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Samsung Galaxy S III tops UK pre-order records, shows that British love their quad-core
The British clearly didn't waste any time once pre-orders opened up for the Galaxy S III, which just broke through pre-order records for at least one carrier and one retailer in the country. Carphone Warehouse's chief commercial officer Graham Stapleton says that the quad-core, 4.8-inch flagship is the quickest-moving pre-order of the year "so far," while Vodafone UK adds that the new Galaxy is its most pre-ordered Android device to date. Without hard numbers, though, it's difficult not to couch the successes in relative terms: both are using conditional language that makes clear neither record is absolute and that they might be eclipsed by companies with a knack for building early demand. Even so, that pride in early results suggests the third time is indeed the charm and that Samsung won't have much trouble filling its own pop-up stores with customers at the end of the month.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 lands at UK's Carphone Warehouse
Brits left unaffected by last month's US launch of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 can now get in on the Ice Cream Sandwich action: the silver version of the tablet recently landed at Carphone Warehouse in the UK, and the white model is reportedly coming on May 18th. The retailer is offering the 8GB, WiFi-only flavor for £199. Though the Tab 2 7.0 didn't top the charts when it crossed our reviewer's desk, its solid performance and decent battery life make it one of the best value-priced Android 4.0 slates out there. Click through to the source link to reserve this 7-incher, but if it's the silver model you're after, it looks like you'll have to pick up the phone to make the purchase (at least for now).
HTC One V now available for pre-order in the UK
Britons! If you're interested in a handset that's reminiscent of the product of a tryst 'twixt Jimmy Hill, Jay Leno and an HTC Legend, then you'll be delighted to hear that the HTC One V is now available to pre-order from the Carphone Warehouse. It's free if you plump for a two-year deal costing you £20.50 a month and it'll be winging its way to your greasy palms the week of April 23rd, unfortunately without the bottle of bleach necessary to wipe that Jimmy Hill / Jay Leno image from your mind, sorry.
Nokia Lumia 900 arriving in the UK April 27th, dressed in white
Sure, the US has already had its chance at Nokia's Windows-packing smartphone, but UK-based fans of the Lumia 900 won't have to wait too much longer, if the release date on Phones 4u's site is to be believed. The retailer currently has the handset's delivery date listed as April 27th -- a date that includes that white variant we've been seeing pop up from time to time. Also, in spite of some false starts, Carphone Warehouse also has the Metroed handset listed, though its date is the far broader "May 2012." We're sure Kourtney Kardashian is lining up her tickets as we speak.
Lumia 900 hits Carphone Warehouse, possibly coming to the UK in June (update: no)
We bet some of you over in the UK were just a wee bit little jealous when it was revealed that we here in the good ol' U-S-of-A would be getting first dibs on the Lumia 900 (a little payback for keeping the 800 all to yourselves). Well, lucky for you, we're not so greedy and you'll get your own shot at Nokia's latest and greatest... eventually. Carphone Warehouse has the dual-camera sporting Mango phone listed as "coming soon" with an expected launch date of June 2012. These plans are clearly still unofficial at the moment, but you can sign up for more info from the outlet as it becomes available. The biggest question, though, is whether or not the Lumia 900 will ship with LTE on board. The product page makes no mention of 4G and, with compatible networks still in trial stages at best, we wouldn't get our hopes up. Still, even without "blazingly fast" downloads, the front-facing cam, RGB matrix screen and beefy battery present plenty of reason for excitement.Update: Or maybe not. It looks like Carphone Warehouse has since pulled its Lumia 900 pre-registration page. Perhaps -- and take this with a serious grain of salt -- they're making room for the non-LTE 12 megapixel Lumia 910?
Best Buy-bye: Retailer bids farewell to the UK with blowout sale
While Americans plow through their cash and cards, lapping up the litany of Black Friday specials -- and readying themselves for the inevitable Cyber Monday second wave -- it looks like our trans-Atlantic cousins will also get a taste of discount joy. After a brief 18-month stint, Best Buy UK is packing its bags, and it wants to travel light. Both the online and physical stores will see prices snipped by between 10 and 30 percent, though we don't know whether this will extend to Best Buy's full product line or simply less desirable devices. Either way, the brick-and-mortar stores have been closed over the weekend in preparation. Bargain-hunting Brits should be able to grab some some cut-price Christmas treats when the eleven stores reopen on Monday. [Thanks Jason and Thomas]
Best Buy to close UK operations, 1,100 jobs in jeopardy
Best Buy Europe, the joint venture between Best Buy Inc. and Carphone Warehouse, has been shuttered after just 18 months in business. In that short amount of time, it lost £80 million ($127 million), largely due to consumer belt-tightening and increased competition from cheaper online retailers. Up to 1,100 jobs will be lost at the eleven UK stores currently open in Thurrock, Bristol and Wolverhampton, among other locations, bringing to an end the company's ambitious plan to open 200 stores across Europe. At the same time, the US giant declared it would buy out its European partner's stake in the Best Buy Mobile chain as it continues to pull out of unprofitable foreign operations. Update: We've got some more on what this deal means. Buying out Carphone Warehouse is gonna cost $1.3 billion plus $8 million annually for five years. The two aren't splitting up for good, since they're also starting another joint venture called Global Connect (good luck with that one, fellas). Separately, the company announced it was grabbing mindShift technology, a cloud service provider for small and medium-sized enterprises for a cool $167 million. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Motorola Xoom 2 officially priced at 400 Euros, coming this Christmas to Carphone Warehouse
For those unaware, Carphone Warehouse is a warehouse that sells carphones in Europe, Jupiter and other locales in the known galaxy. It also sells smartphones and tablets. And according to the leaked flyer that we've acquired, the long-awaited Motorola Xoom 2 (or Xoom II, as it were) will be landing in Ireland before Christmas. The price? €399.90, or around $545, for the WiFi-only edition with 16GB of inbuilt storage. Other specs include Android 3.2 (what, no Ice Cream Sandwich?), an 8.2-inch touchpanel, and much, much more. In fact, CW calls it "everything a tablet should be." Truth in advertising? You be the judge. [Thanks, Artyom]
Mobile Miscellany: week of September 5, 2011
This week, as always, was packed with news on the mobile front, so it was easy to miss a few stories here and there. Here's some of the other stuff that happened in the wide world of wireless for the week of September 5, 2011: It appears that Sprint employees are being informed that vacation requests anytime between September 30th and October 15th won't be approved, due to "the possibility of a major phone launch in October." Vacation blackouts are typically used during certain times of the holiday season, so the timing on this particular memo is a bit striking -- as usual, we invite you to come to your own conclusions here. [via SprintFeed] Two BlackBerry devices breathed life on T-Mobile this week in the form of leaks. First, the Curve 9360 began showing up on marketing material focusing specifically on its prepaid campaign, which says the device will be offered for $230 without having to sign a new contract. It didn't mention the on-contract price, but if all goes according to rumors, it'll likely be out this time next week (September 14th, to be specific). [via TmoNews] Speaking of the Curve 9360, the phone will probably be hopping across the pond to a Carphone Warehouse near you (if you live in the United Kingdom, that is). It's ready for pre-order now on the retailer's site with a prepaid option for $200. Not bad for a brand-new BlackBerry at full retail cost. [via TechnoBuffalo] The second BlackBerry we saw leaked for T-Mobile this week was the Torch 9860, which may have been discovered in T-Mo's inventory system, according to a leaked screenshot. This doesn't help us know the date or pricing of the new Torch, but it does signify that it's likely just around the corner. [via TmoNews] It's possible that the Droid Prime and Nexus Prime have passed through Bluetooth and WiFi certification. Since names were not provided in the documentation, we're left to speculate using the devices' model numbers -- rumored to be the SCH-I515 and GT-I9250. We're naturally skeptical, but we'll keep a close eye on the FCC in hopes that we'll see these mystery devices pop up soon with at least a few revealing details. [via Droid-Life] We've been expecting the recently announced Samsung Galaxy W to arrive this month in the UK, but all of our sights have been set on Three as the only known carrier... until now. O2 placed a teaser page on its website this week, listing the Galaxy W as "coming soon: September." [via MobileBurn and AndroidCentral]
Blackberry Bold 9900 spotted in the British wilderness, bang on schedule
A tipster just spotted the Bold 9900 at a Carphone Warehouse in the UK, days before operators there and in the US expect to launch the device on August 16th. We can't be sure if it's actually for sale or just a window display that went up too early, but it certainly reassures us that the new Bold will be out on time. Alternatively, if you wanted to be harsh on RIM, you could describe this non-QNX release as being at least a year too late. (Oh, and it's good to see business chugging along as usual in ol' Blighty despite those nasty riots.) [Thanks, Avi]
HTC Ignite and Prime surface on Dutch e-tailer, may indeed be coming soon
Second time's a charm? Here's hoping. Just months after seeing the so-called HTC Ignite and Prime surface alongside the Pyramid (which already launched as the Sensation 4G), it seems as if the remaining duo have found a home over at The Phone House. For those unaware, that's the Dutch version of the UK's Carphone Warehouse, a top-tier mobile shop that doesn't steer folks wrong too often. The Ignite looks to be a Windows Phone 7 handset with an 800MHz processor, 3.7-inch display and an otherwise understated motif. The Prime, on the other hand, sports a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a 5 megapixel camera and Microsoft's homespun OS. There's no mention of a price tag on either (nor any other specifications), but that whole "coming soon" thing most certainly has our interest piqued. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
HTC Sensation bids tearful adieu to Vodafone exclusivity
It was fun while it lasted, but Vodafone's expected two-week reign of exclusivity on the HTC Sensation has dropped, leaving the phone ready to be scooped up by other networks. Carphone Warehouse is now offering the dual-core Gingerbread device on pre-order for O2 and Orange with plans starting at £40, expecting to ship the week of June 20th. If neither carrier sounds overly tempting, BuyMobilePhones is also commencing pre-orders for T-Mobile and Three with a minimum tariff of £15; no delivery date was mentioned here, though we hope to be looking at a similar timeframe. Already sold? Head south to the source links, wallet clutched firmly in hand.
HTC Wildfire S hits Carphone Warehouse in UK, free with contract
UK readers on a budget can finally toss that Treo (gently, please) and head over to Carphone Warehouse to snag HTC's Wildfire S. The low-end Android device just popped up on the distributor's website, and the phone is appropriately priced at £0.00 with a two-year contract on Orange UK. Plans start at £20 (about $33) with 250MB of data, 100 anytime minutes and unlimited texts -- an extra £5 ups that to 300 minutes and 500MB of data, which nets you a reasonable amount of talk time, assuming you can stay within the limits of that pesky data cap. No word on when the budget 'droid will be available from Orange's website or in stores, but Carphone is showing that these are in stock, so if you've been holding out for a higher-res Wildfire before making the jump to Android, get ready to have your world rocked. [Thanks, Jay]
INQ Cloud Touch Facebook phone graces store shelves in UK, wallets smile
The first round of the Facebook Phone war is underway in the UK, thanks to INQ launching the first javelin at its main opponent. Even as we continue to wait for HTC's Facebook offerings to come out sometime this summer, the INQ Cloud Touch has shown up on Carphone Warehouse shelves for a rather affordable £300 off-contract, or about $486. We were quick to Like the entry-level handset when we handled it back in February; the Froyo-powered device features an 800MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor, 5 megapixel sensor, and a custom Android homescreen that fully integrates the Facebook experience into the OS. While the specs may not be enough to make the Android enthusiast salivate, the price will almost definitely cause status-obsessed tweens to commence drooling.
HTC Flyer hits UK pre-order status at £600, comes with 3G and 32GB of storage
The one Android tablet that isn't riding NVIDIA's Tegra 2 dual-core chip and Google's Honeycomb iteration (but might still be worth buying) has this weekend become available to pre-order in the UK. The Carphone Warehouse is listing a £600 ($983) fee for owning the HTC Flyer, which is more or less a match for the €669 price Amazon.de is offering to German slate lovers. In exchange for a dozen rose-tinted notes with the Queen's face on them, you'll get a 7-inch, 1024 x 600 display, encased in an aluminum unibody case and powered by a 1.5GHz Qualcomm chip. HTC's Sense UI has undergone some tablet-friendly tweaks and there is of course that Scribe stylus to flex your artistic muscles with. 3G connectivity and 32GB of storage flesh out the Flyer's hardware offering, while the underlying Android Gingerbread OS is promised to get a Honeycomb-flavored update, most likely some time this summer.
Motorola Xoom UK pricing official at £580 for 3G and £480 for WiFi-only
Motorola has now confirmed that the latest round of prices the Carphone Warehouse, PC World and other UK retailers are listing for its Xoom tablet are indeed the officially sanctioned price points for the Honeycomb slate. After being listed at £600 for the 3G model and £500 for the WiFi-only version initially, the 32GB-equipped 10-incher is now mercifully £20 cheaper, at £580 and £480 for each variant. A quick glance at Apple's online store tells us that those levies match up exactly to what a corresponding 32GB version of the iPad 2 will cost you, signaling Motorola's intent to at least be on par in terms of pricing. Stores are still showing the Xoom under a pre-order status for now, but that should be changing swiftly if Motorola wishes to live up to its promise of availability this very week.
Motorola Xoom, LG Optimus Pad, Acer Iconia A100, and ASUS Eee Pad get Euro retailer pricing
The Carphone Warehouse, known under the brand name of Phone House across Europe, has revealed its future pricing for a quartet of Android Honeycomb tablets in the latest version of its device catalog. The 7-inch Acer Iconia A100 scoops the prize for being most affordable with a €349 sticker, while the 10-inch Xoom's €699 price is confirmed and the 8.9-inch Optimus Pad gets its lowest pricing yet, at a still unaffordable €849. The Eee Pad on display here isn't explicitly named, but we suspect it to be the 10.1-inch Transformer, packing a dual-core Tegra 2 and running version 3.0 of Android -- just like all the others in this group. Oddly enough, these are all detailed in the March version of the document, but unless we're sorely mistaken, none of these tablets has yet reached the stage of general availability in Europe. Well, at least it lets us know how much each one will cost when they do eventually hit retail. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Motorola Xoom 3G arrives in UK for £600, gets enigmatic listing on Amazon.de for €700
Yesterday we saw the WiFi-only Xoom get its UK pricing straightened out at £500 via PC World, and today Carphone Warehouse is putting up pre-order availability of the 3G-equipped version at a nice round hundie more. The £600 Xoom 3G is listed as "in stock" now, but deliveries will likely take until the first week of April to get going, assuming Moto is delivering both SKUs of its Android 3.0 tablet at the same time. We've also come across an Amazon.de pre-order for the Xoom, asking for €700, but alas there's no hint as to whether it includes 3G connectivity or not -- no hint other than the price, that is. [Thanks, Yosef]
HTC Incredible S shipping this week in UK, will come with Froyo to start
Though it'd originally been pegged for the second quarter, it seems HTC's bumping that up a smidge with the launch of its new flagship -- the Incredible S -- in the UK this week. Pre-orders are going on as we speak with shipments promised for tomorrow, but there's a catch: rather than shipping with Gingerbread, the phones will come with Froyo to start with an upgrade to Gingerbread promised for the near future. Buyers, we've got a little homework for you: if you're feeling adventurous and in a warranty-voiding mood, try to figure out what's going on with those auto-rotating capacitive buttons, alright?
Nexus S UK launch bumped back to December 22nd, price cut affirmed
Those cursed limited supplies of the Nexus S have forced the Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy's UK outlets to push back the phone's retail debut by a couple of days. The Gingerbread flagship will now be sailing in on the 22nd of December and even then it'll be available only in "key" stores. Online purchases are encouraged, with an "instant ship delivery" getting the phone out to your nearest Carphone Warehouse branch for collection. Pre-orderers should presumably be getting their handsets on Wednesday too, while the £430 unlocked price has also been confirmed. So it's still good news, you'll just have to be either lucky or good to get your hands on one in time for the Queen's speech.