Phones 4U has started selling the pebble blue model of the Samsung Galaxy S3.
Beats Samsung's launch date but stock is limited
The firm has made the announcement after Samsung said the phone would launch on 22 June. The marble white model was launched as planned in May but the pebble blue version was delayed because of its 'hyperglaze' coating.
Phones 4U said the pebble blue Galaxy S3 is: "Available now on the Vodafone network. All orders placed will be dispatched on the next working day subject to stock availability and credit check."
However, it said that orders placed on the O2 and Orange networks will have to wait between two and three weeks for delivery – confirming the model is still is short supply.
In a statement sent in May, Samsung said: "Samsung's Galaxy S III Pebble Blue version comes with a newly invented blue colour and special hyperglaze material."
"In order to meet the highest internal quality standards and to provide the best quality Galaxy S III to customers, a short supply of Pebble Blue version is expected in some regions in the next 2-3 weeks."
Phones 4U is selling the Samsung Galaxy S3 from £31 per month with the handset free. Check our Samsung Galaxy S3 UK price and release round-up for more deals.
A juggling act: iPhone users take 50% of all 3G traffic - meaning networks must invest in older tech rather than roll out 'next generation' 4G - Daily Mail
By Eddie Wrenn
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Smartphones such as the iPhone are slurping up a lot of date - around 350mb a month
Next time your mobile phone operator complains that you are using too much data, or whacks massive fines on you for using the internet abroad, spare a thought for the strain our smartphones are placing on the system.
For smartphones - Android and Apple in particular - are slurping up so much data, phone operators are having to put their resources into keeping the data flowing.
The biggest offender is the iPhone, which - despite being used by an average of 20 per cent of users, takes up nearly 45 per cent of all data traffic.
Next is Android, which has around 15 per cent of all users, and uses about 30 per cent of the traffic.
Users of both types of smartphone an average of 350mb a month, generally for web-browsing or downloading emails, videos, music and documents - although there is more variation in the Android figures as the brand caters to both premium and budget users.
The report was by analysts Ericsson, using data from Europe, America and Asia, who point out the great variance in different data deals across network and countries.
iPhone users are generally paying a premium for their service, and generally use a high level of data, so are seen as the greatest data users.
The problem is that phones and phone networks are beginning to upgrade to '4G', or 'LTE' in the U.S. which allows greater speed and greater capacity.
While other networks are beginning to upgrade their phones to this level, Apple is notoriously secret about its models, and if the next iPhone remains with a 3G antenna only, networks may keep needing to invest in the older technology to keep iPhone users happy.
Understanding the chart: With the iPhone, networks report between 5-65% of their users have iphones, using 5-80% of the date. The black bars show the average across all networks in Europe, America and Asia
The release of the latest iPad, which uses 4G networks, implies Apple will look to upgrade phones too - but 3G has a long shelf-life ahead
While the new iPad was 4G-compatible, indicating Apple may move this way on its mobiles, the launch of a new iPhone will also send prices plummeting fort he last few Apple mobiles, sending 3G usage soaring again, and meaning the networks need to spend more money on improving the older network.
As Donald Masters, at World News Resource said: The problem is, such favor toward the 3G iPhone could essentially prove disastrous for networks and carriers in the US, as large and ongoing investment is needed in order to keep up with demand. This in turn allows less time, efforts and cash to be focused on 4G LTE development and roll-outs, stunting the growth of an essentially progression.
Tested: iPhone 4S on T-Mobile 3G at WWDC - PC Magazine
SAN FRANCISCO—T-Mobile has been the only national network which couldn't run iPhones at 3G speeds - until now. The carrier is "refarming" 1900-MHz airwaves to 3G, making itself finally iPhone-compatible.
Whether it's a total coincidence (as T-Mobile insists) or a publicity stunt, the carrier turned on a single 1900-MHz 3G cell site in San Francisco's Moscone West this week – the exact location where Apple will announce its new iOS 6. I took an unlocked iPhone 4S down and tested it out against AT&T and Verizon iPhones. (Sadly, I don't have a Sprint iPhone at the moment.)
The default state for an iPhone on T-Mobile is EDGE, and EDGE is really slow. I ran several tests on an iPhone on T-Mobile's EDGE network today and generally got speeds between 30-50kbps. Ouch.
But as soon as I walked alongside Moscone West, a "3G" indicator appeared in my iPhone 4S's status bar.
It's definitely a test network, using only one in-building cell site. The signal was much stronger at the front of Moscone West than at the back, and it vanished altogether half a block north of the convention center.
I ran 10 tests using the Speedtest.net app on the T-Mobile iPhone and got very erratic results; some numbers were clearly impossible, so I had to exclude them. Of the valid results, I saw download speeds from 500kbps to 6.5Mbps, but mostly in the 1-2Mbps range.
That's much less than what T-Mobile's HSPA+ 42 network can produce. On an HTC One S in the same location, I got 9.9Mbps down and 1Mbps up. And I got consistently faster speeds on AT&T, which has a slower HSPA network.
There are two factors at work here.
First, the iPhone 4S isn't capable of T-Mobile's full speeds. It's an HSPA 14.4 device like the HTC Sensation, which reached speeds of 4.3-6.5Mbps down during testing last year.
So why wasn't I getting the same 4-6Mbps on the iPhone? This was definitely a test network, and probably one designed not to emanate far outside the Moscone Center itself. Who knows what they're using for backhaul, or how much spectrum is devoted to the 1900 3G network. I wouldn't draw conclusions about future speeds from this test network.
I will draw conclusions about price, though. As I said last week, T-Mobile's no-contract plans are competitive with Virgin Mobile and much cheaper than AT&T and Verizon, with potentially faster data speeds than any of them on 3G devices. For more on that, see Virgin Mobile's $30 iPhone Plan Gamble.
So when will the wonders of refarming come to you? T-Mobile is remaining vague except to say that it'll arrive in a "large" number of markets this year.
The reason we have smart phones is to exploit internet on the move, so of course we use a lot of data! As much I'd love a faster network, I would prefer better UK coverage of the existing 3G network - so many dead areas. It's a real pain losing or getting 2G networks. Alternatively, make the 4G network FULL UK coverage and I'll switch to that one. That would be the only reason for me to switch phones.
- MM, Havant, 11/6/2012 17:21
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