject:

[ this space intentionally left blank ]

That’s right. I’ve seen f-ck all from Nokia on the matter of screens. Or anything else to do with the iPhone right now.

So whilst I reckon the N8 will be fantastic, I can’t really comment beyond that. And I’ve got no whizzy tech stuff from Nokia’s uber-handset device geniuses to shower upon you. Sorry.

Meanwhile for all the readers making a purchase decision right now as to whether to buy an iPhone 4, one of the super-cool Android phones or Nokia’s N8, I’ve got this message from Nokia:

[ this space intentionally left blank ]

That’s right. Whilst the wider market is busy obsessing over whether to get a Bada device, one of the new Android phones (X10 Mini Pro anyone?) or the almighty iPhone 4, there’s next to no defence coming about the N8. I know the device isn’t ‘out‘ for quite a while but you’ve gotta thing about all those Western customers with £600 handset subsidies burning a hole in their pocket.

Deep breaths, MacLeod.

Deep breaths.

(To be clear, I had a look on the Nokia Conversations site today, scanned the headlines looking for commentary about screens and anything relating to the iPhone 4/N8 comparisons going on across the world — and didn’t find anything. )

That will change though, especially since the Samsung Wave handset — the first featuring Bada — is now marked as ‘Coming Soon’ on Vodafone UK’s site. Bada is, Vodafone’s copy explains, ‘a clever system that lets you tweak and customise your phone till it’s just how you like it’.

Well then.

I’m looking forward to it.

I created a screencast for you to demonstrate. You can watch it here.

After my rather direct note earlier today I thought I should get a bit of balance going in the form of some good things about Vodafone 360.

The primary 360 interface is actually rather intuitive. There is perhaps nothing better than sweeping your finger to the left, watching the little profile squares swoosh about and taping on the picture of your wife.

That displays a nice little profile box giving you the opportunity to…

- call
- text
- send an email
- send a message (I haven’t worked out the difference yet, I think that’s a 360 message)
- or view their location

It’s nice. I do like it. I’ve moved my family into the ‘family’ section. I’ve moved some work colleagues into the ‘work’ section. Likewise with friends.

It’s — psst, don’t tell anyone I wrote this — quite enjoyable.

The biggest problem I’ve got at the moment is that none of my friends, family or work colleagues are using Vodafone 360. In fact, they’re not using Facebook much at all.

And that’s a bit of an arse. It’s not Vodafone’s fault.

I found myself grabbing the handset every 30 minutes or so and having a flick through to see just how flippin’ boring my contacts are.

Indeed there have been no updates from the folk on my phone since last night’s Dr Who extravaganza.

When they add Twitter to the 360 menu options, it’ll be more relevant to me I think.

I like the web interface too. You can login to www.vodafone360.com and configure your account there too (useful for mass-deleting people who you don’t need on your handset). I was particularly impressed that, by default (and automatically), any photos I take are uploaded there, privately. Kind of like an automatic ShoZU-on-steroids.

Once the photos are there, though, there doesn’t appear to be an easy option to, for example, knock them over to Flickr yet.

So far then, I think the Samsung H1 on Vodafone 360 is shaping up to be a rather useful device/service for normobs.

Normally my device of choice is a BlackBerry Bold — but I’ve shelved that away (well, I’m still carrying it, just the SIM is in the Samsung) and I’m living like a Vodafone 360 Consumer.

And I’m quite annoyed.

The device itself is what you’d expect from Samsung.  Big, gorgeous screen, reasonable user-interface (beyond the 360 stuff).

Getting your head around the Vodafone 360 UI is — for me, as a mobile geek — quite a challenge. By that I mean the square avatar interface.  The one that’s being advertised everywhere.

My expectations were completely wrong.

I’ve been operating on the assumption that 360 works with Google and it works with Facebook.  Right?

Well it does.

Sort of.

I just assumed that it worked the way everyone else expects it to — that is, to synchronise.  That’s what ’360′ is all about, right?  Getting a 360 degree view on my actual social network?

The first degree, then, surely, has to be ripping a copy of my contacts out of my Google account, complete with their mobile numbers, right?  Yes I’m a power user, but this is the absolute minimum I expect from ‘adding my Google account’.

It doesn’t do that.

It does, however, set up an email account with the correct details.  And it also sets up an IM account correctly.  This, dear reader, is good news.  As long as you overlook the fact that the email account — by default, it seems — wants to download (sorry, ‘synchronise’) the 17,000 emails in my account.  Arse.

So. Hold your breath for a moment, right.  Suspend your disbelief.  Let’s move on to Facebook.

Login with your details.  Done.  It really is a nice experience setting up the account on your phone. You have to wait a few minutes for your device to download all your contact photos and status updates.  And it is rather cool being able to see up to date profile pictures and status messages.  I quite enjoyed swishing them back and forward.

Mismatched assumptions though.  I thought the device would also take the phone numbers from my Facebook friends and populate them into the address book.

No.

This isn’t, as I speculated initially, a Vodafone 360 problem per se.  No.  It’s a user permissions error.

The only one of my 600 Facebook contacts who has given permission for her mobile number to appear public is my wife’s good friend, Joey.  So hi there Joey.  It’s just you and me.

The fact I can SEE the phone numbers of my friends on the web — ON their Facebook profile — doesn’t seem to matter.   The overwhelming majority are not synchronised so I can only assume it’s a user permissions thing at Facebook.  Everyone’s left the ‘don’t show my mobile number in public’ option on.  Apart from Joey.

So whilst it’s brilliant to click on a friend and see all the various ways of contacting them… the reality is, I can ‘Vodafone360-them’ (send an email from my Voda account) or I can ‘Facebook-message’ them.

No text.  No MMS.  No telephoning.  If I want that, I have to edit the contacts.

Which is precisely what I did before I left the house this morning.  I added my wife’s number — MANUALLY — into the phone.

This, I’d like to point out, is the first time I’ve added my wife’s number into my phone in flipping years.

It was a novel experience, I grant you that.   I hardly ever TYPE mobile numbers into address books anymore.  The prospect of going through 50 or 100 numbers is not appealing.

I’m kind-of enjoying the 360 experience, then.  It’s just these dropped balls that are annoying me.  And the rest of the 360 users too.  Just do a search for aghast normobs wondering how the hell they’re meant to add their address books.  (I mean their ACTUAL address books, not the social networking stuff).  Turns out if you plug your handset into your PC, you can install the Samsung PC Suite which should do some kind of desktop address book synchronisation.

If you’re on a Mac like me, you’re stupid.  No support today.  None that I could discern.

I have no intention whatsoever of synchronising my contacts via one of the VMWare Fusion PC installs I have.   It is not 1998 again and it is not, as the Vodafone eForum chap suggested on one forum I read, appropriate to suggest consumers ‘go and buy a Samsung PC synchronisation kit’.

I think it’s patently ridiculous that a billion dollar company such as Vodafone stuck this out into the market without duplicating the basic functionality of the other platforms.   iPhone syncs with Google.

BlackBerry syncs with Google.

Nokia syncs with Google.

ANDROID obviously syncs with Google.

I mean… do I have to carry on?

Yes.  Because it’s a trial.   I will use this device for a week.  Just don’t expect any email, calls, texts or anything else from me.  Ok, maybe a Facebook update…

There are nice aspects of 360 though.  I’ll get to them once the red mist of frustration has gone from my eyes.

Will this be $100 for the actual device?  Or $100 plus a 2-year contract?  That much is unclear.  But I’ll be sitting hoping that I can soon walk into Walgreens in San Francisco and buy a $89 Samsung Android handset PAYG.  That’ll be very interesting for the market dynamics.

The Reclaim’s configuration is not going to last, however. Casey Ryan, the product manager for the Reclaim at Samsung, said that by next year, touch-screen phones, with full Web browsers running the Android operating system will be available for well under $100.

via What’s Green, Made of Corn and Has Buttons? – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com.

That’s Edmund Blackadder’s advice for navigating the country of Wales.  Me, I’m much closer to my celtic — or semi-celtic — brotherhood.

I don’t speak any Welsh at all, though.

But if you’re Welsh and you’ve been longing for a mobile handset that actually uses that language, stand-up and be counted — thanks to Orange.  They’ve launched a Welsh language handset from Samsung.

# Orange and Samsung join forces to put Welsh language on a mobile phone for the first time

# The innovative phone includes never-before-available features including menus and predictive text in Welsh

# The phone and service will be available exclusively through Orange from September

# Wales’ Minister for Heritage, Alun Ffred Jones and S4C Presenter, Alex Jones joined Orange and Samsung to unveil the phone at The National Eisteddfod of Wales

via Orange newsroom.

After playing with, and being impressed by, the HTC Hero earlier today I decided to head to the shops after work on the off chance of finding out some news about the ‘missing in action’ Samsung i7500.

Today is the first Friday of the month you see – it’s when the new mobile catalogues hit the high street and when most stores find out what new handsets they’ll be getting to sell.

Like a lot of Android fans I’ve been waiting to see when the i7500 would hit the UK, so I was pretty excited to find this on page 6 of O2′s July catalogue. Talking to the guys in the store they confirmed they’re expecting it to be on sale in August.

So O2 will soon have the Android i7500, the iPhone, and if rumours are to be believed, the Palm Pre on offer. Quite an impressive device line up.

For years I’ve been screaming with utter annoyance at the absolute rubbish Sony Ericsson has been vomiting into the marketplace. Their devices are amongst the nicest engineered on the planet. They’re well built, stylish, reliable and the cameras are simply amazing.

But the dumb operating system (or, more accurately, the stupidly limited UI) is — literally — from the 1990s.

I positively loved their K800i handset — a class leading device in it’s time — and I’ve continued to admire the workmanship of their more recent models — but actually using a Sony Ericsson is akin to jumping in an Ashes to Ashes style timewarp back to 1990.

It’s pretty accurate to refer to a Sony Ericsson user as a Mobile Caveman. Just like a human caveman, a Mobile Caveman (”MobCav, anyone?”) is able to manage life’s various transactions (fire, food, sex) but when it comes to anything more enlightened or connected, no dice.

Your Sony handset will browse the ‘mobile web’. Cool. It will — with quite a bit of persuasion — synchronise your address book. You can play music on it. You can even play game(s) on it.

But put a top of the range Sony handset next to other class leaders (iPhone, G1/G2, Palm Pre, Nokia N-Series) and it’s immediately clear it’s not in the same league.

Don’t get me started on developing for a Sony Ericsson.

Besides from a degree in Nuclear Physics (with hons and some fannying about with the Dean’s List), you’ll need a massive budget and the patience of a demigod to develop for the current range of Sony Ericssons.

The Xperia device is … well, let’s put it this way, have you seen anyone with an Xperia recently? Hobbled by a ridiculous, ridiculous Microsoft bollocks operating system, the Xperia was never, ever going anywhere.

“Why won’t they go Android?” I used to scream, “Can you imagine how brilliant a Sony Ericsson would be with Android?”

Well… it’s happening.

Finally.

It had to happen. It was inevitable. Just like Apple bringing out an iPhone (they had to make the move or surrender the mobile music market to the likes of Nokia).

Slashphone reports that at a recent showcase in Taiwan, Peter Ang, the Sony Ericsson VP of Marketing, confirmed Android is now a key operating system for the company. Along with Symbian and Windows. Gah.

Sony’s Android handset(s) are due to arrive with Android 2.0 — and there’s speculation (from Chris Davies over at Android Community.com) that the devices will sport a proprietary UI along the lines of the Xperia UI.

The upshot?

Upgrade Android in your estimations. With the consumer giants such as Sony Ericsson (and Samsung) jumping in, it won’t be long before high-end (and shortly after, mid-tier and low-end) normal mobile users (”normobs”) will be shopping for their Apps via the Android Marketplace.

Exciting news.

My name is Ewan and I’m founder and Editor.  You can find out more about me here.

After Mobile Industry Review turned subscription-only back at the end of March, I’ve been looking around for other projects to commence.  Mobile Developer TV started off as a concept in the back of my mind about 6 months ago.

Here’s the Background

I’m founder and editor of Mobile Industry Review (”MIR”), one of the world’s most influential commentators on the mobile industry.  The site published daily news and opinion for almost 3 years, reaching a core audience of 250,000 industry executives and fanatics.  MIR’s feed is integrated directly into the intranets of many mobile operators, handset manufacturers and mobile service companies.  Super reach, super influence.  Witness, for example, our ground-breaking video of the never-before-seen Nokia Test Labs in Farnborough (Over 175,000 people viewed it within days of publishing). Or take a look at the recent post I published about iPhone centric developer mindset in Silicon Valley, picked up by MocoNews, VentureBeat and the Washington Post.

I thoroughly enjoyed producing the site with a team of brilliant contributors.  In March 2009, I turned MIR subscription-only, providing the site’s on-going feed to one company.  The nature of the company’s requirement developed to the point that I was able to engage a small team of writers to deliver the on-going service.  I still retain all MIR rights and content — including the domain names and the site’s extensive reach — so I’ve been looking for another project to put these resources to good use.

Why Mobile Developer TV?

I really, really enjoy producing online video features. There’s something about ‘TV’ that you just can’t match with the written word.  It’s about seeing the person (or people), visualising their excitement and seeing just how passionate they are about their products and services. I did a lot of experimenting with the Mobile Industry Review Show — the MIR Show — and after a good few hundred hours of stress and learning, I think I’ve more or less perfected the art of brilliant online video production: Top quality HD cameras, excellent HD video hosting, super-expensive microphones — in fact, the best equipment you can buy, a bit of creativity in the editing studio (Final Cut is excellent, but iMovie, although frowned upon from the professional sector, is extremely quick).

Marry this passion for online television with my fascination with the mobile industry — and more specifically, with mobile development — and it didn’t take me long to hatch the concept.  And here it is!

The Aim

I’m going to meet the best and the brightest in mobile development — and I’m going to put them on camera.  I’m aiming to publish one TV show per week to start with.  Each show will centre on one or two people in the mobile development space.  iPhone App developers, certainly.  But I’m interested in the whole spectrum — from Blackberry’s App World, to Nokia’s Ovi, to Microsoft’s Windows Marketplace and beyond.

If you’ve ever seen any of the interviews I’ve produced in the past, you’ll know I like to keep myself out of the picture. It’s not about me, it’s about the interviewee.  In some cases I’m aiming to do a straight interview — me to the right of the camera pointing the microphone and asking questions.  In other cases, I’ll do a walk-about or a show-and-tell with the developer.

I’m interested in talking to and profiling:

• Mobile application developers
  (Platform agnostic: iPhone/Blackberry/Nokia/J2ME/Samsung/Microsoft/Android)
• Companies whose primary business is NOT in the mobile space — but who have developed or are developing mobile applications.
  (For instance: A travel company launching an iPhone app, dotcoms launching their own apps — eg. Lastminute’s FoneFood app)
• Companies who supply services to/work with mobile developers
  (Example: Providers of mobile advertising, debug/testing)

Video will comprise most of the content here on Mobile Developer TV — however in my research over the past months, it’s clear that, whilst there are a lot of developers in Silicon Valley and London (my two primary locations), there’s a considerable geographic spread of developers.  Only today I was talking to developers from Ohio, Johannesburg, New Zealand, Ukraine, Paris and Scotland.  I’d like to be able to fly into meet each — that might be a bit of a challenge in the short term though.  So to supplement, I’ll aim to publish text interviews and profiles regularly.

One developer I spoke to suggested recording his own interview on video, answering my questions to camera with his own facilities — and sending it over to me to publish.  I think it’s a super suggestion and I think we’ll do that.

Can I profile you?  Contact Me!

I’m based in London and San Francisco so I’ll be producing the majority of in-person videos from those locations.  If you’d like to feature, drop me a note.  I’m ewan@mobiledeveloper.tv — this is the best way of contacting me.  But you can also phone/text me.  My mobile numbers are:

+44 7769 658104 (UK)

+1 415 200 9515 (US)

… (I’m happy to hear from PRs too.)

Don’t Be British

Please don’t be British — that is, sit at the back and hope I’ll come across you.  I really will do my best to find mobile developers and companies to profile — I’ve already got a big list from working with MIR — but I am most certainly no genius.  So I need your help in order to profile you — I need to know you exist. So please do drop me a note if you’re keen to be profiled.  At the very least I’ll aim to send you out a list of questions to answer by email that I can turn into a profile piece here on the site. (Who are you, what are you creating/have you created, what platform, why, what challenges have you had, and so on).  Ideally I’ll arrange to meet physically to interview you on-camera and perhaps produce an application walk-through.

Got News?

If you’ve got a particular topic of announcement that you think mobile developers and those working in related fields should know about, knock me over an email right-away.

Design

I’m doing a Robert Scoble at the moment — that is publishing with a default WordPress Theme.  I’ll update it as we progress.  The content is way more important than the theme and that’s where my focus is at the moment.

Editorial Policy

As for editorial policy, I’m aiming for a macro view of mobile development.  I don’t plan on publishing code level discussions, or discussing the finer points of the Symbian operating system.  Instead, I’ll be looking at the commercial aspects of the mobile applications development sector along with the trends I’m witnessing.  The overriding focus is, of course, on profiling developers.  I’m particularly interested in talking with one-man-bands:  The chaps (and ladies) who’re single-handedly driving the massive change sweeping the industry.  That said, I’m also keen to talk to the business people — the product managers, the executive teams — about the challenges and successes in the field of mobile applications development.

This is a work in progress so I’d welcome your feedback, either below or by email.

I’ll be syndicating the output through the public feed on Mobile Industry Review so if you’re already a MIR RSS subscriber, you’ll start to get updates shortly.  You can also catch blog updates via the new Mobile Developer TV Twitter account @mobdevtv.

Standby!

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