Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Don’t fancy the plain old black version of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus? Well, we have some good news – a white version of the Google smartphone is available for pre-order. Good news if you like the colour white, anyway.

Several independent mobile phone sellers have opened up pre-orders for the white phone. including Clove, Mobile Fun and Handtec, all of which indicate a virtual shelf date of 6 February. So if you want one, you’ve got exactly one month to wait or indeed, save.

There’s nothing different apart from that lighter shade, although if you buy from one of the SIM-free sellers, you’ll have to pay upfront for the phone and sort out your own contract. Alternatively, you can sit tight and wait to see if any of the networks sell it. We’re guessing they will.

If you’ve missed it previously, the Galaxy Nexus offers Ice Cream Sandwich for the Android operating system, a 4.65-Inch Super Amoled Screen, a 1.2GHz Dual-Core Processor, a 5-megapixel camera, a  1.3-megapixel camera, 16GB of storage plus WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth and NFC.

All of that costs between £496.79 and £519.99, depending on your retailer of choice.

T-Mobile Vairy Touch II

High street retailer Argos has cut the price of the T-Mobile Vairy Touch II from £29.99 to £14.99, making it the cheapest touchscreen smartphone in the country by a margin and cheaper by a fiver compared to T-Mobile direct.

Note that you will need to buy a £10 top up when buying the phone and the latter comes with 30 days free internet.

T-Mobile’s mandate to bring touchscreen technology to the masses has spawned this ultra-cheap device. Considering the Vairy Touch II’s low price, it comes packed with a surprising amount of technology under the bonnet. Released back in February 2010, the phone comes with a 2.8-inch 240×400 pixels resistive touchscreen display plus a 2GB microSD card.

Other features include a two megapixel rear camera without a front facing camera or a flash, video capture and playback, a USB port, Bluetooth, a FM radio, EDGE internet and an MP3 player. The phone is even capable of shooting 3GP-format videos, which can be shared with other phone users via Bluetooth. Sadly, there’s no 3G connectivity or Wi-Fi capability, which means you’ll need to use the much slower GPRS data link to perform tasks such as sending MMS messages and surfing the Internet.

There’s no 3.5mm jack or Wi-Fi and the battery, a 800mAh battery allows the phone – which is build by ZTE – to be used for nearly five hours.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Vodafone has announced the Ice Cream Sandwich-enhanced Samsung Galaxy Nexus is available now. Initially, it was only to be found at O2 and Phones 4U.

The UK network is now giving customers the smartphone, which is the first in the world to come with Android Ice Cream Sandwich, for free on a two year £41-a-month contract, according to its press release.

For your money you get 1,200 minutes, unlimited text messages and 750MB of data to use as you wish. You also get access to Vodafone’s Data Test Drive, which means you can use as much data as you like for the first three months of your contract.

The cheapest plan with which you can get the Galaxy Nexus is £26 per month, and it gives you 100 minutes, 500 texts, and 250 MB of data, but choosing this plan requires you to pay £299 for the phone outright. The most expensive plan costs £56 per month and has 3,000 minutes, unlimited texts, and 1 GB of data included.

There’s also the option to sell your current mobile to Vodafone for as much as £270 if you use its new service, Vodafone Buyback.

There are some other options as well, so make sure you think long and hard before choosing a plan which is adequate for you. When you’re ready to pick, head on over to Vodafone .

Sporting a 4.65-inch Super AMOLED HD display, a dual core 1.2GHz processor, Android 4.0 and 1080p video recording, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is a powerful piece of smartphone machinery.

However, the launch of the device, which has been plagued by a volume bug that made the phone difficult to use, meant a number of users have been left with a sour taste in their mouths.

Nokia Lumia Windows Smart Phones

Telefónica’s O2 UK is not on the list of UK operators that will sell Nokia’s flagship Lumia Windows Phone smartphone range.

Nokia spokesman Mark Squires confirmed to The Inquirer that Vodafone, Orange UK, T-Mobile UK and 3UK will sell Nokia’s Lumia Windows Phone smartphones. Just two retailers–the Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4U–will be able to offer SIM-free and contract Lumia smartphones.

O2 UK is believed to have had issues with Nokia’s terms for the devices, claiming they were too severe for the operator in terms of stock levels, sales volumes, store displays and marketing campaigns. The exclusion of O2 UK from this list comes days after Telefónica’s UK general manager for devices, Simon Lee-Smith, told Telecoms.com that Nokia’s high-end handsets were “not yet at the right price point,” adding: “If Nokia wants to sell in volume, they need to bring out devices which are cost-competitive.”

HTC Zeta

Possible design and specs of an upcoming handset codenamed HTC ‘Zeta’ have been leaked.

Another HTC superphone has been spotted loose in the wild, but this time it’s the HTC Zeta, which is repentantly is suppose to be HTC’s upcoming flagship Smartphone which boasts a 2.5GHz quad-core next-gen Snapdragon processor. It does sound too good to be true, but the leak states it will have a quad-core processor, the device will also have 1GB of RAM, and a large 4.5” 720p display.

The Zeta is also said to sport a 8-megapixel rear camera and 1080p video recording and a 1.3- megapixel front facing camera, and of course the device will get beats audio, which is now used on most HTC Smartphones.  Also  the Zeta will run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

The handset supposedly measures 109.8 x 60.9 x 9.8mm and weighs 146g. Inside you’ll find 32GB of storage space,  Bluetooth 4.0,  and an 1,830mAh battery.

On the outside the device has an interesting pincushion design that is narrow in the middle and widens towards the top and bottom. We can see the earpiece grille right at the top edge along with the camera sensor. What is curious though is the presence of the keys below the display. Since this phone will come with Ice Cream Sandwich pre-installed, ideally it should not have any keys. Unless, HTC has decided to go their own way and stick with the keys for now.

On the back we can see the two plastic portions with a metal band running around the middle. The middle portion is significantly raised and then tapers towards the sides. On the top is the loudspeaker, camera lens and flash and near the bottom is the beats logo and a bump for the headphone jack.

White BlackBerry Bold 9900

With Christmas and winter almost upon us we always have a soft spot for white gadgets, and especially white phones.

So up steps the white BlackBerry Bold 9900 to whet our appetite, giving us all that is the Bold in a glorious white casing, so we can put it next to our pearly white teeth… or something like that.

In the hand, it’s tasty. The white looks good and it doesn’t come off as a cheap option compared to the black. And the back finish is nice to the touch. Unfortunately, where the black 9900 looks businesslike and premium, with its matte finish and metal highlights, the glossy plastics RIM has used on the white 9900 look and feel quite cheap. White also makes the Bold 9900 seem bigger than it is, not great when you’re dealing with a phone that’s already fairly broad.

As with the black version of the Bold 9900, the keys are very comfortable to use – although, being white, we do worry how quickly they will show the dirt. If you’ve used the original Bold 9900, then you pretty much know what you’re getting with this new white model. The physical keyboard is solid and easy to type on, while the touchscreen is bright and responsive if, arguably, a little unnecessary given the optical trackpad too.

Specs wise it is identical to the Black BlackBerry Bold 9900, and that means you get a phone that is 10.5mm thick and packs a 1.2GHz processor, BlackBerry 7 OS, a QWERTY keyboard and touchscreen controls. It also boasts NFC capabilities.

It has a 2.8-inch display with a 640 x 480 resolution, which sits above the keys. There’s also 8GB of internal storage – expandable up to 40GB with microSD. Plus, the camera is a 5-megapixel one with 720p video-shooting features.

It’s available for free on £39, 24-month price plans with Vodafone, where you’ll get 1000 minutes, unlimited texts and 750MB of mobile data.