three.co.uk - better than orange spv

[Guest timmillwood]

I think this is gonna be the new thing

www.three.co.uk

i have heard orange will be doing simlar soon though

[Guest neuronisis]

I must admit i did like the look of the NEC phones especially with the 64mb memory on the e808 but the Motorola A830 looks awful and so do the specs. Which takes me to my next point, maybe i missed it but i couldn't see any thing in the specs with regards to the processor speeds.

[Guest Emad]

Um, you seen how much those weigh? 200grams is a bit excessive for a phone.. Hell, the T66 is 60grams :)

[Guest neuronisis]

Yeah, just looked. The motorola's 210g!!! :shock: Compared to our SPV's 127g.

[Guest martin]

Hold on a minute.

These are 3G phones which you can't compare directly with 2/2.5G phones.

This is new technology and they are designed to work on the WCDMA network. They may be a bit heavier but if you see what they can do, I don't think you'll mind.

The company 'Three' will be the first to release with other 4 network operators following later in the year.

Have a look at the monthly subcription & phone costs - ouch!

[Guest pupton]

Checkout the standby times on these phones...

But the data transfer rate is 384k!!!!!! Now thats fast....

[Guest srandrews]

Obviously 3G is the way everything is going to go, but have a look at the specs of the phones. The Motorola only supports 4096 colours (Oh, and it is ugly!! :shock: ) The NEC phones have the same screen resolution as the SPV!

At the moment 3G is way to expensive! Although I have been told that the phones will be coming down from there current prices towards the end of the year.

I am more than happy with my SPV :)

[Guest kpc]

This is well bleeding edge though.

Compare an SPV to the excuses for Smartphones we were suffering two years ago. I say wait and see how these things improve.

Chipzilla has now got interested in the phone market and with the Beast of Redmond involved things are really going to speed up on the development of phones. :) If Bill can afford to lose $100 (allegedly) per Xbox imagine what will happen on the phone front.

[Guest spacemonkey]

Definitely. These are all heavy beasts for example, but they're packing functionality in with existing tech. Give them a year and they'll shrink down and be like everything else.

Also, once 3G picks up you can bet a Smartphone 2002 based device for 3G will be along. Microsoft will have deffinitely made the operating system able to work with this stuff, it's just a question of hardware vendors making the phones and choosing M$ Smartphone as the system.

Also, the heading of this thread... Maybe it would be better split in 2

three.co.uk better than orange? (As in they'll be the first 3G network)

and

new 3G handsets better than spv?

[Guest Yousaf]

i think 3 will be a good network, ofcourse its gonna be earlu adoptors first as they dont have alot of 3g coverage - in those areas where there isnt 3 reception users will be connected via the 02 network.

but remembere how advanced orange was when it was launched in comparison to other networks at the time.....i expect this with 3 as they are backed by the same company that initially set up orange (hutchison) so i for one will be keeping an eye on how 3 develops - they als have a larger spectrum of bandwidth in their 3g licence than any of the other uk networks.

[Guest Mark]

I think we need to wait and see how well 3g actually does sell when it is released. Orange is still aiming for Q4 2003 before they release it. Personally, I don't have a spare £350 for a phone and £100 a month for rental!!

[Guest spikex]

This is well bleeding edge though.

Compare an SPV to the excuses for Smartphones we were suffering two years ago. I say wait and see how these things improve.

Chipzilla has now got interested in the phone market and with the Beast of Redmond involved things are really going to speed up on the development of phones.  :) If Bill can afford to lose $100 (allegedly) per Xbox imagine what will happen on the phone front.

That may be true that the Xbox is subsidised (although MS haven't confirmed this as far as I know) but MS don't make the Smartphones do they? HTC, etc, etc make the phones itself. Microsoft just supply the software. BUT, I read somewhere that the Smartphone has been subsidised to keep prices down but it didn't say who was subsidising it. My guess was that it is Orange...since they're selling the phones.

[Guest PhilA]

From what I've seen on 3's website, the tariffs look good value (2000 inclusive minutes for your 99 quid), but the phones are big, expensive and don't offer that much functionality. If you take away video calling (which will only be available to 50% of the population this year, due to lack of coverage), the phones look pretty ordinary, and couldn't really be described as smart phones. To my mind, unless you have a compelling need for video calling, or high speed data downloads whilst out and about, the current crop of 3G offerings is pretty poor. I'm sure this will change over the next few years, and soon 3G will be the only option available (until 4G, 5G, etc) come out

[Guest glynton]

The phones on the website don't seem to have any web browsing functionality. It's as though they just have a fast information browser.... not an actual web browser

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

I'd buy one tomorrow if there was a flat rate data plan :)

P

[Guest Firaas]

The phones on the website don't seem to have any web browsing functionality. It's as though they just have a fast information browser.... not an actual web browser

The three service doesn't allow you to browse websites which aren't aimed for it, which is one great thing the SPV has over three.

[Guest kingdom master]

OK, well you can surf the net on them, however three are restricting the net access to just there content for the first few months, so u wont be able to surf the net.

i think there worried about network clog, they havent yet sorted the access ports yet.

the handsets are powerful but forget any sort of development on them, there as tight as it gets on any handset. however there are several smartphones planned.

the network costs are cheaper than expected however they have aparently changed there packages the 1000 minutes or 2000 minutes inclusive minutes are not to other mobile networks as they were originally advertised, which is a shame.

kingdom.

[Guest sebset]

http://www.whatmobile.net/forum/topic.asp?...p?TOPIC_ID=8256

[Guest Extreme_biker0]

Almost DSL speeds on your mobile! Amazing. And they were worried that people were gonna get cancer from 14.4kbps. Silly people!

Nevermind, there's nothing i can do really, except hope they find a cure soon. Sure i could opt not to buy a 3g phone. But sure as hell they're gonna be erecting a 3g mast outside my bedroom window in the next few years with all those great features. So i might as well endorse it and reap the benafits, coz the radiation will be all over town anyway.

I heard you can cook a chicken with a 3g phone, just spend 15 minutes in a video call (or 16 for well-done).

Sorry for my pesemistic view. I need to express it somewhere.

[Guest DJHope]

Id love a network to put a huge "psudo" mast outside peoples houses and see if people still complain of headaches etc etc

DJ Hope

[Guest mantrac]

As promising as the new technology might be, the hardware as well as the range of network services currently available in the UK is very very limited.

Yes, THREE do give you a theoretical 384kbps bandwidth (although 200k is more realistic according to their own salesmen).

However, here's why that much bandwidth really doesn't make that much difference at all:

- The phones have no web browser. There is a colour wap-like information browser for limited services in a "walled garden" environment where one can download news text with tiny pictures, search for information and look up the yellow pages.

- There is no streaming video/audio facility. Despite the enormous bandwidth available to you, you can only download PRE-DEFINED video and audio clips such as useless movie trailers (football highlights are the only bonus - shame I'm not a football fan!) and even then, you can play them only once they've been fully downloaded.

- The video-phone facility has a delay. Both video and audio are delayed. So much for "real-time" video chat then...

- Location-based services, a strong-point of THREE, aren't really anything new. Orange have been offering them for a while now...

- Complete lack of Operating System SDK. The OS is proprietary and no SDK is available to the masses. The J2ME engine allows the execution of small OS-independent applets such as games and screensavers but that's about as much fun as one developer can have.

- Even in the event of wanting to use the phone as a modem and take advantage of its 200k bandwidth, you'll still have to pay extra for a data access pack that will enable you to do so. Getting on the net IS NOT INCLUDED in ANY of the existing subscription packs.

So, you pay all that money for a polished WAP browser, a hardware version of Netmeeting and a wireless video download service that offers mostly promotional material.

That's lovely! Where do I sign???

[Guest jtsaint]

be the first to watch moving pictures.

BULLSHIT - what about pocketDIVX etc. Also we can get streaming media. All for about 1/100 the price.

Will be a good technology eventually. I dont like the idea of a potential unrealible (new tech ALWAYS is) network when it come to the importance of being able to recieve/make calls.

Anyway next time you are in the pub how the hell are you going to tell your girlfriend / wife that you are actually still at work - she will just ask you to show her.

Video phone is not not fot me.