The changing faces of Mobile phone deals

When I did my last article on the best deals available online for the top 3 smart phones I'll admit I didn't have a really great look around. What I did manage to stumble on was an awesome deal for the Samsung Galaxy S2 on allmobiles.co.uk, the deal (no longer available) was pretty much unbeatable and offered the following:
500mins, 5000 texts and 500mb all for £26 a month for 2 years. This deal gave you the phone for free and even the Web Relations team for Vodafone were unable to match it. The brilliance of the deal seemed to be too good to keep open and the deals gone now less than 24 hours later. They have been replaced by some other similar deals on the site but none are even close to it.

An example of the sites new deals include the following
500mins, 5000 texts and 500mb and an ipod shuffle all for £26 a month for 2 years...and a £89.99 up front payment. Although the free gift is nice it's actually only worth £39.00 (the price of the item from Tesco) meaning you will be paying £50 for the phone. This deal looks to be a noticeable disappointment considering the how good the deal had been 24 hours earlier. Another point regarding this deal...why would you want an ipod shuffle as well as the phone? The phone it's self has a pretty amazing media player and the shuffle is...well a bit turd.

If you are still looking to get a Samsung Galaxy S2 (and I can't see why you wouldn't want one to be honest) there are great offers available, some even come from allmobiles.co.uk though make sure you look through all the available options. As with all phone deals take a look through the likes of all the networks (Vodafone, O2, 3, T-Mobile, Orange and any small ones) as well as shops such as Phones 4 U, Tesco, Carphone Warehouse and the online retailers including allmobiles.co.uk, mobiles.co.uk and Dialaphone.co.uk.

If you a due an upgrade have a look at all the available deals and see if your company can match the deals that are online, sometimes they will attempt to beat them even if the offers themselves are short lived ones.

Some of the best mobile phone deals around

I'm currently looking at an upgrade of my phone contract and after spending the better part of 2 days looking for some of the best “normal” deals on the market here is what I've found folks.

iPhone 4
The phone that promised to reinvent the mobile industry is still one of the hottest handsets. Although 3 seem to have some of the best deals for the phone iPhones the one I liked the most was with Vodafone and was offered by the Carphone Warehouse. For £35 a month you can get 900 minutes, 3000 texts and 500MB of mobile internet as well 1 GB of Wi-Fi (through BT Openzone) and this comes with the phone coming for free for 24 months. This deal was possibly only surpassed by those offered by 3 which include a 5000 texts, 500 minutes and 1GB of mobile internet for £35 a month. This deal sees you needing to £29.00 up front for the handset though it's still a solid deal.

If you don't like the iOS then you are almost certainly going to be interested in the Android system. The top 2 current Androids are the Samsung Galaxy S2 and the HTC Sensation and although you would have though you'd have been paying an arm and a leg for them you can still get solid deals on both handsets.

HTC Sensation
The HTC Sensation is the next step forward for the HTC brand which is simply becoming one of the worlds leaders in the market. The cheapest deal I've seen this on is the £25 a month for 24 month deal that comes with 100 minutes, 500 texts and 500MB and is offered through Phones 4 U. The better deal however is their £30 a month deal for 24 months which has 600 minutes, 3000 texts and 500MB. The deal is usually £35 a month though for some reason Phones 4 U are offering it at a reduced price saving you £120 over the course of the contract. Both of these deals see the handset coming for free and so you are getting a top whack phone on a very good deal.

Samsung Galaxy S2
The new standard bearer for Samsung and Android is, like the Sensation, a really top quality phone and again there is a lot of good deals flying around. The best I could find was £30 a month for 24 months via Tesco in a deal that gives you 700 minutes, 5000 texts and 500MB of internet. Again the handset comes for free and the deal is an excellent one.

Depending on which of the three leading phones you want you should be able to get a solid deal on them. If you are looking to upgrade take these deals into account as they will almost certainly help you negotiate an upgrade deal.

Sony Ericsson Shots

After yesterdays fun with the Fruit bowl I've gone Barmy with a bottle. These photos were all taken with a Sony Ericsson C902, like the Samsung Wave it has a 5 Mega-Pixel with a number of options to use and play with. Unlike last nights pictures these were mostly taken in good lighting with multiple bright lights rather than 1 pretty poor lamp. The photographs are of 3 different things, first a “Brahma” beer bottle on the living room floor, “Brahma” bottle on the table and thirdly of a cup of tea in the Kitchen. All 3 sets of images allow you to see different things and some of the pictures are significantly better than others.
 

 Out of the 3 "Tea" pictures taken (only 2 have been used) this was the best, the colours were the nearest to being true. Although detailed enough to read the writing on the microwave you can make out the reflections on the worktop and the crumbs. The detail, all not amazing is pretty decent

 For some reason the colours seemed to be drained out of this photograph. Although it has a similar amount of detail the colours being dark and murky have taken much of the life out of the image. The shadows on the doors do show up better but on the whole the image just feels lifeless in comparison to the one above. Although I'm not 100% sure on the difference I have a feeling this was taken with out the flash on.

 This one of the bottle on the floor is far from perfect though it's gotten most of the colours right, especially the carpet and the bottle. What it's done though has smudged the lighting on the BT Vision box (the Blue light under the TV). Overall it's good for the foreground though seems to have blurred the background slightly.

 This one is very similar to the one above though worse, the red light on the DVD player and the Blue light on the BT Vision box are both heavily blurred and the TV image, although visible also looks terrible in regards to the colours. The Focus seems almost certainly to have been set to the foreground (Auto) due to the way it's made the background look fuzzy.

 This one manages to make the lights in the background look sharper though they seem to "stretch" instead of blur. The quality and colours on the foreground are all pretty much the same as above with only the lighting in the background being of any major difference.

Out of the "Beer bottle on the floor" pictures this appears to be the best of them. Th colours in the forground are at their best and even the lights in the background are bright, sharp and they haven't been blurred like in many of the above pictures. It was almost certainly taken with light mode, which improves the quality of a photograph, though this has meant that the camera was left on the floor and as a result missed the TV from the image.

This one genuinely surprised me, it was taken with VGA quality and yet ends up looking like a pretty decent photo. If you try to blow it up though it really pixelates and is one of the photographs that should be kept at smaller sizes. The way it's picked up the reflection of the TV really shocked me as well, the reflect actually looks better than the TV.

This is probably my favourite picture from this bunch. The reflection of the TV is billiant, the details at the foreground are pretty good (not amazing though) though for it has overly brightened the wood on the mantle piece. The lights under the TV aren't particularly blurry either (they have a slight blur to them but nothing major).

This has significantly darkened the colours from the above picture and the result is that the lights in the background do look much, much crisper. The shadows on the table are a little bit over the top and the photograph is good but not great.

This one is probably the best overall, a look at the desk makes the items much easier to see (glasses, charger, lamp, another cell phone, a house phone, keys and packet) the background lights have only a little blurring and the reflection is picked up brilliantly. Again not a perfect picture but it's me taking them, not someone who knows what they are actually doing.

A little bit of a playing with the Samsung Wave Camera

I've had a very quick play with the camera of the phone and taken some photographs of the room I was where I was sat whilst writing a small beginners guide to using the camera function. These photographs aren't supposed to be masterpieces but are just to try and show the differences between what the Camera CAN do and how bad some photographs are with the phone. IF you know what you are doing (not that I actually do) you can take some fantastic pictures. These have just been taken with various settings to see the differences between a good photo taken with the correct settings and those taken with "bad" settings.

Terrible photo that was taken with a "macro" focus and the lowest resolution. As you can see it looks blurry and just not particularly good. This is a bad photo example we are using and one that was used in the article linked to above. The problems extend much deeper than the blurring effects, just look at the TV in the background to show the problems with this image.

Although this needs to be perhaps darkened slightly it's a much better picture of the same thing as the above picture. Whilst it's not ideal (remember this is me taking the photograph) you have gotten a much crisper image, if you view the image in full size you can visible see the lines on the table and the lights on the DVD player under the TV. As well as the difference in sharpness you can also make out the image on the TV and the cup is white instead of an off-white "dirty" colour.

When blown up this picture is strikingly blurry and that was due to making a really small movement when using night mode. The image although looks "acceptable" when viewed in a small image really doesn't look good at all when blown up and the blurriness really comes out. The features of the "Night" scene is that the picture takes a while to take and is high quality, though movement really blurs images.

 This is essentially a very similar picture to the one above though with out the phone being moved at all. The blurring is gone and it's incredibly smooth and crisp. Sadly with using the "Night" scene and needing to hold the camera still it had to be rested on the floor (hence the slight change in angle from the image above). "Night" scene really does increase the quality of a picture though if used properly.

This was taken with slightly different settings and as a result it lost some of the colour quality of the picture above. Whilst it's still "acceptable" it's not as good as the really good night mode one above. Again it's a crisp image though the colours are a little too bright.

This is an odd picture, I do rather like it for the way it shows the rotting orange off and the carpet looks "almost" right. Though it's focused very heavily on the foreground and as a result really neglects the background and looks darker than it should do. I class this as a good photograph though it's the qualities it has rather than anything technical that makes me like it.

 This is pretty much the opposite of the picture above. It shows the background well though the fruit and the fruit bowl are really bad amd dark. I dislike this one despite the fact it does show some of the background features. The problem is that the whole photograph is just too dark and the fruit is really terrible.

This one is simply too bright on the oranges and has overly brightened the carpet. The dark colours on the carpet "should" look rather deep red and instead they look really bright red and the even the rotting orange looks like it could just have been from the flash. Really terrible picture in terms of lighting even if it is relatively sharp.

This one was taken using the "macro" focus, and as you can see it's just blurry and horrific. Out of the "Orange bowl" pictures this is my least favourite as it's blurry, the colours are generally hit and miss and it's a just not very good.

This one is quite possibly the best of the photographs as it's got both the foreground and background looking good and the carpet, although not perfect is pretty accurate. The oranges don't overly reflect the flash and on the whole it's a pretty decent photograph for a complete amateur.

 This is a really poor picture, it almost looks as if it was taken in black and white (though it wasn't) and the colours just seem to be drained out of the image. It's an interesting one in regards of this blog entry though had it not been for this blog it'd have been deleted instantly.

This is probably the best one from a technical view point, the colours are all spot on and the image is crisp, true and sharp. Although not my favourite picture it is a solid image and really show off the ability of the camera. It's a photo that should be zoomed into to really see why it's the best image out of the orange ones.




Although it's pretty obvious I'm not a photographer these have all been taken with the same phone and you can see the vast difference between images from just playing with the settings. If you're a good photographer you will be able to get some very decent photographs out of the phone by using the right settings.

Samsung Wave

It's been ages since I last posted on to this blog and I've since had a pretty fun play with a Samsung Wave GT-S723e. The things I've learnt from this phone have been put into a number of hubs for Hubpages which I'll link you to through out this piece.

The Samsung Wave I have is currently with Vodafone in the UK on some special 24 months offer with unlimited texts and 300 minutes for a nice price though the phone it's self isn't anything brilliant it's ok for what it is. The phone runs the "BADA" software which when compared to things like Android, Windows and iOS seems relatively limited. Despite this the handset is easy to use and the touchscreen is pretty accurate and works well. The battery can last a while and you can of course use a bunch of tricks to stretch out the phones battery life which aew pewtty simple and painless.

The phone has a solid 5MP camera which although not brilliant does take some pretty decent photos and are incredibly easy to transfer to a computer with out too much effort. Though admittedly I've not really played with the camera enough to work out how good it actually is. In all honesty it does seem slightly better than the HTC Wildfire's camera though not as good as the Sony Ericcson C902 one (the three phones I have for comparison at the moment).

As with all modern phones you can easily put your music on to the phone and of course select your own tracks as a ringtone. With out a memory card you are pretty limited to a handful of songs or photographs. The memory card you will be needing if you purchase the phone is a Micro SD card which can come in some hefty sizes and are afforable (though not "cheap" per se).

As with all modern phones there is a real depth to how far you can explore the phone but you will still be surprised by the depth of the handset and the fact there is a real wealth of secrets. I sadly didn't find some of them out until it was too late, though here is a heads up on some of them to allow you to do things like "Screenshots" and factory resetting the handset.

On the whole the phone is a "decent" handset but not a particularly great one. If you want to be up to date this isn't the phone for you though it's a steady handset for those who aren't too big on multi-tasking. It does all the basic things well such as making calls, playing music, allowing you to use the net (via either 3G or Wi-fi), texting, photography, being an alarm but it doesn't do the advance things. Don't look to this phone to be a mobile office or to be a replacement to your Nintendo DS as it's not that kind of device, it's a phone first and foremost with some bonus'.

HTC Wildfire Tips tricks and stuff

So with Christmas around the corner and phone stores everywhere trying to flog you a smart phone, you want to know as much as you can about them....right?

Well although I can't tell you everything you may want to know I can help you with the one I've got, the HTC Wildfire. A cheap and well rounded HTC that look as attractive as any other smart phone out there at the moment and although not the most versatile is one of the best introductory Android phones out there. Although the phone is a solid one and has a fully fledged review here. You'll probably want to know more than just want a review gives you, so lets look at some of those useful little things that every phone user wants to know.

So firstly something that the you'll find yourself using more often than you'd expect, using the phone as a torch isn't something most would think they will find as a bonus, but it actually is. To read how to use the phone as a torch, by using either it's inbuilt “Flashlight App” (which uses the Camera light) click here,  though of course that guide also teaches you how to use the a free App to use the screen as your torch light.

A common question regarding the phone is “how do I select my own ringtone?”A question that you will ask yourself unless you've been shown how to set it. Heck even the in built menu doesn't pose any help at all. If you're one of those that likes to set your own music for a ring tone then I must urge you to give this guide a click. Although it's not a pictorial guide it is easy to follow and talks you through all the steps you need to look at.

Of course you'll not want you're phone getting scratched and any tips to prevent damage to it are advisable. As well as remembering not to try and use a stylus (they don't work with the screen) you can read a variety of common sense tips in this guide of “How to prevent your screen being damaged”. It may not be anything ingenious but it is certainly useful. Although that's not a money saving tip, one that is is connecting your phone via Wi-Fi where ever possible. The reasons can be found here, though a description on hos it's done is actually very simple. On the home screen press “menu” then find wireless, click on Wi-Fi and find your normal connection (generally your home internet, though also things like “The Wi-Fi Zone- The Cloud”. For your home internet you will have to have the WPA key the first time.

Whilst on Wi-Fi why not make the best use of your phone and either listen to one of any number of digital radio stations from the amazing TuneIn Radio App (that's currently free from the Android market) or watch Youtube through the phone. Though of course if neither of those please you, you can generally find a way to watch live TV from a website like Tvcatchup.com (though it's limited to the UK sadly) totally legally (at time of publication it is legal).

When your sick of Apps or have just need to free some space on your phone there's 2 ways to delete them from your phone. Have a read of both of these techniques here. They are sadly not the most logical of ways but they both work brilliantly.

Of course there is much much more to the phone than just those tips and tricks above as well as the tricks that can be found in this “Tricks and Tips” article. Feel free to google around and share these tips, I'm sure any of your friends with, or getting this or similar phones will find them really useful.