Australian Phone Report » Carriers

Optus gets one more Android with the Motorola QUENCH

Kimble Young — Sun, 23 May 2010 08:21:00 +0000

Optus now offer another Android by Google powered smart phone with the release of the Motorola QUENCH. A basic smart phone with quite ordinary specs, the QUENCH has a 320×480 touchscreen display with a 5 megapixel camera featuring flash and autofocus. Unfortunately with HVGA only video it doesn’t keep up with other phones on the market.

When it comes to software though this isn’t an ordinary Android. This phone is powered by Motorola’s MOTOBLUR service which fully integrates your social network with your phone. Providing a single stream of all your friend’s activities on your phone. All this on Android version 1.5 (not 2.1 as most devices released in 2010 run).

Despite the phone being a little underpowered it comes in quite cheap and is available for $0 on the Optus ‘yes’ social plan for $19 a month on a $24 month contract.

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Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 now on sale through Optus, Vodafone

Kimble Young — Tue, 04 May 2010 08:39:00 +0000

Xperia X10 credit on Optus' website

Today both Optus and Vodafone have just listed the Sony Ericsson Xperia 10 on their website. Their launches coincide with the heavily publicised launch on the Telstra network today. This comes as a pleasant surprise to those wishing to buy a current generation Android as Telstra were expected to be the exclusive carrier.

The Xperia is available on Optus for $0 upfront on a $99 plan. On Vodafone it’s available on a $79 cap but the upfront price is unclear and their website is still showing the phone as out of stock. As covered earlier on the Australian Phone Report the Xperia X10 will be available on Telstra for $0 upfront on a $110 a month plan.

Full specs are on the Sony Ericsson website and TechRadar have written up a fantastic in depth review of the device.

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Vodafone to sell iPad in Australia

Kimble Young — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 02:12:45 +0000

Vodafone have confirmed that they will be offering iPad pricing plans and carrying the new device from Apple in Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK at the end of May. Rumours also abound that they will pick it up in Australia too.

Earlier we speculated that we’ll see free ipads on 24 month contracts and while this may not happen for the launch at the end of May, while Vodafone try to make as much as they can out of early adopters. We think there will certainly be a quick move to sell them at appealing upfront prices on long contracts as soon as possible.

Stay tuned for more details as they become available.

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Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 coming to Telstra

Kimble Young — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 23:33:08 +0000

Just days after announcing their first Android powered smart-phone, Telstra have broken the news that the X10 will be available from
The 5th of May 2010. Apart from sporting the Android OS the X10 has some of its own unique features like ‘Timescape’ which shows all of a users communications (SMS, email, facebook and twitter) all on the one screen.

Telstra have also added some of their own magic to the X10 by making available its own Android apps including Mobile Foxtel, Whereis Navigator and Yellowpages. The music player also features integration with Bigpond’s music service.

The phone will be available for $0 upfront on a $110 a month, 24 month contract or for $1099 outright.

For more information about the announcement visit Telstra Exchange.

To learn more about the X10 visit Sony Ericsson’s product information page.

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Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 now on sale through Optus, Vodafone

How to find out mobile coverage for an area

Kimble Young — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 07:29:59 +0000

Maybe you’re buying that new 3G phone and wondering whether your telco has 3g coverage in your area or you’re switching from one provider to another and you’re not sure if the coverage is good. Or maybe you’re just going on holidays in the countryside and want to know whether you’ll be able to check your email. You could just be having a tough time trying to talk in what you think is a blackspot and wonder whether it’s happening to anyone else.

Either way it’s good to know what the coverage is like in the areas you like to spend time in. Finding the different phone company’s coverage can mean some time digging through their website so we’ve collected the network coverage maps for the big telcos together for your convenience:

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Blackberry Storm 2 and Bold 9700 Australian Release

Kimble Young — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 10:25:39 +0000

APC are reporting that the new Blackberry Storm 2(9520) and Bold will be availabe exclusively to Vodafone Australia. The new devices just announced by Research In Motion (RIM) and Vodafone UK should keep RIM in the smartphone race.

The orginal Storm was heavily criticised for its Suretouch technology which meant the whole screen moved when the user pressed the screen. This system has been replaced by an electronic feedback system.

The updated Bold should sport enhanced screen and camera resolutions.

Whether businesses and professionals will take these phone up in droves is still to be decided. The iPhone and even to some extent Nokia’s E-series phones which have many of the email features of the Blackberry have stolen a huge chunk of the Blackberry market in Australia. Although both phones, especially the iPhone lack many enterprise features outside of the ability to synchronise with Exchange.

[Via APC Magazine]

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Vodafone 3G coverage extended to 94% of Australians

Kimble Young — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 02:21:59 +0000

Vodafone has turned on 3g coverage in hundreds of areas and now claim coverage of 94% of the population. These areas include the Hunter Valley and north coast region, west of the Blue Mountains, the south west, Snowy Mountains, south coast and Canberra.

In order to take advantage of the upgrade you will need a phone that operates on the 900mhz 3G band of which Vodafone already offer 18 handsets for a wide variety of prices on both contract and prepaid.

Previously coverage was limited to metropolitan areas and was available to approximately 80% of the population. The extended coverage areas are listed below and have been taken from the official press release:

NSW: Sydney and surrounds, North Coast (from Newcastle to Evans Head), the Hunter Valley Region, Byron Bay, Lismore, Ballina, Kiama, Central North (including Tenterfield, Moree), Northern Rivers (including Lismore and Grafton), Northern Tablelands (including Armidale, Glen Innes and Inverell), the Blue Mountains, west to Orange, Bathurst and Parkes, Albury, the South West (around Goulburn and Yass), Snowy Mountains (including Comma and Perisher Valley), Central South (including Wagga Wagga, Yass and Young), Far South Coast (stretching from Sussex Inlet to Eden), Wollongong, Bowral, Nowra and Broken Hill

Victoria: Melbourne and surrounds, Geelong, Phillip Island, Mornington Peninsula, South Coast (around Colac, Lorne and Apollo Bay), Gippsland (around Sale, Traralgon and Stratford), Central West (around the Grampians, Horsham, Stawell and Nhill), West (around Warrnambool and Portland) and Central (around Shepparton, Seymour, Bendigo, Wodonga)

Queensland: Brisbane and surrounds, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, from Noosa to Gladstone, Caboolture, Ipswich, Cairns, Port Douglas, Townsville, Toowoomba, along the coast from Mackay to Cairns (including Rockhampton, Emerald) and Central Queensland (around Roma and Mt Isa)

Western Australia: Perth and surrounds, including Mandurah, south including Bunbury, Busselton, Dunsborough, Margaret River, Augusta, Albany and Esperance, east including Narrogin, Northam, Merredin and Kalgoorlie, north including Geraldton and West End, Kalbarri, Carnarvon, Karratha, Dampier, Port Hedland, Broome (including Cable Beach) and Kununurra.
South Australia: Adelaide and surrounds, the Barossa Valley, along the coast (from Mt Gambier to Victor Harbor), around the Spencer Gulf (including Whyalla), the Riverland (from Berri to Mildura) and the southern tip of the Eyre Peninsula (including Port Lincoln)

Tasmania: Hobart and surrounds, Launceston, Wynyard, Devonport, Ulverstone, Exeter, Ross, Burnie and Deloraine

Northern Territory: Darwin and surrounds, Alice Springs, Uluru, Katherine and Jabiru

Australian Capital Territory: Canberra and surrounds

Vodafone has an excellent set of coverage maps and they show a huge increase in the number light up regions.

Remember, if you want to take advantage of the extended coverage you will need to make sure your phone supports 3G on the 900MHZ band.

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Nokia releases budget touchscreen phone the 5530 MusicXpress

Kimble Young — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 02:12:24 +0000

The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic has just gone on sale in the UK for the bargain price of 140 pounds. The specs look really good for such a cheap phone: 3.2mp camera, high resolution 2.9inch touchscreen, 4gig flash card included, 3.5mm headphone jack. In fact you could pretty much call it an N97 without a keyboard.

The reviews so far are very positive. With most reviewers agreeing that you get a real bang for your buck. This is what one reviewer had to say:

We’re very impressed with the 5530 overall. It offers a very good feature set for a mid-range phone, and everything works smoothly. A better camera would have been the icing on the cake, but remember that this is being marketed as a music phone, so we’d say that it fulfils its purpose very well indeed.

The only problem is, it’s not 3G. So if you’re waiting for it in Australia you’re either going to have to buy it outright or wait for Telstra to pick it up for use on the Edge network. Here’s hoping they do offer it as it looks like a cheap but cheerful alternative to the N97 or iphone. If you’re on one of the other networks then you’ll have to hold out or spend a bit more on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

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iPhone helps Optus create subscribers out of thin air

Kimble Young — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 01:31:14 +0000

Optus are reporting an 11% rise in subscribers with an additional 213,000 customers. Apparently this is largely due to the iphone. While there’s no doubt that the iphone has been a huge success in this country the figures just don’t add up.

Australia already has over 100% penetration of mobile phones. It seems highly unlikely that quarter on quarter growth of 11% (which would be almost 50% annually or over a million new subscribers) would be possible. Especially when main rival Vodafone has reported modest growth and Telstra’s mobile revenues are up. These subscribers have to come from somewhere and it looks like Optus may be making them out of thin air.

If Optus held exclusive rights to the iphone and offered some very good reasons to switch then you probably could expect sales figures for the iphone to be somewhere around the 200k mark per quarter but Optus neither hold exclusive rights or have compelling price plans.

Take a close look at the wording of the article by the AAP and you’ll see where the real boost came from:

The telco’s parent, SingTel, which reports its first-quarter financial results today, said 213,000 new mobile and wireless broadband customers signed onto Optus in the June quarter, including 139,000 post-paid customers.

The key word is wireless broadband. Netbooks are the latest cash cow for Optus who sell them on contracts with no upfront costs in a similar method to the way mobiles are sold. In fact all the telcos are discovering a major source of new subscribers to 3G and that is not people using phones but people who want wireless Internet wherever they are.

So, it looks like the iphone has been used as a nice gimmick to sell a lot less interesting statistic.

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Pacific Magazines to start printing QR codes

Kimble Young — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 03:25:24 +0000

QR codes are 2 dimensional bar codes that can be scanned by your mobile phone and used to visit a website, share a phone number. Basically make it easier for you to interact with an ad. They are huge in Japan where trying to remember or enter a website on your mobile phone is often difficult. Use in Australia has been limited to some trials by Telstra in magazines like those by Pacific Magazines and some in-bus advertising.

With this new deal most ads in Pac Mags titles such as Men’s Health, New Idea, Marie Claire etc will include a call to action and a QR code. Hopefully this will be the start of the QR code revolution in Australia. I find them really easy to use and although you look like a twat trying to scan a code on a bus ceiling I can see huge potential for them to bridge the print to digital gap.

If you can’t wait for the next edition of Men’s Health and want to try out QR codes now then the one above will take you to the front page of this site. Whip out your Telstra QR enabled phone and go to the Myplace menu. If you’re not with Telstra a lot of phones have a reader built in already. Look for barcode reader, multiscanner or something similar. Nokia, Apple, Win Mo and Android all have free applications available to download for their smart phones.

Story via Australian IT News

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