Online Phone Shop

The Samsung Tocco Lite is Samsung’s version of the LG Cookie, a cheap mobile phone, including a touchscreen without 3G capability and available in black, white and shocking pink. This is a fun to use phone making it easy to access Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, and with its bright, clear screen and responsive keypad a simple phone to operate.

The Tocco Lite has all the usual features you would expect a phone to have these days, 3.2-megapixel camera which performs well in daylight but not so good in poor lighting conditions, a video recorder, music player FM radio with RDS, a memory card slot and Bluetooth. Using Samsung’s Touchwiz system and downloadable applications like a clock and weather forecast, you can customize the Tocco to suit you needs.

The interface is simple to use and moves swiftly between screens, and the sound quality for music and video clips is good and has a virtual 3D system and equaliser. The battery life is pretty decent and not having the masses of power hungry applications and gadgets of the larger phones, the battery has a decent lifespan. Don’t however expect it to compete with the older generation phones.

The down points on the Tocco Lite are exactly the same as the LG Cookie, there is no Wi-Fi, 3G or GPS, and it does not come with a headphone jack. Without the luxury of 3G video clips, YouTube can appear a little shaky.

If you are looking for a decent quality budget touchscreen both the Tocco Lite and Cookie are excellent with little to separate them.

If you have purchased a new mobile phone then you may be wondering what to do with your old handset.  There are many different methods of disposing of your old handset, and you could even make some money from it.

One of the most financially rewarding methods is to use an online mobile phone recycling service such as Envirofone of Mazuma.  These services allow you to get a quote for your old mobile phone online, and if you are happy with it you will be provided with an envelope to send it in to the company.  Once it has been tested you will then be paid the amount quoted.  This is a great service if you would like cash for mobile phones safely and responsibly.

Another option for disposing of your old mobile phone is to donate it to charity.  There are several charities, such as Oxfam or Actionaid who will gladly take your old handset and put it to good use.  Infrastructure in third world countries is notoriously poor, and mobile phones provide a much better service for the citizens of the country. 

Recycling your mobile phone in one of the above methods will also be beneficial towards the environment.  Many people discard of old mobile phones in the bin, and these end up in the landfills.  The mercury can leak from old mobile phone batteries and contaminate the surrounding land – which can have long-lasting damage on the environment.

With the large number of mobile phone dealers online, comparing mobile phone deals could not be easier. The latest mobile phones are usually the most expensive, but shopping around can produce some really great bargains if you are looking for a deal on an LG GW520. 

First decide how long you want to talk for, or maybe you prefer communication via text message, and then just check out the various price plans on offer.  The phone you have chosen to purchase can also have an impact on price plan, as a not as new mobile phone will likely be have cheaper up front price or even be completely free.

Most mobile phone dealer websites show side by side comparisons of the various service providers’ tariffs making choosing the right one easier.

For £15.00 a month you can have anything between an 18 month and three year contract depending on how long you wish to be tied in for.  Free talk time also varies greatly from 75 minutes up to 300 minutes per month, so there are plans for the talkative and the not so chatty, and the inclusive text messages vary from 300 per month to an unlimited amount.

Increasing your price plan can also give you great offers such as six months half price line rental (this is on a 24 month contract) or a free 4GB iPod shuffle.  Some providers even offer up to £75.00 cash back as an incentive to take out their deal. The advice is to shop around as there are bargains to be had and deals to suit all budgets.

The Nokia 5130 is an entry level XpressMusic mobile phone. This device provides users with the functionality that has made these mobile phones so popular, but without the large price tag.

If you were to compare mobile phones, the Nokia 5130 XpressMusic is fairly average in size. This mobile phone is 107.5 mm long by 46.7 mm wide and it is 14.8 mm thick. The overall weight of the Nokia 5130 is 88 grams. With a talk time of up to 6 hours, the battery power is impressive.

The Nokia 5130 XpressMusic includes a built in Stereo FM radio that includes support for RDS. This mobile phone supports a variety of popular music formats, including MP3, AAC+, and WMA. In order to easily access music on this mobile phone, the Nokia 5130 includes dedicated music keys.

Nokia has also included a basic 2 megapixel camera with the 5130 XpressMusic. This camera is capable of capturing video clips. Other useful features that can be found on this mobile phone include an organiser and voice memo.

For users who may want to store a large quantity of music and photos on their Nokia 5130 XpressMusic, there is a microSD expansion slot that supports cards up to 16 gigabytes in size. To get users started, Nokia has included a 1 gigabyte card in the box.

Certain networks are providing customers who purchase the Nokia 5130 XpressMusic with a variety of free gifts. These gifts range from cash back to Playstation 3 bundles. There are numerous Nokia 5130 deals available that vary in contract length and cost in order to accommodate the majority of users.

The HTC Touch 2 is equipped with the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system, which has limitations but these are helped a great deal with the installation of HTC’s TouchFLO interface.  This improves the usability of the system and helps the user to navigate through the menus. 

Windows 6.5 does offer an Internet Explorer browser which can display full web pages with a zoom in function to make viewing easier.  The operating system also gives access to My Phone.  This is a service from Microsoft which can back up all your data via a remote server.  This ensures that if the phone is lost, the information on it is not.

Users can make use of applications which allow instant messaging for keeping in touch on the move and GPS navigation for helping you to keep on the move.  Additional applications can be added if required.  There is a 3.2 megapixel camera and a 2.8 inch screen, though some may find this restrictive when viewing videos.  Extra memory function can be added with a removable memory card and a USB connection allows for easy data transfer. 

The touch screen requires more than a gentle pressure from the user and the phone has no feature to allow the screen to adapt to the way it is being held, unlike some handsets that will rotate the screen if the phone is turned.

The phone is a compact smart phone which is a good choice for those looking for a smaller alternative to the iPhone, but it does have a few limitations.

There are many website based companies offering cash for mobile phones. The process of cashing in on your old phones is pretty much the same whichever site you use.

First of all you search for your phone on the website of your choice, or use one of the comparison sites which are also available (mobilephonerecycling.co.uk seems to be the most comprehensive of these). Then once you’ve found the best price for your old phone you let the company know through their website and they will usually send packaging to your address for you to send the phone back to them.

Before sending your phone you should make sure that it is fully charged, has had the SIM and any memory cards removed, and has had any security features disabled, such as a PIN or other password. You should also make sure that your phone is switched off before you seal the package, there is no point making sure its charged if the battery runs out before it get there.

When posting your phone (depending on the value) it is generally a good idea to take out some sort of insurance, as none of the phone recycling firms takes responsibility for lost packages. For lower value phones this is as simple as sending it via “Recorded and Signed-For”. Higher value phones should be sent using Royal Mail’s Special delivery service.

Once the company receives your phone they will assess it and send your payment using either a cheque or bank transfer, depending on which option you selected on the website.

The i8510 was launched late in 2008 and became the first 8-megapixel camera phone in Europe.  It is extremely similar to the Nokia N95, with almost identical features, and using the same Symbian operating system Series 60 user interface.  It also has the same Symbian problems – freezing/software errors and slow IU.  The battery life of the i8510 is also an issue and lets the phone down.

The phone’s camera is excellent as a dedicated camera, which is not surprising from one of the world’s leaders in digital camera design and manufacturing.  A dedicated button activates the camera, opens the lens and toggles between video and camera.  For the serious photographer there are enhanced options such as panorama for landscape shots, smile and blink detection and auto focus.

The i8510 has a 9x digital zoom but no optical zoom and a dual power LED flash.  The flash is only really good at close range and doesn’t quite come up to the standard of the Sony Ericsson K850i that comes with a bright xenon flash.  The video is of equal high quality and can be replayed in slow motion as it records at 120 frames per second.

The phone is a heavier phone than others and this may put buyers off.  It’s also quite large but this means that it has a large LCD screen – 2.8 inches, displaying 16 million colours.

The phone comes with a good music player that supports standard formats and an FM radio.

The Samsung i8510 Innov8 is great for accessing the internet and also has an A-GPS satellite navigation feature.

Blackberry mobile phones are ‘love them’ or ‘hate them’ technologies, however, one of the latest mobile phone deals on offer is the new Blackberry Storm 9520 that is a definite break from the traditional designs that we are used to seeing from this manufacturer.  Gone is the full QWERTY keyboard and in its place a full touch screen that allows you to select with ease.  This is possibly the best looking Blackberry currently on offer, and certainly doesn’t fall into the cheap mobile phones category.  When this baby hits the shelves properly it is going to be a popular contract mobile phone as the price on the pay as you go, or SIM free, is going to put it out of most people’s price range.

The Blackberry Storm 2 9520 looks like being one of the most promising mobiles on release at the moment, however in order to really know, the market is waiting with baited breath for the mobile phone reviews to start circulating so that we can find out what the critics really think. 

One feature that sounds really impressive is the fact that this handset has built in Wi-Fi technology, which means that this mobile can hop easily onto the wireless network system.  This provides an easy way to update your software or download the latest tunes, and with the built in memory card slot you can download as many tunes as the card will store. All these features make this potentially the best Blackberry mobile phone on the market today.

The Apple iPhone 3GS is a tweaked version of the iPhone 3G, with Apple engineering the internal workings rather than completely redesigning the handset. The result is a faster phone available with either an 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB hardrive. Its faster data speeds mean that the camera and video functions give excellent photo and video rendering.

Greater speed is the main improvement on the 32GB; this has been one of the main criticisms of all the smart phones and was particularly true of the iPhone. The system and applications now boot up more quickly and game players will certainly notice the difference when playing on the 3GS.

They have also increased the specification of the camera to three mega pixels. Though it is not top of the range it works well when used with its other features such as auto focus, macro shooting and an easily adjustable on-screen focusing system. The inbuilt video is also an excellent improvement, which is simple to use, with a built in editing facility making downloading to sites like YouTube fast and painless.

While things like the on board compass may seem a bit pointless, when used with the maps application its rotating direction finder will make getting lost difficult for even the most hard pressed of directionally challenged people.

Although they have included a better battery and power system, the Apple iPhone still uses a lot of battery power and heavy apps users may find this frustrating. You can close off 3G to save power, but that then defeats the point of having it in the first place. This is a good phone for first time iPhone users but it is debatable whether it is worth the upgrade quite yet.  If you are interested look for some Apple iPhone 3GS deals, they are around.

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is Nokia’s first full touchscreen device and is one of the high-end phones in the XpressMusic range. This is a 3G smartphone made to compete with the iPhone. As you would expect from Nokia the handset is a sleek, stylish design with a clear, large, high-resolution 640 x 360 pixels screen. The screen makes using the interface a whole lot easier and is responsive to finger touch, stylus or plectrum. It also has a full virtual QWERTY keyboard and a handwriting recognition system to make communication simple.

Where the Nokia excels is with its camera and music system. The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic uses proper camera technology and incorporates a Carl Zeiss lens, auto focus and LED flash. The video camera produces 30 frames per second and has full stereo sound, and the front mounted camera makes video conferencing possible.

It also includes an excellent music player with an easy to use interface, 8-band graphic EQ and headphone jack. Along with this comes an 8GB memory card, which can hold up to 2,000 mp3 tunes, with the option of upgrading to a 16GB if necessary.

Its superior download capacity means that using the browser you can easily watch clips from YouTube or MySpace without any jerky movements, and its Wi-Fi capacity makes logging on at the nearest hot spot simple.

Utilising all the positives from iPhone technology without being another hybrid clone, Nokia have included all the things you have come to expect from them and put them to good use with their latest model.