But if you were thinking of buying a Renoir… this looks like a rather good deal!

Here’s the link you need.

(They’ve also got £35 off the Nokia E51).

The INQ1 is available today. COME ON!

From the 3UK release:

INQ1 will be available free on a contract tariff from £15 per month offering unlimited free Facebook, Skype, Windows Live Messenger and web access, plus 75 minutes of calls to other networks, unlimited texts, unlimited email and unlimited free 3-to-3 calls*. £20 will get you all of the above but with 200 minutes of calls to other networks. INQ1 will also be available on PAYG at £79.99 (£78.29 actual cost) with internet packages available from £5 per month.

Who’s buying one? Eighty quid! Eighty quid! I’m getting one later today.

Have you noticed we’ve got a new advertiser recently on Mobile Industry Review?

Wapple.

Smart chaps. Thank you for your support, Wapple — you’re helping us keep the lights on here at MIR.

If you haven’t taken a look at Wapple recently, please do.

Here are their headlines (from the landing page of the ad):

- Mobile websites that take millions of hits daily
- Sites that look and work perfectly on every mobile device
- The easiest way to get your content on mobile
- Mobile campaigns that respond uniquely to every visit
- The fastest way to get your brand on mobile

Here’s a nifty quote from Mr Mark Bamber of MTV Europe who’s impressed with their offering:

“Wapple have demonstrated the dynamic nature of their technology by meeting our specifications and instantly applying modifications on request. Bespoke developments have been speedy, allowing our mobile internet designs to be realised and in some cases exceeded”

And here are the key Wapple people.

If you’d like a personal intro, please let me know.

Congratulations to Symbian megablogger, Ricky Cadden, founder of Symbian-Guru.com.

They’re two today! Clever James Whatley had a note in his diary about this.

Time, then, for a quick Q&A with the Caddenmeister himself:

What handset were you using when you first started Symbian-Guru?
Ricky: It was the first S60v3 handset I got, which I *believe* was the N80. 90% sure.

Can you remember what applications you were using on your Symbian handset then?
Ricky: The biggest one was Symella. That’s why I started Symbian-Guru in the first place – Symella got ported to S60v3 (from S60v2) and I wanted to tell all the blogs I was reading, after sending out about 4 emails, I was like, ‘this is stupid, I should just have my own blog’

What was your first ever Symbian handset?
Ricky: Nokia 6620. I was one of the first 5 people on HoFo to get it.

What’s been your worst Symbian handset?
Ricky: Worst Symbian handset? Overall, I’d have to say the N80, likely.

What are your top five applications for the OS?
Ricky: Top five now is easy – Handy Taskman (first thing I install on any phone I get), Nokia Email Beta, Slick IM, Mobbler, WorldMate Live.

What’s been the best thing about running Symbian-Guru?
Ricky: The best thing, hands down, is the people I’ve been able to meet. No question. Other bloggers, high-up Nokians, etc.

Happy Birthday!
Ricky: Thanks, Ewan, I really appreciate it! Don’t forget, we’re giving 15% off everything in the Symbian-Guru Store, with coupon code ‘SGAnniversary’ from now till Saturday, as a big hearty thanks to our readers.

Now that is a pretty nifty deal.

Read more about the Symbian Guru’s 2nd birthday here.

If you’d like to ask her a question, either email it to me directly — ewan@mobileindustryreview.com or post a comment below…

As we reported the other day, Vodafone’s Storm Blackberry is launched officially today in the UK.

That means you can pre-order it, here.

You can have one free on £35 a month for TWO YEARS (yikes) which includes 600 minutes and ‘unlimited’ texts.

Here’s Ian Shepherd, Consumer Director of Vodafone UK talking about the device:

Who’s getting one?

I’m not sure about the screen as yet. I’m really enjoying my Vodafone Blackberry Bold…

The Blackberry Storm 9500 is available to pre-order today from Vodafone.

You can get it free on contract for £35 per month.

But wait for it… it’s a TWENTY-FOUR month contract.

:: cough cough ::

TWO YEARS of your life contracted away to get this beauty.

Well, some might say it’s worth it.

Others might vomit in your face at the mere suggestion of an American-style 2-year commitment. You can get it on an 18-month contract, but you’ll probably need to cough up a little more per month.

I’m looking forward to getting some kind of hands-on with the device to check out it’s rather interesting touchscreen.

Here’s the pre-order link.

Who’s buying one?

To be clear this is the…er.. ‘Smartphone Show‘. Although it’s referred to as the ‘Symbian Smartphone Show’. Are they the sponsors now? I originally thought it was all about symbian only. But Blackberry are exhibiting. So are Motorola, Sony and Samsung. Nokia’s unusually nowhere to be seen. Not quite a full turn out, it seems.

Apart from my incessant wails about the innovation coming out of Helsinki (I’m looking at you, Nokia), the Symbian operating system is one of the world’s most influential platforms.

Some would say that it’s lost the initiative — that the attention, the buzz, the future is all about the next generation of systems. Think Android, think iPhone, think Qualcomm (well, if you screw up your eyes tightly).

What of the behemoth from Redmond? Microsoft, however you look at it, is making continued headway with the likes of Sony Ericsson turning to them with the Xperia. And Blackberry, rushing headlong for the consumer whilst defending it’s business heritage isn’t letting Nokia away with much.

Nokia and Symbian are one, their futures are highly intertwined on a downward slope. Can the operating system and the manufacturer — both the steeped in *telephones* as apposed to the instant consumer focused connectivity of the next generation — turn it about?

UIQ anyone? NEXT!

Nokia certainly pulled Comes With Music out the hat. It’s almost comparable to iTunes in terms of user experience. Is it enough to always play second fiddle to the innovators? 10 million handsets a day says yes. The dire, dire user experience compared against the likes of the iPhone says no.

Nokia had this year to get it right. They’ve got, what, another six months before the innovation of their competitors and the market impetus begins to move sweep them into the big-but-also-rans — the dangerous territory of the Motorola RAZR syndrome.

Even now I can hear the avalance of hate mail gathering at the gates like the proverbial barbarians.

“How dare you make such a statement. Nokia/Symbian is [amazing|brilliant|the best] and you know [flock all|nothing|nothing at all].”

To those people who email (I had over 100 flames last time), I pick a random Nokia function out of the air and point to just how stupidly conceived it is now. It was acceptable in 1999 to have a handset that came out of the factory not working properly (that could only be fixed by a tortuous update). It was acceptable to have 5 different APNs. What the flock is an APN, anyway? I know. I just… what the hell is it doing in front of the consumer? Much of your average Nokia device operation is flatly appalling. A historical ball and chain.

We’ll take a measure of the positivity of the marketplace tomorrow.

I’ll be your Nokia cynic. The rest of the MIR team will, I suspect, be at their Nokia/Symbian rocks heights, ready to be neutered by a ‘Connection required?’ message from the operating system.

Looking down the list of attendees, there’s quite a lot to see.

Let’s have a look down the names that catch my attention from the list.

Accenture? Uh huh. What exactly are they doing with smartphones? We’ll find out.

Interesting to see Blackberry have a stand.

We’ll pop by Mobile Industry Review favourites, DeviceAnywhere and say hi, definitely.

F-Secure’s chaps will, I’ve no doubt, be trying to tell us all about how our Nokias are about to get nailed by viruses. Would this be the right point to yell ‘AS IF’ very loudly?

Fujitsu? Aye. Well known developer of innovative Symbian phones since 2002, it says here. I wouldn’t know a Fujitsu handset if it slapped me with a 100ft wide kipper.

Handango will be there. I wonder if the mobile operators across the planet are falling over them hunting for their very own application stores?

Who else? LG. Aye. They’ll be there with the Renoir I’m sure.

Microsoft? No. No show. That’s a conspicuous omission.

Motorola are there. They might as well put up a big sign saying WE HAVE NO MORE INFORMATION ON THE ANDROID DEVICE. SORRY. We’ll nevertheless see if we can stick the camera in somebody’s face and get some news on that.

NEC will be rubbing everyone’s noses in the fact that they don’t really manufacturer 2/3G devices anymore on the basis that it’s hugely old (compared to the trilobit speeds that Japan operates on).

Interesting to see that Orange are making an appearance. No Vodafone. No other operators.

• Sonic Boom
• Phonetag
• Then I’m heading to ShowStoppers to see a TON of companies.
• Then I’m going to the VSC meal

And if you’d like a mention or a link you’d like included, drop Krystal an email quickly.

If you’re a PR professional, feel free to email me telling me that you’ve got no news as well….

I am delighted to talk with PRs. Some media absolutely abhor being contacted and pitched by PRs. I think it’s excellent — I’m happy to be ‘pitched’ by either PR or directly from readers and interested parties.

Regularly we’re sent news — most of it relevant, and we do our best to get it up and out. That’s fine. We don’t distinguish between PR or you, the reader. We make a value judgment as to whether we publish irrespective of who sent it.

I’m continually surprised by how many public relations professionals cannot handle the opposite. Routinely I send out a note to them asking if they’ve got any shout-outs for the weekly newsletter or the podcast. This isn’t restricted to PRs — it’s a public thing we do.

I like doing shout-outs. I think it’s a nice way of recognising efforts, launches, achievements or simply just saying ‘nice work’ to folk across the industry. Most shout-outs are a few words or a sentence. Nice and easy. If you’d like a shout-out, simply knock it over to me or to Krystal and we’ll put it in.

I like to ask the PRs too.

How many of them reply to me saying ‘No, sorry, we don’t have any news this week?’

About 80%.

Fascinating! Absolutely fascinating. I do sometimes feel like questioning this. What do you mean you’ve got ‘no news’? NOTHING has happened with your clients? Nothing… at all? What you mean is that you haven’t got a press release to issue. But you’ve most certainly got news. Surely? If you don’t, what the hell are you doing in the PR industry?

But, well, it seems a large chunk of the PR industry is stuck in broadcast mode. Happy to talk to you if they’re flogging a press release, but highly, highly unable to react to a request for a shout-out.

So, if you’ve got a PR agency working furiously on your behalf, contact me and I’ll tell you if they’re in the ‘Er, no news’ list. I do, actually, have a list of the companies. You shouldn’t be paying them if they can’t broadcast and react.