Okay, now I’m a big fan of the iPhone, but this is ridiculous - the iPhone 3GS is the best part of a grand (£1000 to non-UK’ers) online? Yes, it’s true! No, I didn’t believe it at first either!

Now before I go any further, I’ll just say that Play.com, the site where I found this deal, have a very good reputation in the UK - they’ve been doing excellent-priced media (muzik, DVDs, etc) for a long time - and they know how to offer stuff at a good price.

The iPhone 3GS 32GB is listed there at an eye-watering £899.99…

So what gives? Well, as I said above Play do good deals, so I can only think this pricing has largely been determined from Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), up on the mothership - and my 10 cents/pence worth are that this is unabridged insanity - after all, you could pick up a MacBook Laptop for that price !!!

I’d more than welcome reader comments - if you want to check out the prices of the iPhones for yourself, head over to Play.com, in the Mobiles section…

T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) has introduced a new entry-level phone in the Netherlands. It’s the Samsung S3030 Eco, the green version of its phone for kids - S3030 Tobi.

The “Eco” part comes from the fact that the device is completely made out of bio-plastic and is free of BFR (brominated flame retardants) and PVC. Moreover, the S3030 Eco’s charger is an eco-friendly one, and its packaging is made from 100% recyclable materials.

Specs wise, the phone comes with a low-end camera (probably 1.3 megapixel), FM radio, music player, Bluetooth, and a microSD memory card slot. T-Mobile is asking 89.95 EUR for it, and that’s the price for pre-paid accounts, sans any strings attached.

[Via: Unwired View]

Verizon (NYSE: VZ) will introduce an updated version of the Samsung Glyde phone at some point in the future. The “caught in the wild” photos bellow prove the point. We don’t have much details at the moment, but we can see the full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a touchscreen and Samsung’s sexy lookin’ TouchWiz user interface. From what we can tell, this baby sounds like a winner for folks that consider themselves avid texters and/or heavy mobile Internet users. Moreover, once you get used to TouchWiz’s “way of doing things,” you end up falling in love to the interface.

[Via: PhoneArena]

The ultra-thin and sexy Nokia E52 has been spotted while passing through FCC’s labs. The version FCC folks had to play with doesn’t sport the right 3G frequencies (HSPA works on the 900 and 2100 MHz bands), hence it won’t be able to sing along AT&T (NYSE: T)’s or Rogers (NYSE: RCI) Wireless’ 3G networks. This, however, is almost a rule, as we see the Finnish giant pushing both the US and non-US versions of its phones through the approval process. In that sense, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the AT&T-ready E52 going the same route within days or weeks. Stay tuned…

[Via: Engadget Mobile]

In parallel to the development of its manufacturing activity, ModeLabs Group (the guys that make the Dior Phone, and TAG Heuer Phone) has reinforced its organisation and enhanced its management teams by recruiting two new key executives with experience in product marketing and industrial processes:

Hannah Madsen has been appointed Product Director of ModeLabs manufacture. Hannah Madsen, who holds a degree in information technology and product development from the University of Copenhagen, was until now responsible for Vertu LTD (Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Group)’s brand marketing plan, product development, partnerships and distributor relationships. With ModeLabs manufacture, she will henceforth be responsible for the marketing development of the Group’s products conceived and manufactured on demand on behalf of international luxury and lifestyle brands.

Patrick Boulet has been appointed Industrial Director of ModeLabs manufacture. Patrick Boulet, who trained as an engineer at ENSAM and holds a degree in management from ESSEC, was previously responsible for industrial processes with Uniross Batteries and for purchasing and sub-contracting strategy with Alcatel Mobiles in France and in China.

Patrick Boulet has more than fifteen years’ experience in the field of R&D and the development and industrial optimisation of high technology products. With ModeLabs manufacture, he will be responsible for developing manufacturing processes and for supervising production and after-sales service for mobiles on demand.

Sounds promising - I can’t wait to see what their next product is!

Later this year, Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) is set to announce Rachael according to Mobile.nu. If this rumor is true, look forward to code name Rachael packing a Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) Snapdragon QSD8250 capable of hitting 1 GHz, 8.1 megapixel camera, 3.5 mm headphone jack, all running on top of Android. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that this thing will run Android 2.0 aka Donut, as per what Peter Ang, VP of Marketing, said a little over a month ago. Now please get off your computer and go celebrate America’s birthday. If you’re in Europe, go out, it’s Saturday night.

One more picture after the jump.
Read the full article »

Rogers has done a little price-chopping on the HTC Dream and Magic… much sooner than I ever could have guessed. The Rogers HTC Dream and HTC Magic can now be picked up for only $99.99 on a 3-year contract, a drop of $50 from the original $149.99 price tag.

Is this a sign of weak sales and poor performance for the 2 first Android-powered handsets in Canada? Out of curiosity, I popped into a Rogers (NYSE: RCI) store yesterday, and asked how the Magic and Dream devices were selling… the answer from everyone in the store was a clear and concise ‘Terrible… we’re not selling many’. When questioned further, staffers pointed out to me that the current ‘hot’ device was clearly the iPhone 3GS. In fact, at this particular Rogers location, when the iPhone 3GS went on sale, a lineup ‘larger than we’ve ever seen’ formed outside of the store in hopes of nabbing a 3GS.

Hopefully for Rogers’ sake the price drop will lure in a few more customers. $99.99 seems like a great price to me (of course, I’d prefer FREE). Might be tough though… Living and working in Canada as I do, I can tell you this… Canada is clearly BlackBerry country… With the iPhone making gains fast and furious.

[Via: BGR]

Looks like this coming week could be a big one for the Palm Pre users out there… Especially the Pre users fed up with the limited number of apps currently available in the App Catalog.

My bud Phil over at PreThinking has reported that multiple developers that have been accepted in the SDK Early Access program can now submit apps to Palm (NSDQ: PALM) for consideration in the Beta App Catalog… as of yesterday!

The official note from Palm:

We are pleased to announce a limited expansion of access to the Beta Application Catalog for our SDK early access partners. Starting today, you can submit your application for consideration to be included in the Catalog.

Hopefully the review process is a speedy one, and we start to see more and more apps pop into the App Catalog this coming week! Should be interesting to see what happens. Would be nice if the SDK opened up to the public sometime in the near future as well… Palm needs to put the pedal down to foster app development!

Now that the iPhone 3.0 OS is live, we’re starting to see a flood of updates for the existing apps. One of the most popular to-do list management apps/services, Remember The Milk, is no exception and it now supports push notifications, enabling “instant task reminder alerts to your device.”

Aside from this important and way useful feature, the updated Remember The Milk app also improves stability and performance and fixes some bugs. For instance, the “swipe to complete” feature is back!

And that’s about all we can report about the updated RTM. If you still haven’t used it, now may your chance to do so. It’s arguably the single best task management service on the Interwebs, and a personal favorite of mine. AppStore link is here.

Remember Samsung’s micro-projector MBP200 we’ve seen at this year’s CES in Las Vegas? Well, it’s finally available for purchase in Europe, at least in Germany. I’m saying “finally” because it was initially slated to be released in May, but I guess something went wrong.

Anyhow, those who are looking to have a small projector with them all the time will be glad to know they can now do that. The MBP200 measures 110×49x19 millimeters and can project images at resolution of 480×320 pixels. 2.2-inch QVGA screen is also part of the device, and so is a touch-sensitive keypad, media playback software, 3.5mm headset jack, as well as a microSD memory card slot. All this could be yours for 500 EUR, which is about $700. Kinda steep, but then again, do you know someone else with a projector in his/her pocket, ha?

[Via: Unwired View]