A brilliant solution to Britain’s 3G woes

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

When Ofcom (or Oftel as it was known back in 2000) auctioned off the 3G spectrum for a sum that could probably buy you Belgium – Norway, at a stretch – those expensively acquired licences came with strings attached.

One of those strings was that each of the winning bidders had to cover 80% of the country – by population, not land mass – by the end of 2007. Four out of the five networks met that target, with O2 earning itself a fine for finishing the job late.

So, given that each of the five networks has at least 80% of the country covered by themselves, the figures released by Ofcom yesterday showing that only 73.1% of premises in the UK has 3G coverage from all five networks seems, at first, to be contradictory. Until you realise, of course, that those five lots of 80% coverage don’t overlap precisely, creating many “3G areas” where only one or two networks provide a signal.

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The big tablet debate: 3G or Wi-Fi-only?

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

Upon reading my review of the Asus Eee Pad Transformer, our picky editor Barry Collins turned to me with a criticism. “The fact that there’s no 3G version,” he argued, “should surely count against it, shouldn’t it?”

Should it? We tend to review the Wi-Fi-only models of tablets, because that’s what we’re usually sent. We’ll mention the 3G options in the review, but it’s up to manufacturers to decide whether to offer them or not, and up to consumers to buy them.

It started a debate, one which began in the office and spilled over to the PC Pro podcast as well. Then I posed the question – to 3G or not to 3G? – on Twitter, and it generated an unexpected level of response. (more…)

How to save £64 on a 3G iPad

Friday, May 28th, 2010

And so the pandemonium begins, as the Apple stores fling open their doors and the nutcases who queued up overnight are handed their shiny toys and rewarded with a patronising clap from the shop staff. However, if you haven’t already rushed in and scooped up an iPad 3G, you could save yourself £64 or more by following a tip sent in by PC Pro reader Chris Pomfret.

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First look: Acer’s new TravelMate laptops

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

With the launch of the Centrino 2 platform, we’re expecting to see a flurry of activity from all the major manufacturers as they refresh their current ranges – or launch entirely new ones, as we saw from Sony yesterday – that are able to proudly bear the Centrino 2 sticker.

Accordingly, Acer has launched an updated range of TravelMate notebooks that fully embrace the new platform. Five laptops run the size gamut from 12.1in to 17in screens, but all promise plenty of power thanks to the inclusion of new processors. The 17in TravelMate 7730G includes the Intel Core 2 Duo T9600, T9400, P9500, P8400 or P8600 – with clock speeds ranging from 2.26GHz to 2.8GHz.

The rest of the specification promises more than enough performance for business users, too: there’s 2GB of RAM, the chance to include GeForce 9000M-series discrete graphics and one or two hard disk drives, with sizes ranging from 120 to 320GB. The entire range supports draft-n wireless, and the 6593G, 6493G and 6293G can all be equipped with optional HSDPA connections.

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3G iPhone launch day news, 2 of ?: Panic over, there’s enough

Friday, July 11th, 2008

The UK launch of Apple’s iPhone is here at last. With 3G speeds and a price cut, it’s no wonder that queues built up at 5AM today outside the Regent Street store. However, it seems that there are plenty to go around.

We popped down this morning to check out the availability of the new phone and were told by Apple employees outside the store that “if you wanted to come back in two days you’d still get one…”

Try telling that to the man who started queuing on Regent Steet Wednesday evening, though.

Apple seems to have kept the lion’s share of the handsets for itself. Just around the corner at Carphone Warehouse the 16GB iPhone had already sold out, and there were similar rumours about O2 stores.

By Andy McAlpin

3G iPhone launch day news, 1 of ?: Destruction

Friday, July 11th, 2008

Just hours after the launch of the 3G iPhone, iFixit has already bought and destroyed one. I say destroyed, because I doubt they will be able to put it back together without at least a couple of parts being left over – it’s like flat-pack furniture.

The company sells accessories and replacement parts for Apple products, so the move makes sense, but it still fills me with jealousy.