Articles tagged with: orange

Orange has followed O2 and Virgin's lead and come up with a home and mobile broadband combo package. The aptly named "Home & Mobile Broadband" packages up ADSL and HSDPA for a single £20 a month charge.

For that you'll get up to 8Mbps ADSL with a 10GB download limit, plus free evening and weekend landline calls at home and up to 3.6Mbps HSDPA on the move, with a 3GB per month mobile allowance.

As if you didn't have enough to choose from with the iPhone 3G, Xperia X1, T-Mobile G1 and BlackBerry Storm all lining up in stores, now HTC's Touch HD has joined the fray. It's just found its way into stock at devicewire.com for a cool £498.19 sim-free.

If that's a tad beyond your budget then unlocked HDs will also be available with contracts on Orange and O2 courtesy of mobiles.co.uk from Friday. It's selling it for free on £35+ 18 month tariffs on either network.

We've been able to get our hands on the shiny new Xperia X1 since the end of last month - for a price. But if sim-free isn't your style, you'll be pleased to learn that it's now available on Vodafone.

The touchscreen Sony Ericsson is free on the red network's 18-month contracts above £45 (which'll get you 900 minutes, unlimited texts and iPhone-matching unlimited data). If you only want to be tied for a year then you'll have to stump up an eye-watering £80 a month to get it for nowt, with none of the unlimited data and text privileges but a frankly rude 3000 minutes of talk.

Looks like Orange has bagged that touchscreen phone exclusive it had been looking for. It's announced that the HTC Touch HD will be available from early next month as a network exclusive.

Orange have it in the bag till "2009" (which we are presuming means January or there abouts) when it'll be a free for all on any network. It'll be selling it for a £79.99 on an 18 month contract at £40 a month. Click through for the full press release.

In a "memo" sent by a PR "leaked" to the Register, Vodafone has engaged in some serious point scoring against its rival, Orange, over its early and (as it turned out) not so successful release of the BlackBerry Bold. Due to what the memo calls "software issues and technical faults", which forced Orange to temporarily pull the Bold, the Newbury-based network feels it now has the perfect opportunity to point out the "superiority of Vodafone’s network coverage and testing processes."

Rubbing just a little salt into Orange's wounds it says, "We are pleased to inform our partners that these issues do not affect any BlackBerry Bold devices offered by Vodafone [thanks to] considerable time working with RIM to optimise the BlackBerry Bold software for Vodafone's network."

The future's bright - the future's more laptops with built-in HSDPA, so says Orange's director of devices (how much cooler would that title be with just two little letters missing), Francois Mahieu, who's promising more bundled laptop deals with SIMs inside.

According to Mahieu, "Almost one third of the laptops that we will sell to consumers next year will have a SIM embedded". Just the thing for dongle haters. And he's suggested a laptop care package might be on the way, a la Orange's current mobile handset offering. Joy.

Orange must be feeling a little left out with all the touchscreen exclusives available on O2 (iPhone 3G), vodafone (BlackBerry Storm) and T-Mobile (G1) but now it looks as if it's finally bagged one of its own. Rumour is its snared the newly announced Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (aka the Tube) as an Orange exclusive.

The news comes in the form of a snippet in the Guardian's review of the BlackBerry Storm. When comparing the various alternatives, Richard Wray writes: "Both the G1 and the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic - which by the way will be sold in the UK by Orange - have made use of tactile feedback."

So is this an educated guess or insider info? With UK availability not slated till early next year, it could be a while till we find out.

[The Guardian]

Orange may have been the first to launch the BlackBerry Bold here in the UK, but eager RIM fans may have got less than they bargained for when they signed on the dotted line for an 18 month contract. According to The Register, the much vaunted BlackBerry Maps app is missing from the Orange version - despite the first Orange specs stating the software would be there.

One call to Orange customer services is all it takes to find out why as those enquiring to its whereabouts are being offered Orange's own service, for an extra £92. Those who try and download the free BlackBerry Maps software themselves are finding that when they install it no icon appears and they can't run it.

Anything Carphone Warehouse can do - Orange can do too. It's joined with Asus to offer free Eee PC 900 16G laptops to anyone signing up to its 3GB mobile broadband service for £25/month.

The catch is you'll have to sign up for a full 24 months - total cost for your 'free' 16GB laptop: £600. Ouch!

If you don't want the freebie Eee, you can get the same 3GB tariff, sans laptop, for £10 a month a less - a saving of £240 over two years, or roughly the cost of an Eee PC 900 16G!

[Orange]

Contrary to T-Mobile's claims, the pink network won't be the first to get RIM's new Bold. In fact it'll be Orange that gets in there first with the new BlackBerry landing in just five days' time.

The Inquirer has it direct from the horse's mouth that the Bold will be in Orange's hands by Wednesday and into stores and available on-line on Friday.

It'll be free on £45+ tariffs. As we already know, Carphone Warehouse will also be offering it around the same time. The Inquirer has it offering the Bold for free on £40+ tariffs with unlimited data thrown in but says you'll have to wait till 21st August to get hold of it.

[Inquirer]