3 Skypephone

Some excellent news for people who use Skype on the move on the 3 mobile network in the UK: there are now no data charges or top-up fees for either contract or pay-as-you-go customers who use Skype on 3's network. Pay-as-you-go users no longer need to top up at least £10 per month to use Skype on the go. The change is in effect for 3's current lineup of phones (including the 3 Skypephone S2 and the INQ1 phone), and by the summer Skype will be available to anyone on 3 with a compatible 3G phone, whether the phone came from 3 or not.

I'm really excited about this--3 really seems to understand the importance of being able to use Skype wherever you are. It means free calls from your mobile to other Skype users (or SkypeOut calls using your Skype credit) without having to top up your phone. If you and a friend are in the UK and both have Skype-enabled phones from 3, it's free to talk to one another forever. You can learn more about calling for free on 3 in the UK here.

Here's a video about the 3 Skypephone that Skype President Josh Silverman used in his keynote at Mobile World Congress last month:

It's great to see so many people using the Skype on the go and saving so much money while doing it.

Summer holiday season is in full swing, and if you're anything like me, sun and beach are an integral part of the perfect holiday. Earlier this month I found the sun and beach on a sailing trip around Sicily and the Aeolian Islands (it's a hard life, I know). I brought my 3 Skypephone with me and was very pleasantly surprised when I turned on my phone in Italy and was reminded of 3 Like Home. It's a 3 feature that lets you have your standard 3 rate whenever you're on a 3 network, including data access, without any roaming fees.

So whenever I had 3 Italy service (which was most of the time, a surprise considering how much we were on a boat in the middle of nowhere in the Mediterranean), I could make Skype calls, regular calls and check my email on the phone without worrying about extra fees. It was great to be able to stay in touch so easily.

The 3 networks that support 3 Like Home are 3Austria, 3Italy, 3Sweden, 3Denmark, 3Australia, 3Hong Kong, 3Ireland, and 3UK. If you live in one 3 country and are traveling to another, think about picking up a 3 Skypephone--it'll almost certainly save you some money calling home and calling friends and family on Skype.

Here are some recent stories about Skype gear in the news:

• Video: in the classroom, at the conference, and at the Cannes Film Festival
• 3 Skypephone: reviews and commentary
• Skype at work, anywhere

It's all after the jump...

Continue reading "Skype Gear News Roundup" »

You may have already heard about the Skype Nomad--intrepid Australian Rebecca Campbell is travelling the world for 33 days, only sleeping while on the move, blogging about her trip, and raising money for charity (Motivation). She's using Skype to stay in touch and plan parts of her trip (you can send her recommendations and tips--she's 'theskypenomad').

In addition to all her travelling and photo-taking and blog writing, Rebecca's been writing a column in the UK's Telegraph. But one thing that she hasn't mentioned yet is the full list of gear she's carrying. There are tons of ways to use Skype on the go, but Rebecca is perhaps taking it to the extreme--when you're constantly on the move, light gear is of utmost importance.

Here's her full list:

• 3 Skypephone
• Nokia N810 Internet Tablet
• Nokia N95 8GB (for Skype for your mobile)
• PSP and headset
• Macbook Air (with 3 USB broadband dongle)
• Solar powered battery charger
• Panasonic HD Video camera
• Canon IXUS 70 (SD1000) Digital camera

She's got some neat stuff with her--and with the 3 Skypephone and 3 broadband dongle she can get online really easily whenever she's in a 3 territory. Still, she's already found that WiFi isn't exactly ubiquitous and you can't always be connected.

Rebecca's going to be passing through the UK later on her trip, and I'm going to try to be one of the many meeting up with her when she's stopping at Skype's office in London. Do you have any questions you'd like me to ask Rebecca? Leave 'em in the comments.

Our friends over at 3mobilebuzz continue to scour the web for great news and reviews of the 3 Skypephone. (I'm still loving mine, by the way--porting my mobile number over to 3 was quite painless and now I'm using my 3 Skypephone exclusively, which is great). Anyways, until the end of this month 3mobilebuzz are running another competition in the UK, this time through Facebook. They're looking for people who have racked up big phone bills from making international calls from their mobiles. The person who made the most expensive call last year is the winner, and gets £500 to pay off the bill. He or she also gets a pair of 3 Skypephones, so calls like that will never have to happen again. (Three runners-up also get a pair of phones.)

All the relevant details (including terms and conditions) are on the Facebook page. Head on over, become a fan and share your story on the wall. There are some great ones on there already...

Several interesting bits of Skype Gear-related news from the blogosphere recently, on a variety of devices that show off many of the different ways you can use Skype.

- Video: great story about usage and a Logitech QuickCam Orbit AF review
- Mobile: Results to 3mobilebuzz's recent contest: Why I need a 3 Skypephone
- WiFi phone: Netgear SPH200W one of Time's top 10 gadgets of 2007
- Headsets: A look at the FREETALK Stereo Wireless Headset

My full take after the jump...

Continue reading "Gear News Roundup: A little bit of everything" »

News on the 3 Skypephone continues to tear up the blogosphere--and the team at 3mobilebuzz have been doing a great job of collecting it all: reviews, forum discussions, blog posts, competitions--there's a lot there. After a week of 3 Skypephone availability in stores, here are a few more highlights they've spotted:

The TFTS Hands On Review:

Of course, a great deal of this is down to Skype being so intuitive to set up and use in the first place, but where 3 have to be wholly commended is that, in bringing the service to a mobile device they have not, in any way, placed any barrier in the way of usability. This phone, then, positively oozes the very spirit of Skype – and that is to bring crystal clear VOIP technology to the masses - in a package that is as simple as dialling from a landline (if not simpler).

3 Skypephone as a video player:

Fresh Plastic has noted a program (SUPER) and some good settings for converting videos you've downloaded to play on the 3 Skypephone. The 3 Skypephone has a nice interface for YouTube built in, but if you want to save YouTube videos to watch whenever you want, you can use Zamzar (and convert them to 3gp for the phone in the process).

More applications for the 3 Skypephone:

Gerrymoth found (and put together in a single download) a bunch of java applications that work on the 3 Skypephone, including mWallet, GoDiary and Wikipedia. I haven't tried them all (I'm still enamoured with java Google Mail and Maps, which work great), but it's pretty neat that the phone is so expandable.

 

Speaking of Java apps, I've got a a highlight of my own for the 3 Skypephone. This week Opera Mini 4 came out of beta--it's a java-based browser that renders whole web pages with a neat zoom feature; it works well on the 3 Skypephone. Opera Mini 4 also has support for RSS feeds and synching bookmarks with the desktop version of Opera. The browser built in to the 3 Skypephone is perfectly fine, but the Opera Mini zoom feature really puts the whole internet in your pocket--it goes well with the Skype that's always in your pocket. You can get more information (or download it onto your handset using the 3 Skypephone browser) by going to operamini.com.

 

Have you seen 3mobilebuzz yet? It's a new site from 3 "bringing you all the buzz about 3's mobiles, price plans, products and services." It just launched and so far it's been focusing on the 3 Skypephone, chronicling (in impressive detail) reactions from journalists and bloggers (including yours truly) to the new phone.

It already has a ton of great content; I've got a few favorite posts which include:

• This set of PowerPoint slides showing off the phone's features
• This podcast between John Penberthy-Smith (3's marketing director) and influential blogger and podcaster Neville Hobson
• This post noting blogger Dale Lane's reaction about the good (and bad) aspects of the phone
• This post linking to blogger Dan York's photos (mine certainly did not turn out that well--I think I need a better camera!)

Posts on the site are going up like wildfire--it's becoming a fantastic resource. Check it out here.

I've made a little video on the 3 Skypephone, showing off the Skype interface, mobile TV / media player, camera, settings, and Java on the phone:

This is my first video for the blog, so (be gentle!) apologies that the audio levels are a bit wonky. Any other features you want to see or learn more about? Let me know in the comments.

After yesterday's announcement (and before it's in stores on Friday) I thought you might like to see some photos of what the 3 Skypephone's user interface looks like. It runs Qualcomm's BREW platform.

 

When you first turn on the phone, you see the 3 logo (followed by the Skype logo and then the iSkoot logo--iSkoot is the company that helped develop the Skype software in the phone.). On the right you see the phone's main home screen. The top soft buttons launch 3's Launcher and Planet3 web services, and the Skype button opens up the Skype client.

Continue reading "3 Skypephone: UI Tour" »