Orange has come out this morning, in advance of the official UK unveiling of the phone, to confirm it will be the exclusive UK carrier of the TG01. We can confirm availability from July 10 (i.e. tomorrow), and the phone can be had for free on a 2-year contract costing £39.15 per month. To figure out if that sort of investment is worth it, we'll have an intrepid reporter stationed at this afternoon's event, who'll be bringing you up-to-the-minute details and imagery of the first Snapdragon handset to hit British shores. You'll find the full PR at the read link, or continue reading for an unshaven Orange rep walking you through the phone's specs.

[Via CoolSmartPhone]

Say what you will about S60 5th Edition, but here's the thing -- of the smartphones in the news today, only one has a massive AMOLED display. Samsung's i8910 HD is almost irrefutably the baddest-ass S60 device ever produced and one of the most heavily-spec'd smartphones ever made for any platform, featuring the aforementioned 3.7-inch 640 x 360 capacitive touchscreen, an 8 megapixel camera, an S60-specific implementation of TouchWiz with 3D enhancements, and HSUPA. Bottom line is that if this phone can't get you worked into a lather, S60 definitely isn't for you -- and lucky Brits now have the opportunity to make that gut check thanks to Orange's retail launch. You can grab it for a totally reasonable £97.50 (about $151) on a £35 per month plan, which seems like a pittance to pay for one of the monster handsets of 2009.

[Via All About Symbian]

What a difference a year and a half makes, eh? It was August of 2007 when Orange first got all weird on Nokia over the then-wild concept of a manufacturer-owned and operated music store -- bear in mind the iPhone hadn't launched very widely at that time -- and look how far we've come. The two companies have just announced that the venerable Nokia 5800 XpressMusic will be available starting May 29 loaded up with Comes With Music, Nokia's all-you-can-eat service that brings endless downloadable tracks through its Music Store. In Orange's case, Comes With Music will be available on any of five special plans starting at £25 a month (about $38), meaning that you'll be able to nab music for the duration of your two-year contract. As long as DRM's in the mix, you're basically locked into your contract for as long as you want the definitive Bryan Adams collection that you've downloaded -- so we're hoping Nokia nixes that nightmare sooner rather than later. And hey, congrats, Orange customers -- you're the first Brits to officially be offered this through a carrier, and you'll be getting it in an "exclusive" black / silver color combo.

Attention, Orange and the random supplier who's manufacturing these ripoffs: the world has moved on from the original HTC Touch's design language. Hell, we've actually moved on twice now; once to the Touch Diamond, and once to the Touch Diamond2. On that note, we're not sure what's possessing a Western European carrier to release a cheesy rip of a such a well-known late model phone -- whose manufacturer Orange has a great relationship with, no less -- other than the fact that they're looking to give entry-level customers a really inexpensive way to get into the touchscreen game. Indeed, the prepaid device will apparently run just £48.50 (about $71) when it launches, but in return, you're only getting a 1.3 megapixel camera, presumably EDGE data, and the mocking of everyone you've ever known -- including your own mother, who we understand uses an actual HTC Touch.

[Via mobile-review]

Update: If T-Mobile UK is more your style, turns out they're offering the very same device as the Vairy Touch. Thanks, everyone!

Looks like LG's about to treat the world to an upgrade of its popular Viewty handset. The Viewty II (aka, GC900) is rumored to be hitting Orange UK sometime in June. As a refresher, the VII (or juicy 900 if you must) is laden with impressive specs including LG's 3D S-Class UI riding a 3-inch WVGA touchscreen, accelerometer, and an 8 megapixel camera with xenon flash, manual and auto focus, image stabilization, ISO 1600 support (riiiight), A-GPS geotagging, slow motion video, and even DivX and Xvid playback. Add to that 32GB of expandable storage, WiFi, and 7.2Mbps HSDPA data and you'll understand our anticipation.

[Via Pocket-lint and Electric Pig]

Nokia made plenty of folks happy with its decision to include Skype on its new N97 handset, and future N-series devices, but it looks like the usual cadre of UK carriers aren't among them, and they're now making their displeasure quite clear. That includes O2 and Orange, who are apparently threatening to refuse stock of the N97 unless Nokia strips out the Skype client, a point they have reportedly made directly to Nokia in "high-level discussions." Another unnamed "operator source" was apparently even more blunt, saying that this is "another example of them trying to build an ecosystem that is all about Nokia and reduces the operator to a dumb pipe," adding that, "some people like 3 may be in a position where it could make sense to accept that. But if you spend upwards of £40m per year building your brand, you don't want to be just a dumb pipe do you?" For its part, Nokia seems to be staying mum on the matter for the time being, though it's tough to see a handset like the N97 just sitting on the shelf, so it seems like one party or the other will have to give sooner or later.

[Via mocoNews.net]

After 13 months into a five-year exclusivity deal in France, the French competition agency has ruled the Apple and Orange (the mobile subsidiary of France Telecom) cartel illegal. Something that could have a knock-on effect throughout Europe. The agency criticized the Orange/Apple pact for having "grave and immediate" effect on the overall French mobile marketplace and thus, the French consumer, by introducing "a new flavor of rigidity in a sector that already lacks competition." The injunction, while temporary, is enough to allow other French carriers to distribute the iPhone 3G in time for the holidays. Shrug.

[Thanks, Tieum and Nick]

If you're wondering why you don't have an AT&T-branded BlackBerry Bold in your hand at this very second, the answer might lie a couple thousand miles away where Orange has allegedly pulled all units off the shelves to hammer out some "software issues" that have plagued early devices in subscribers' hands. The whole situation leaves us to wonder whether carriers jumped the gun on validating early builds of the Bold's firmware in an effort to get it out into the market in a non-ridiculous amount of time, while AT&T may have chosen to play it safe with a longer, more excruciating battery of tests -- leading to RIM's swipe that the October 2 miss was all AT&T's fault. It's just a theory, and probably a pretty meaningless one since this Orange fiasco should apparently take a couple weeks to clear up at most, and we're still hearing occasional whispers out of the AT&T camp that they're still pushing for an October release over there. Chop chop, guys.

[Via Mobile Tech Addicts]

Laptops with built-in WWAN modems aren't anything new, but there's a hodgepodge of hardware and services available -- a situation the GSM Association is trying to simplify with the new Mobile Broadband standardization initiative. Sure, it's mostly an excuse to get another sticker on your gear, but companies like Microsoft, Dell, Lenovo, ASUS, Toshiba, Qualcomm and a bunch of carriers are on board to ensure that Mobile Broadband-certified machines will be ready and able to connect in some 91 countries around the world -- and what's more, they're committed to spending a cool billion dollars in the next year promoting MB as a "compelling alternative" to WiFi and WiMAX. That should be an interesting dilemma for the carriers that also run hotspot networks, but we've got a feeling everyone's happy as long as the sub fees keep rolling in.

Folks, be honest with us here -- did you really expect Orange and / or Apple to say anything other than this? Amidst reports that iPhone 3G line sitters at Polish Orange stores were actually paid to be there, the carrier has shot back in order to defend its dignity. In an e-mail reply to an Ad Age inquiry on the matter, a spokeswoman proclaimed that as "part of the excitement around the launch of the iPhone, some of [Orange's] team has been joining customers outside [of the] shops." She also noted that "sales were strong" and that Orange "was happy," though actual numbers were not revealed. So there you have it, now make of it what you will.

[Image courtesy of AppleBlog]