Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

It is that time of the year again, companies are publishing the quarterly report card. Google have been doing well, Yahoo not so well and now Apple are showing some impressive figures.

The company posted a profit of $1.14 billion on revenues of $7.9 billion for the quarter, their sales figures for their devices were off the roofs. In the Q4 of 2008, Apple managed to sell 6,892,000 iPhone 3Gs compared to the 1,119,000 iPhones in Q4 of 2007.

Apple is now the world’s third largest mobile phone supplier in terms of revenue, trailing behind Nokia and Samsung. They outsold RIM’s entire range of BlackBerry phones. RIM sold 6.1 million phones compared to the 6.9 million iPhones.

Apple’s stock prices were up by $9.91 or 11%. Even AT&T benefited from the strong iPhone sales and its stock price rose by 85 cents or 3.3%.

Via: smokingapples

I am due for an upgrade in January, and as always I find myself in a quandary about what to get. There does not seem to be a phone out there that meets my requirements, a lot of phones tick the right boxes but then will miss one or 2 important things off, leaving me with an option I am not entirely happy about.

I suppose the problem is that I want all the bells and whistles and not have to pay a fortune for it, and if a company released the "perfect phone" it would mean people wouldn't bother changing it so would harm the profits.

Anyway what I want from my phone is:

Large internal memory - The iPhone, N96, and Omnia all offer this. I would want 8GB minimum or 16GB would be nice

MicroSD - If I had 16GB internal and a 16GB card I would have plenty of room to play with! I believe the N96 and Omnia do this while also having the internal memory.

Smart OS - I'm a geek, I like functionality, and a smart OS is the best way to get it. Though one issue is that I don't want Windows Mobile. I will try it again if I HAVE to but my experience with my HTC Tytn was not pleasant. Symbian is the most likely option, though I strongly suspect Android will become a strong contender if not the main contender eventually.

3.5G (HSDA) - Thanks to reduced mobile broadband prices and decent mobile browser I find myself using my phone for browsing a lot more. I am sorry Apple but 3G is just not acceptable.

A decent camera with a xenon flash. I don't need a stupid million megapixel camera but 4 or 5 megapixel would be nice, and an LED flash is just CRAP. I believe it is the image sensor that is more important for a digital camera so I would prefer a decent one of them rather than lots of megapixels.

Large touch screen + decent screen resolution - The iPhone may fall down in quite a few areas but you can't fault its screen or the touch screen user interface! If I am going to use my phone online, it makes life a lot easier if you the screen can display a good % of a normal web page, obviously I am not going to get 1280x800 but as much width as possible would be good.

Pull out keyboard - Ok this maybe a little more disputed by people than other features, and I have to admit the iPhone does the best of a bad situation but I still think real keys are important.

Exchange Functionality - Again probably not the most important feature for the average consumer but it is important and quite a lot of phones (iPhone, S60 phones) do it so there is no excuse not too. Blackberry functionality would be helpful (not so much for me though) and decent push email.

Proper media keys / media integration - At the end of the day I am looking for convergence, I don't want 16GB of storage for nothing, I want to play my music on the phone, so I want to access the music easily! I also want it to be able to play the files I put on it, rather than having to convert them via some software.

A 3.5mm headphone jack - Again I want to listen to music, using adaptors is just annoying and proprietary adapters are the most ridiculous thing in the world! i.e the G1 apparently needs a custom ExtUSB adaptor that isn't even available immediately! What are they playing at!

Mini USB charging and PC connection - Again I hate all things proprietary. My E90 even has a mini USB but then wont charge up via it!!

Built in GPS - Not that I use it much, but it is very useful for a lot of people.

Wi-Fi + Bluetooth - Self explanatory really

A decent batter life would also be nice, oh and actually the ability to make calls!

I don't think form factor is that much of an issue, the iPhone is hardly small, nor is the G1, and the N96 is quite fat. Though the iPhone goes to show that people will happily have a large phone as long as it looks good!

I suppose that is quite a lot of phone, and looking at it, it sort of kills off the Music player AND the sat nav market but phones are moving this way anyway but I just wished they hurried up a little!

At the moment I think the Nokia N96 or Samsung Innov8 are the closest to my requirements, though the Samsung Innov8 doesn't appear to be freely available on contract.

What other features do you want to see on a phone? And I mean realistic features, I am sure I have missed a few off

After a delay of almost two months, O2 UK has today confirmed the official pricing for the iPhone handset on PAYG.

£399 will get you the 16Gb model, while £349 buys the 8Gb.

As part of the deal, you get free Wi-fi and browsing for the first 12 months - but it'll be £10 a month after that.

No word on how fair their fair use policies are, but £349 for a gizmo as easy to use as the iPhone, even for use as a PDA and web browser, doesn't seem that unreasonable.