4 replies to this topic

[tsutton]

Worldwide sales of mobile phones will hit a billion next year but the days of massive growth could be over, says an industry report.
According to research firm Informa Telecoms and Media, the battle now will be persuading users to upgrade their phones regularly.

New services such as mobile TV will compete with improved cameras, more memory and cutting-edge design.

But the long-awaited switch to 3G could be some time off, the report said.

The report predicts that only a quarter of all mobile phones sold by 2008 will be 3G - which might not be quite the news operators, desperate to recoup the money they spent on third-generation networks, wanted to hear.

More here

Do you agree with the report? Will you be holding on your new mobile phone longer than usual? Or will you be upgrading as soon as the new version comes out?

[chucky.egg]

I rarely get the new handsets within the first few months now, generally because the early adopters always seem to find bugs/faults which don't get fixed for a while.

I've recently gone from Smartphone to PocketPC to Dumbphone to Smartphone.

The one "killer application" Smartphone really has IMO, and the thing that brought me back to them, is sync'ing with Exchange over the air.  

3G would be nice, but it's not important to me right now.
WiFi was nice, but I can live without it now I'm on T-Mobile.
Phone cameras are always a huge let down, so not a priority to me.
TV on a phone would be useless to me.

I've bought 2 new handsets this year (Vario and Samsung D900) but I can actually see me sticking with my C600 as my main phone for some time to come.

[pd.ryder]

As a data user 3G will be a bonus, but not a must have; and certainly not until I either jump ship to T-Mobile or Orange sorts itself out in terms of data pricing.

I'm not a huge user of mobile data because of the prohibitive costings currently involved. Getting the data I do use down the pipe faster would, as I've said, be a bonus. I'll not pay for a huge monthly talk plan just to get a decent price on data because my phone calls tend to be very "blokey" in nature   i.e. "Hello, yep, on my way, see you in the Red Lion in 10 minutes..." etc, rather than gassing for hours at a time to people I only saw yesterday and text messages have rapidly been replaced by IM.

So, yes, super-sonic data speeds will be my "next big thing", but not until they can be had for pocket-money prices.

[Confucious]

pd.ryder, on Oct 4 2006, 22:32, said:

.....
I'm not a huge user of mobile data because of the prohibitive costings currently involved. ......

So, yes, super-sonic data speeds will be my "next big thing", but not until they can be had for pocket-money prices.

You mean ?7.50 / month is prohibitive? You should ask for more pocket money  

[pd.ryder]

confucious, on Oct 5 2006, 17:18, said:

You mean ?7.50 / month is prohibitive? You should ask for more pocket money

True, but just to qualify that...

pd.ryder, on Oct 4 2006, 22:32, said:

and certainly not until I either jump ship to T-Mobile or Orange sorts itself out in terms of data pricing.