Very happy to announce that Mobiles.co.uk won the “Best Online Retailer” category at last night’s Mobile News Awards, the most prestigious awards ceremony in the business hosted by Simon Amstell (Never Mind the Buzzcocks) at the swanky Park Lane Hilton in central London. As you can see this is the 3rd time we’ve been recognised at these awards, as well as picking up “Best Online Retailer” from Mobile magazine.

We’d like to thank everyone who helped us to become officially the Number One mobile phone retailer in the UK, from customers to our fantastic staff to our loyal blog readers

In case you were wondering, we beat Carphone Warehouse, O2 and Three to the top spot.

I asked one of my colleagues in the office why the Viewty was her phone of choice and this is what she said:

“The LG Viewty is a great handset. It’s got an excellent camera and zoom for taking pictures on all occasions. It’s also got great music storage too as I have several tunes stored onto mine.
The huge touchscreen would seem hard to use but I actually prefer it to the conventional keypad. Some would think this handset as just a ‘fashion phone’ but I think it’s a lot more than that”

The LG Viewty Silver is available to order now, click here for more info.

The Sony Ericsson Z555i is a clamshell phone comes complete with a range of four different leather bags, along with three new Bluetooth headsets. The phone itself comes with a diamond design to the casing, with themes that change throughout the year, differing throughout the seasons that change the look of your menu and home screen. The phone also has a discreet LED display on the front of the phone, so you can see who is calling without having to open the phone up. The Z555i also has gesture control like on the W910i which allows you to snooze your alarm just by waving your hand over the phone. It also comes with a 1.3MP camera with 4x digital zoom.

Specifications

• 1.3MP Camera with 4x digital zoom
• FM Radio
• Bluetooth
• Email
• Comes in Diamond Black or Dusted Rose
• Weight is 95 grams
• Size is 95 x 49 x 16.5mm
• Tri-Band GPRS
• EDGE

The W760i

The Sony Ericsson W760i is the latest Walkman phone on the market that now features Tri-Band HSDPA. The music functions of the phone include Album Art, Shake Control, Play Now SensMe and Track ID. Meaning you can get the song you want to suit your mood, or skip through your albums with a flick of your wrist. It also has stereo speakers built in, so you can play your tunes to friends, anytime, anywhere. The phone also comes with built-in GPS with Wayfinder Navigator 1. The W760i also has Tracker, which is an application that works with the GPS to tell you how fast, how far and for how long you walked or ran for. The gaming capabilities on the W760i are better than before as you not only get better sound from the built in speakers, but you can also play the games in landscape mode, as the phone has dedicated gaming buttons. It also comes complete with Need For Speed – ProStreet.

Specifications

• 3.2MP Camera with BestPic and Photo Fix
• Walkman Player with album art, shake control, SensMe TrackID and many more functions
• Email
• Bluetooth
• FM Radio
• Google Maps Mobile
• Weight is 103 grams
• Size is 103 x 48 x 15mm
• Comes in Rocky Silver, Fancy Red and Intense Black

The W350i

The Sony Ericsson W350i is the latest flip phone from Sony Ericsson combining the best of their Walkman technology with style. It’s a slim phone at only 10mm thick, coming in a range of colours including Electric Black, Ice Blue, Hypnotic Black and Graphic White. The Walkman Player can be navigated without opening the phone as it has Play, Pause and Scroll on the dedicated walkman navigation button on the front of the phone. The w350i also has bluetooth stereo streaming so that you can listen to your music without any wires by using a Bluetooth headset.

Specifications

• Walkman player with album art, TrackID, Play Now and Mega Bass
• 1.3MP camera with 4x digital zoom
• Email
• FM Radio
• Bluetooth
• Size is 104 x 43 x 10.5mm
• Weight is 80 grams
• GSM/GPRS/EDGE 900/1800/1900

First Impressions

Motorola have had a good run with the RAZR brand, and the V8 is the next offering in super slim design handsets. There are some good improvements over the original RAZR, and the overall opinion of this RAZR2 is positive. There is still room for improvement though.

The Motorola RAZR V8 feels solid, and well built. The casing of the handset has a quality feel to it and is finished in an appealing design. The hinge works well and doesn’t feel as if it will easily snap. I have seen Motorola reps throw handsets on the floor to demonstrate how sturdy they are, I’m sure the Razr2 will have been subjected to a similar testing before release. The handset feels slightly wide in the hand, and when opened it is just big. The new RAZR may be slim, but it is long, extremely so when open.

Living with it

The RAZR V8 is a quad band GSM phone with EDGE for fast data transfer. The phone supports Bluetooth 2.0, which allows for listening to music wirelessly with a compatible Bluetooth headset. The Motorola V8 has no memory card slot, so you are stuck with the onboard memory. The handset I reviewed had an on board capacity of 420MB, which is good, but with most handsets coming with memory card options allowing 2, 4 or even up to 8GB capacity, less than half a gigabyte is not really good enough. The built in MP3 player on the v8 is pretty good. Playback from the built in speakers is fairly loud, and the outside screen on the phone offers music controls when the handset is closed. The controls are touch screen operative, and whilst it is a good gimmick, reaction to a selection is very slow.

The camera on the handset is 2.0 megapixel. There are no overall outstanding features or comments to make about the camera, it really is a simple ‘point n shoot’ camera. Despite this, the quality of the pictures was surprisingly good.

Conclusion

Overall the Motorola RAZR2 V8 is a nice handset. It has a sturdy build and some useful extra applications. The MP3 player is nice, the camera is nice, and the Opera web browser is very good. In total the V2 doesn’t quite make the grade, but in general Motorola RAZR fans will not be disappointed.

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The candy bar shape handset comes with a 5.0 megapixel camera, which features a Carl Zeiss lens, auto focus and is equipped with a Xenon flash.

As well as this, the N82 also sports a built in GPS receiver, has a 3.5mm audio socket which allows you to use your own headsets, has a TV out option so you can connect your phone to a TV, is equipped with WLAN connectivity, supports 3G and super 3G HSDPA Mobile Broadband for high speed data transfer.

The Nokia N82 is available to buy now from Mobiles.co.uk on O2.

First Impressions

Every once in a while a handset comes long that sets the benchmark for others to judge themselves by. Sometimes this is achieved by superior design, sometimes by functionality. The Nokia N95 sets the standard in both areas.

The design of the N95 is not in the fashion type styling but in the unique dual slide. The N95 slides up in the normal way, revealing a keypad with good sized usable keys that are well spaced at and comfortable to use. If you slide the phone in the opposite direction, you reveal multimedia short cut keys. The N95 automatically switches view to landscape mode and you can start watching videos, or listening to music.

Living with it

The Nokia N95 also sets the standard in handset functionality, and it is a level few phones are able to achieve. Starting with the camera, the N95 is equipped with a 5.0 megapixel camera, which has auto focus, and a Carl Zeiss lens. The camera is activated by flicking open the lens cover by the switch at the back. The Nokia N95 has excellent video recording abilities, recording video at DVD quality 30fps. The view finder on the camera takes advantage of the fantastic screen, a large 40×53mm QVGA screen supporting up to 16 million colours. The clarity is amazing, and has to be seen to be enjoyed. On top of this the n95 has a TV Out option. The cable is supplied with the handset, just plug it into the built in 3.5mm jack point, plug the other end into the TV (I prefer to use a scart plug for this) and you can view all videos in full screen quality. Another option for the TV Out is to use the N95 with a Bluetooth keyboard, and you have a PC. Browse the web, write a word document, send receive email, all viewed on the large TV screen.

The Nokia N95 is a 3G phone, supporting Mobile Broadband (HSDPA) as well as GPRS and HSCSD. The N95 also has WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0. Built in to the N95 is a GPS chip. Working alongside the built in Nokia Maps functionality, the N95 can be used as a full Sat Nav device. The Nokia Maps application is supplied free of charge, you only pay for a licence if you want to use turn-by-turn voice instructions.

The N95 mobile phone doesn’t lack on further media options. As well as a built in FM stereo radio and video player, the N95 has an MP3 music player. Download songs directly to the handset OTA or transfer them from your PC via the USB cable and take your music with you on the move. With the Nokia Podcasting application you can download your favourite Podcasts on the move and listen to them wherever you are, whenever it is convenient. With the built in 3.5mm jack you are not restricted to the Nokia headset that comes with the phone, just plug in your favourite headphones for comfort and sound quality.

The Nokia N95 supports Symbian S60v3FP1. This operating system is very light, very quick, easy to use and fast to navigate. The N95 comes with all the usual Symbian phone features, including a built in email client and a very good web browser. The source code for the browser is the same as that used for the browser in the Apple iPhone.

Conclusion

There is so much in the Nokia N95, it really is the most complete phone available to date.

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First Impressions
The Viewty is a sleek looking phone, and from the back looks exactly like a camera. It is light weight and fits into your pocket easily. It has a large touch screen interface that makes the using the phone easy. It has two dedicated camera buttons on the side, making the camera much easier to access and use.

Living With It

Having never used an LG handset before, I found the Viewty easy to use and very functional. As with all new phones, it took a little bit of time to find out where everything was on the menu, but once I had the menu figured out, I found it was no trouble at all to use. Using the camera itself was really simple. It has loads of options to change the type of picture, the size, the quality etc. I really liked the different editing options especially the fact that I could draw all over peoples faces with a pen, most of my friends received devil horns and a moustache, in a variety of colours. The manual focus was a little tricky at first as it’s a rocker type switch around the camera lens. This also controls scrolling through the menus. It’s a little hard to use because you have to keep your hand steady whilst fiddling with the back of the camera. I soon got used to it though. The video recording function is great as it records at 120 frames per second, and can upload straight to YouTube.

Conclusions

Most people hyped up the LG Viewty as the direct competitor to the iPhone, or the next step up from the LG Prada phone. However, I feel it is neither; it is a fantastic phone in its own right and a great addition to the LG range.

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First up comes the Samsung G600 as reviewed by Rianna.

First Impressions

This phone is very smart-looking and stylish; it feels well-made and fits in well with Samsung’s stylish approach to their handset manufacturing. The phone itself is really easy to use, and the menu navigation is simple, meaning it took me no time at all to get my head round the phone.

Living With It

The camera is by far the phone’s best attribute, it has a huge amount of different styles, frames, effects and picture quality options. The camera is really easy to use, and the pictures look great. I really enjoyed the fact that I could get creative with the G600 by creating my own theme for the phone, I changed the background pictures, the colours of the screen and many other things, a great way to really personalise my phone. I found texting and calling people fine; although the texting did take some time to get used to as I usually use a Sony Ericsson. It comes complete with a wireless headset, which is great, as I’m no longer tangled up with wires!

Conclusion

This handset is a great all rounder, with the added bonus of a fantastic 5 mega-pixel camera. It’s a perfect phone for a night in the pub with friends to capture those embarrassing moments! Its definitely I phone I would buy.

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The Sony Ericsson K810i camera phone has kept some similarities to its original the K800i in terms of overall looks and features. One major difference to the k800i though, is the keypad. The phone now has 4mm wide disc shaped buttons, which were easy to use, however some people might find it hard to adapt to due to their small size. The phone has a rubbery soft feel on the back, and the front is shiny. In between each line of vertical buttons there is a large space. This phone is slimmer and lighter than its original weighting at just 103 grams.

Camera Test

The cyber-shot camera is excellent. It has a 16X digital zoom, and has loads of features that allow you to take photos with different themes, effects, and background frames. The quality of the photos is very good, and there are several different capture modes, including sports, which allow brilliant quality photos for fast moving objects, and beach/snow mode is for when the surroundings are very bright. There is also a new feature called “photofix” where a picture can be adjusted after it’s been taken to give it a professional look.

The camera also has four different picture sizes to choose from. The only setback from the camera is the shutter speed in which the photo is taken, as it is quite slow. However the camera does have a burst mode called ‘Bestpics’, and this allows 9 pictures to be automatically taken one after the other straight away.

One of the things I found annoying was when looking through all the pictures in the photo album. When a picture is chosen, it initially looks blurred and distorted. After about a second the picture clears up and looks normal, but sometimes it can take longer than a second. This can be irritating when trying to have a quick browse through photos.

The camera is very easy to use on this mobile phone due to its shortcuts. As when the camera function is on, the buttons on the left hand side of the keypad give you direct access to all of the camera and video settings. These buttons have icons which are lit up in blue to show you what they are for. Also at the top of the screen there are two photo album shortcut buttons, one takes you to the camera album and the other takes you to the last picture taken with the camera.

The video camera is just of an average standard, as when used on the automatic mode the picture can look quite fuzzy and pixelated at times. This is the same when using 3G video call.

Music Test

There are lots of features on this phone music wise. A new service that has been added to the phone which the Sony Ericsson k800i did not have is TrackID. This is a music recognition service that is free, it identifies songs that are played from a external music source such as an FM radio. This service is quick and it is able to collect the song, artist and album name. The phone has a FM radio and a media music player, which separates the songs saved into Artists and Track categories. Playlists can also be created to gather all your favourite songs together.

As well as the music player there is also Music DJ, which allows you to create your own song using four different instruments. The Playnow service also allows you to download your favourite songs. When music is played on this phone it is clear and of good quality, this is the same when listening to music through the headphones. Music can also be listened to through a wireless Bluetooth headset. All in all a great music phone.

Living with it

Living with this phone for two weeks was good in general. One of the main things that I liked about this phone was the FaceWarp software. It’s the most amusing thing on a phone ever! The most annoying thing about this phone is the signal interference noise. This noise is when the phone is polling to the network. It happens when the phone is near computer speakers, a Hi-Fi, or a car’s radio, and it is by far the worst signal noise from a phone that I have used. The phone has great battery life as I barely had to charge it even though it was always being used. A great function is that a video clip can be stored with each contact on the phone. This means that when someone calls the video will be played along with the videos noise. Texting on this phone was simple, and once you have got used to the small buttons, it becomes very rare to accidentally press the wrong button, as the buttons are quite well separated.

Conclusion

In general I think that this phone is a good basic mobile phone. It’s simple to use, and as well as having a few extras it has all the essential things anyone would need. This was the first Sony Ericsson mobile I have used, and the impression that I got was that it seems like a practical and reliable handset. It has lots of fun and entertaining stuff to do, such as Music and Photo DJ and FaceWarp. This is a cybershot camera and it does have everything you would expect from a digital camera, as there are lots of things to do with the camera and pictures.

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I’m Lee and have been with the Geek Squad since February 2007. I work as a double agent mostly visiting homes to kill all your spyware, and make computers do what you want them too. My specialties lie in Macs and Mobile Phones so as my first blog post I have given you a quick run through some of the steps you can go through if your phone misbehaves. Hopefully it will be a help to some of you!

Its amazing how many people have problems with phones and do not know basic steps to follow on how to fix them, especially when you consider how importantly mobile phones feature in people’s lives. What I am going to tell you about now are the steps I go through to fix a problem:

1. Turn the phone on and off

It may sound obvious but whenever I get someone who cannot make a call, cannot text or even some keys do not work the first thing I ask them is, have you tried turning your phone on and off. We refer to it as a power cycle and it can fix a lot of problems, a customer will often ask me why should they have to do that. You must bear in mind that most mobiles are on 24/7 there are not many electrical devices that have the same demands put upon them. By performing a power cycle you are giving the phone a breather.

2. If the problem still exists try a master reset

This is like a super power cycle if you will, a phone may look pretty basic from the menu you see but there are thousands of processes running in the background that determine how your phone run. So if one of those processes is not working correctly it is very difficult to diagnose and also even more difficult to change. The best thing to do is a factory reset, it is often found in settings and should be relatively easy to find. It will change your ringtone and wallpaper and any other customization your have made but will not delete your pictures or any other data, (be careful with Sony Ericsson handsets though there is an option which does do this, just pay particular attention to what it says on the screen).

3. Still Broken

If these are both unsuccessful you should check your phone for water damage, there is usually an indicator on your battery which should be a white dot or small square, if it is any other colour then I am afraid you are in trouble. Water damage does not always manifest itself immediately so that time you thought you got away with using it in the rain 3 months ago could easily only now just be affecting your phone, if this is the case your phone insurance should cover you for a replacement.

Other than that the phone could simply have a bug, the phone manufacturers are under such pressure to release new handsets the quickest, the testing time before release is getting shorter and shorter this is why they entitle you to free software upgrades throughout your entire first year of ownership so you can make sure you have the fastest most feature packed experience possible with your handset. This is done by either sending your phone to the manufacturer (usually 28 days) or the easier option is to take it to a Carphone Warehouse where on occasion they can fix it on site if they can, failing that they send it to a central location where the turnaround time is around 14 days.

4. If all else fails….

Try finding people with the same problem. If your problem is on a Nokia n95 and you are having trouble sending texts type “nokia n95 text problem forum” into the Google and you will be granted access to a world where people are having the same problem where most of the time someone else has done the hard work and found a solution already that you can apply. If this is fruitless you can always appeal for help by crating your own topic, the Nokia forum is especially helpful with the engineers themselves often posting solutions.

So these are the steps that I follow myself and also when I am charged with the task of fixing other phones too. Hopefully if you follow them to it will help you out. Always remember to back up your photos and numbers either on a computer or extra memory card. If this all sounds a bit confusing and not worth your time, you can get us to do it instead. Call 0800 049 4335 and a geek squad agent will be on hand to advise you of the best solution. If you would rather e-mail send your problem to contact@geeksquad.co.uk and chances are I will deal with you myself.

Lee Williams | Agent 5235
Geek Squad Europe | London