OK so this might be more mobile-based than gadget based but hey, this one was too interesting to miss.

3 announced yesterday evening at the X-series event in London that it will allow its users to make free Skype-to-Skype calls if they sign up to its brand spanking-new X-series flat-rate tariff.

Apparently, Skype has been well and truly integrated within the handsets to such an extent that, to quote the 3 website:

"Making a Skype call from your mobile is as easy as making a normal phone call. Just choose someone from your Skype list and hit the big green button."

Blimey. This is all kicking off for 3 customers in the UK on December 1st, with rollout across at least some of 3 Group's other 14 million users planned thereafter.

Not only will these customers get access to Skype, but 3 have also bundled in the underrated and (mercifully) free Orb, which anyone with half a brain and a internet-ready mobile phone should have already downloaded to their home PC, as well as various other services including Yahoo's media-sharing package Yahoo Go!, and Slingmedia's Slingplayer for mobile.

The blogosphere seems to be alive with news about this deal, with the normally sanguine CNet heralding it as "one of the most significant mobile content deals ever". Although as AllaboutSymbian rightly point out T-mobile have offered flat-rate data for quite a while in the UK, the bundling of relevant products and services such as Skype with the phone is truly a first for a mobile company.

The X-Series flat-rate tariffs are currently being offered for either the Sony Ericsson W950i or the Nokia N73 handset.