Vodafone has announced its Christmas handset line-up and offers for 2008, boasting 16 exclusives within its festive portfolio.

With the new BlackBerry Storm topping the list, and the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook with built-in mobile broadband, the company is clearly hoping the thought of shiny gadgets to play with on Christmas morning will tempt the UK's cash-conscious consumers.

Pay as you talk customers will get a free gift of a digital photo frame with purchases of the Samsung G600, Nokia 6500 Classic or the Sony Ericsson K770i.

Ian Shepherd, consumer director for Vodafone UK, says: "This year's Christmas range features a great mix of phones at a price that will please everyone. Many of our exclusive mobiles will make ideal gifts especially as several will come with a free digital photo frame".

The list of phones available to Christmas shoppers is as follows:

Pay as you talk:
Sony Ericsson K770i – exclusive in pink or silver – Cyber-shot camera phone, £80 when bought with £20 Top Up
Sony Ericsson W350 - exclusive black and purple colourway - a music clamshell, £60
Sony Ericsson W910i Havana Gold – exclusive – £100
Samsung Steel – exclusive - 3-megapixel (MP) camera phone with autofocus and video capture, £80 (also available on contract)
Samsung J700 – exclusive in silver and pink – slider phone, £50
Samsung G600 – available in pink and graphite 5MP camera phone, £100
Samsung Omnia – Windows Mobile device with a 5MP camera and full touchscreen, £400 (and from free on contract)
Nokia 6500 classic - 2 MP camera, 1GB internal memory and 3G, £100

Vodafone’s own range of mobiles are offered within the pay as you talk line up with the VF527 Rainbow in a variety of colours (£30 inc £10 Airtime), the VF725 2MP camera phone (£50), the VF533 1.3MP camera slider (£30 when bought with £10 Top Up), and the compact VF231 (£20).

Contract:
BlackBerry Storm 9500 – multi-media smartphone purpose built for Vodafone customers
Nokia 6210 – exclusive – 3.2MP camera, satnav, email and internet
Nokia N96 16GB – 5MP camera, 16GB memory
Nokia 6124 Classic – 2MP camera phone
Sony Ericsson 595 Walkman - exclusive in black and red - music slider phone with stereo sound, shake control, MegaBass and an AM/FM Radio
Sony Ericsson C905 – Cyber-shot camera slider phone with an 8.1-megapixel camera and real flash
Sony Ericsson Xperia – Windows Mobile device, QWERTY slide-out keyboard, 3-inch colour touchscreen

Posted by: John

So, Hitwise (the leader in online competitive intelligence) have been assessing which are the most searched-for mobile devices - and this is what they came up with:

The iPhone accounted for 5.8% of all mobile phone searches during October, and its popularity helped Apple achieve the accolade of being the most searched for consumer electronics brand in the UK last month. However, the so called ‘iPhone killers’ are tracking closely behind, with the Nokia N96, Sony Ericsson C905 and Samsung Omnia all increasing their share of searches in October. The popularity of Nokia’s N96, combined with the Finnish giant’s large back catalogue of phones, enabled the company to maintain its standing as the most popular mobile phone brand online, and 2nd overall brand behind Apple.

Mobile phones were also the most searched for consumer electronic products - so that puts the iPhone at the top of the top! In terms of hype it doesn’t surprise me one bit, though Vodafone have been having a good go with the Storm recently! It would be REALLY interesting to see how searches converted to sales, but that would probably require an algorithm so complicated that only uber-boffins could understand it!

[Via: Digital Mediawire / From: Hitwise Analyst Blog post by Robin Goad]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Grab you $100 Apple Store credit now - iPhone early adopters’ redemption is here
• Google: ‘iPhone’ tops list of most popular search terms in US
• iPhone to cause Leopard delay
• Apple financials highlight iPhone 3G success, boosts Apple to No. 3 mobile phone vendor
• Apple re-designs website - shows new Apple iPhone images

Continued here:
Sony Ericsson C905 with 6 months half price line rental

I reckon I'm dead good for typing on...

Those of you that have been reading my mini-mini-reviews of devices (the ‘five-minute fiddle’ series), will know that I’ve tried a bunch of devices recently - albeit in some cases for a very limited amount of time - hence the ‘five-minute’ part

So, devices I have checked out are the Nokia N96, Sony Ericsson C905, and BlackBerry Bold. But yesterday I got hold of the BlackBerry Storm - for a little while - and here’s what I thought:

• build quality – felt okay in the hand -actually, a bit too light for the size that it is - feels like it should be a bit heavier, like a solid lump of metal, to give that ‘premium device’ aura…
• key layout – there aren’t any (well, many), it’s a touchscreen
• Speed of O/S - Um, a bit laggy if I were honest
• Battery - well the unit I got hold of had low battery popping up. I am going to assume that was because it had been used a lot that day. However…… you never know!
• O/S ease of use - well the UI looks nice at the top level (homescreen), and sub-level one (main menu), but I couldn’t get to grips with moving about in it, which brings me nicely on to….
• touchscreen - er… sucked. Yep, I couldn’t get on with it at all. This whole clickthrough concept, where the screen moves, I found most unsettling. it’s like the whole screen is mounted on springs, and feels like you are typing on a wobble-board! Typing felt strange.
• Email writing - well after some persisting I got the letters I wanted - key spacing good, but that touchscreen unsettled me. Compare with iPhone, which I had the same amount of time to try, and was at one with, within 5 mins. I assume that the push email function works perfectly.
• Auto-screen-rotate - sucked too - very slow and laggy, not animated
• media handling –no time to check

I’m sorry to say, this device didn’t impress at all, and the touch is just nowhere near the iphone. consider that if the screen is a moving part and depresses when you type each letter, how much durability is that going to need to have for a heavy texter/emailer….?

Compare overall with the Bold, and I’m disappointed

Overall rating: Disappointed! 

Grade: C- / D+

Related News from IntoMobile:

• BlackBerry Bold: the five-minute fiddle
• Multiple BlackBerry 8900s spotted in the wild
• BlackBerry Storm and friends get development tools
• Rogers’ BlackBerry roadmap leaked
• BlackBerry Bold Coming to AT&T Last Week of September

Five minutes to assess the Bold: yeah, it can be done!

You may have seen my other posts on my five-minute fiddles with the Nokia N96 and Sony Ericsson C905 - well today, I did really have 5 mins with the Blackberry Bold to check it out - headlines below (read the other posts here and here)….

By the way, just to recap on the point of the five-minute fiddle - I’d estimate this the average time that someone who is browsing/buying a phone in a shop might have to evaluate a phone before they make a decision on it. It cold of course equal be that a friend lends them their phone to try out - but overall, limited time to form an impression on whether it be gooood, or it be baaaaaad. That’s baaaaaaaad, just in case you were wondering on the spelling

So for the Bold:

• build quality – felt VERY good in the hand - solid, yet light, nice tactile keys
• key layout – come on, it’s a BlackBerry - excellent, naturally
• O/S ease of use - top-level menus good, but spotted the bad old list menus have barely changed. Disappointed. RIM, you have work to do here….
• option-finding complexity – high – due to those list menus!
  Email handling - well, the person I borrowed the phone off said they had had NO email delivered all morning - most unlike a BBerry to have push email issues, and I REALLY hope that isn’t a sign…
• media handling –no time to check
• progression of BBerry series with this device: I’d say between good to excellent!

So in summary, I walked away impressed with the Bold - I’m sure the push email delivery problem was a config issue, and the Bold is at least competent in each area - and now it’s a little more consumer-friendly. Roll on the Storm for me to have a five-minute fiddle with please!

Overall rating: Good – I’d seriously consider one

Grade: A (solid performance)

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Nokia N96: the five-minute fiddle
• Experiencing T-Mobile BlackBerry outage? T-Mobile is upgrading BlackBerry Internet Email to v2.5
• AT&T preparing to launch BlackBerry Bold 9000 on October 2?
• BlackBerry Bold 9000 coming to Telstra in September
• T-Mobile posts BlackBerry Pearl 8220 to online store, not yet available

Sony Ericsson C905

I also had my hands on a C905 the other day for five minutes, and below you can also find out what I thought of it. The point of these comments are to give you a flavour of what might enamour or disappoint you if were to have same time to play with the device – and thus get a view on whether it’s buy-worthy!

build quality – superb – I am impressed. Only reservation is on the slide mechanism for the camera, as these have a history of opening in peoples pockets, and draining the battery!

key layout – very good indeed – good response too

slide mechanism – clunky, in a very good way

User interface – not really changed at all from K800i – nice, but you could argue needs an update

Camera – simply stunning!

option-finding complexity – very high – lots of layers of menus again

Speed – quick to use, nice

media handling – this is an odd one – images are excellent, videos are really not good at all!!

So in summary, would I buy one? The major problem I have with this device is that the UI really isn’t evolved much, if any, from the three year old K800i. Come on SE, you have to keep wowing us, sitting on laurels does not make me buy a phone! But but but, the camera is back to being a revelation. I suspect a proper 8MP camera would take better pics, but the pics on here are still VERY good!

Overall rating: positive – I like!
Grade: A- (a few tweaks and it would be an A or A+!)

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Nokia N96: the five-minute fiddle
• Babies and Mobiles - part 2: gimme a good camera
• P168 - Another Apple iPhone Clone
• Sidekick Slide coming in September?
• First Chinese phone with full QWERTY slide out keyboard

Nokia N96

I had my hands on an N96 the other day for five minutes, and below you can find out what I thought of it (actually it was a little more than five minutes, but the 17-minute fiddle doesn’t sound as good…)

The point of this mini-mini-review is that users who try a device out immediately pre-/post-buying will have only had the same time as me to make a decision on if the device is for them or not. Given I’ve played with most every major mobile platform/device out there, I figure I might be able to shed some light on the killer points/faults of the N96 – so let’s get to it:

• build quality – yurgh, not great – feels light, and the back panel, is, er….lame! Very thin and flimsy!. I bet the whole device creaks after 3 months usage
• key layout – sucks – who on earth thought of whacking all those (multi-function) buttons on the facia needs a stern talking to! People’s fingers are not styluses – remember this!
• slide mechanism - nice
• S60 familiarity – good – if you’ve owned another S60 device, this one should be workable – some menus have changed though
• option-finding complexity – very high – some options are buried under 7 layers of menus – come on Nokia, learn the Apple lesson!
• Speed – um, not great – this device feels slower than the N95-8GB – and if I remember correctly, DOES have a slower processor. Hmm.
• video playback – awesome – excellent quality and media handling

So in summary, would I buy one? Well I happen to know the battery is about the same size (in mAh) as the original N95, and smaller than N95-8GB – so on that count, it’s a no. On the basis of the screen, video handling, and slide mechanism, yes. Overall, if you’ve got another S60 device, you might find it hard to justify paying about £450 (SIM free). If you are coming from a feature-phone into S60 for the first time, I think this is (just about) the best device out there for that…

Overall rating: ambivalent – I could take it or leave it
Grade: B- (could do better)

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Sony Ericsson C905: the five-minute fiddle
• Camera phones benchmarked against a Nikon D50: Treo 700, Nokia N73, Nokia N93; Fight!
• Video: InfoSync reviews the Nokia N95
• The N95 isn’t perfect
• A few more Nokia N95 reviews floating around