T-Mobile has cut the price of the Alcatel OT-813F by two thirds and is offering it exclusively via KGB Deals until midnight tonight. The smartphone costs a whopping £60 on T-Mobile's online store with an extra compulsory £10 topup excluded.
It comes with a full QWERTY keypad plus a 2.4in touchscreen display (possibly with a 320 x 240 pixels resolution). Other features include Bluetooth, GPRS (no 3G), Wi-Fi, a FM radio and audio player, a two megapixel camera, Java capabilities and up to 10 hours battery life as well as a 30 days standby time.
Sadly though there seems to be no microSD card slot and the display is likely to be resistive rather than capacitive. As for the OS, it is a proprietary model from Alcatel itself with built in Facebook access via a dedicated key.
It's worth noting that T-Mobile's £10 top up could allow you to access the web for a fair few months although that will be next to useless on the OT-813F given that it is GPRS-only.
Source : KGBDeals
T-Mobile’s $20 Prism Sacrifices Speed, But Not Call Quality - All Things Digital
For the first time, the majority of adult mobile-phone subscribers in the U.S. are now using smartphones, according to a recent report from Nielsen.
But smartphone ownership dominates by just a slim margin, which means a lot of people are still using regular old cellphones. Some people may not feel the need to run lots of apps or to be connected to email all the time, while others may not be able to afford high-end smartphones, which can cost hundreds of dollars — not including the monthly data plans.
Stripped-down, inexpensive smartphones — known as “budget phones” — do a lot of the same things that fancier smartphones do, but make some sacrifices that impact performance.
I’ve been testing one such smartphone: T-Mobile’s Prism phone, which is aimed at first-time smartphone buyers and costs just $20 for contract customers after a $50 mail-in rebate. The Prism is made by Huawei, and was introduced in early May. It’s currently available through T-Mobile’s retail stores and Web site, as well as through Walmart and Best Buy stores. It runs Android’s Gingerbread operating system, which isn’t the newest flavor of Android.
After five days of testing the Prism, I found it to be a pretty decent phone with good call quality, a device that first-time smartphone buyers would probably find easy to use. But it runs on T-Mobile’s slower 3G speeds, Web browsing was slow, and its build felt cheaper than some other budget phones. Also, it’s really not meant for heavy media consumption, so consumers with an inclination toward that will want to steer clear of this phone.
For two-year contract customers, T-Mobile has Value Plans and Classic Plans that offer up to 10 gigabytes of data service per month for around $65 dollars.
Month-to-month call and data plans are also available for this phone, ranging in price from $30 for 1,500 minutes or text messages up to 30 megabits of data, up to $70 for unlimited talk, text and Web, with the first 5GB of data at faster speeds.
Here’s where it gets confusing: Most of these month-to-month plans, called Monthly4G plans, are designed for phones with faster 4G speeds, even though the T-Mobile Prism is a 3G phone. T-Mobile confirmed that with the Prism, users can get unlimited data — just at a much slower speed. After you surpass that data limit, you’ll be notified that you’ve reached your limit, and the phone will switch to basic 2G service.
I ran speed tests in various locations around New York City on the Prism, a competing Sprint budget phone and a Verizon iPhone. The average download speed with the Prism was 0.71 megabits per second, and the average upload speed was 0.17 megabits per second; while the Sprint LTE Fury averaged download and upload speeds of 0.77 and 0.55 megabits per second. The average download speed with the 3G Verizon iPhone was 0.88, and the average upload speed was .93 megabits per second.
In terms of hardware, the Prism is about the same size as an iPhone, though with its curved plastic back it’s not as angular. It’s got a 3.5-inch touchscreen display. This 4.4-ounce featherweight phone felt much less solid than something like the Sprint ZTE Fury, another $20 budget phone of about the same size but with more substantial hardware.
People who are used to tactile “push” keys on a phone or fatter touchscreen keys will probably bristle at using the tiny touchscreen keys on the Prism. However, the keypad does have Swype, an input method that lets you drag your finger from letter to letter and formulates the words for you.
The 3.2-megapixel camera on this device isn’t great. I took side-by-side photos with this phone and an iPhone, which has a five-megapixel camera, and the Prism’s photos didn’t look as crisp as the iPhone’s.
But one thing this phone doesn’t sacrifice is call quality. I made and received several calls from it, and never had trouble hearing anyone; it really didn’t sound that different from an iPhone or a sleeker Android phone.
The Prism also works with T-Mobile’s built-in Wi-Fi calling app, which allows you to make phone calls over an Internet connection, provided that you have access to Wi-Fi. This worked fine for me, but the person’s voice on the other end sounded much less clear than it did with phone calls.
The Prism also has good battery life. I first charged it on a Sunday morning, and it lasted until early Tuesday, after I’d made several calls, checked email consistently, and used a couple social-networking apps. T-Mobile says the Prism should get 6.5 hours of talk time.
A first-time smartphone user would likely find it easy to get the hang of email on this device, both through the native email app on the phone and via email apps that are available for download through Google Play, the new name for the Android app market.
In addition to checking email incessantly, as I do, I also downloaded Twitter and Instagram and tested those apps, along with Facebook. This experience wasn’t much different from using these apps on a high-end smartphone. T-Mobile has put its stamp on the phone by cluttering the interface with some carrier-branded apps, but those can be moved or deleted.
The biggest drawback of the Prism was its sluggish Web browsing. I found myself on a street corner one evening, looking for a nearby grocery store and a wine store, and cars whizzed by for a couple minutes before I could pull up some pertinent results. The Prism has a processor that’s on the slow end, compared with both high-end phones and some other budget phones.
The Prism is a decent starter smartphone, but, as one might expect for the price, it’s not a genius phone. Some of these budget phones require an ounce of patience, and reasonable expectations about what they can and can’t do. Also, if this phone doesn’t float your budget-friendly boat, there are plenty of other budget smartphones on the market from Nokia, Samsung, Sony, LG and others that you might want to consider.
Samsung Galaxy S3 Launches in Middle East - Christian Post
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The Samsung Galaxy S3 has launched in certain countries located in the Middle East.
Samsung fans in Dubai, UAE and Qatar can now purchase the company's latest flagship smartphone before most others in the world.
The price of the 16GB version of the device in those nations is 2699 QR (Qatar Rial), which is approximately $750. The company will also offer the 32GB version for 2899 QR and the 64GB model for 3099 QR, but the 16GB version is the only one that is available now.
The Galaxy S3 is also expected to land in other Middle Eastern countries very soon including Kuwait and KSA.
The smartphone has already sparked a craze in other parts of the world among smartphone lovers including the U.K. with its pre-order sales shattering past records.
U.K. carrier Vodafone is reporting that it has received a record variety of end-user pre-orders for the Galaxy S3 before its actual launch set to take place at the end of this month, according to The Inquirer.
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A spokesperson for the company could not confirm the numbers, but did say they were off the charts.
"With only a week to go until launch, it's already probably the most pre-ordered Android device we've brought into our smartphone line-up to date and our limited time offer of 2GB of mobile data and 100 free music tracks will be got," said the Vodafone spokesperson to the Inquirer.
Carphone Warehouse, another electronics retailer in the U.K., is also reporting large pre-sale numbers for the Galaxy S3.
They have also begun in Egypt through a retailer known as Raya Shop.
A majority of the retailers including Amazon are offering the international version, which will be priced at $800.
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