3 and Skype lanch the new Skypephone

[Hands0n]

I am sitting here, 29th floor Millbank Tower, a guest of 3mobilebuzz.com, 3 UK and Skype at the public launch of the joint-effort Skypephone on 3. I am also the owner of two of the beasties both in Black - they also come in White with Blue or Pink trim.

At the launch were the MDs of Skype and 3 who both presented to the group here.

I must admit that I was somewhat sceptical about the entire proposition. I am what can best be termed a "light" Skype user. Mostly because of the general need to be tied to a PC for the telephony. I really have not been a big user of PC telephony - although Videocalling is something that I do use in moderation. And so as I walked into the doors today my first thoughts were "Okay 3, do your best and convince me"

Ladies and Gentlemen - 45 minutes later and I'm convinced. 3 and Skype are definitely on to something here. They have effectively turned Skype/3G into an Appliance. Oh, and what an appliance. If you can work Skype then you can work the new Skypephone straight out of the box. The UI for Skype has been accommodated into the new handset as capably as could be possible. Much thought has gone into the design.

All that you may be used to with Skype on the PC is here with the sole exception of Videocalling. As soon as you're registered into the Skype network your directory is retrieved to the handset. Your Presence is announced exactly as if on a PC - and you can set it to be what you like, following the PC paradigm exactly. It is, in short, the full Skype experience.

The Skypephone is available on 3's Contract and PAYG tariffs:
PAYG is £49.99 for the handset and then a minimum top-up of £10 a month to keep service
Contract is as per Mix & Match price plans, starting at £12 per month and going up to £27 per month. See 3's website for what you get for each.

Now here's the good bit - all use of Skype is entirely free, subject to FUP of 4,000 minutes and 10,000 chats. That is an awful lot of talking and text-chatting. So long as you meet the PAYG criteria of putting in £10 per month the Skype use is free of further charge.

At present the service proposition is Skype-to-Skype calls only. There is no Skype In or Skype Out. The rationale explained at the presentation is that the user normally already has a mobile number that their correspondents alreaydy know. Skypephone is not to usurp normal mobile use, but rather to add to it. I can see the logic in that. But it was stated that the Skype In/Out was being looked at for the future - possibly as soon as 2008.

I managed to take five minutes out with Adam Davis, Head of Marketing Product Management, Handsets. I took the opportunity to not only congratulate him on the 3 Skypephone but also to discuss 3's Customer Service arrangements for the new handset. Adam told me that 3 had been promoting the handset around the UK and Indian service centres for some time now. He accepted that one could experience good as well as bad assistance when calling. But he did stress that a lot of effort had gone into making the CSRs fully aware of the new product. Interesting to note that 3's voice network is used to carry the voice into the core where it is only then delivered out to Skype through their gateways. Thus, for 3, it is pretty much business as usual in very many ways.

I will report more on the use of the handsets and facility once I get them home and charged up. But my sampling of one of these here at Millbank Tower left me impressed. I called another demonstrator on the floor with predicatbly good quality. I also called her friend in Brazil, also with the predicted Skype voice quality, it was excellent.

I would dearly like to thank the team at 3mobilebuz.com for inviting me to this launch presentation and for the pair of trial 3 Skypephones. They will get fair use and evaluation.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask. This is your trial too

Watch this space people

[3GScottishUser]

Just got mine...... 2 of them

Each with £30 worth of credit valid until the end of December!!

First Imresssions:

Nice Packaging and loads of info.

The phone made by AMOI is very small and neat. Feels nice, good quality materials and finish and supplied with a compact SD card for storage.

On powering up I have no 3G available (local 3 cellsite has barriers round it so probably being upgraded).

Lovely rubber type feel to the phone body and the interface looks quite straightforward.

Can't wait to try out all the facilities.....

Really pleased so far...... many thanks to 3mobilebuzz for the opportunity to test these.

More to follow....

Watch this space!!

[Ben]

Have my two also, big thumbs up to Three/3mobilebuz for a) being extremely sensible in providing two handsets and b) giving £30 of credit to allow for extensive testing.

These are pre-release handsets, though the service goes live 2nd Nov I believe so between us we should be able to give anyone interested in this device plenty of great information.

Both of mine say Limited service at the moment (one has picked up 3 twice, briefly), but I'm hopeful I'll be able to start playing with them by this evening. They're charging (and whining! though it does get quieter over time...) at the moment.

I do like the look and feel of these phones. The battery cover is held on my a magnet, which is a little bit of a concern, but it's a cool idea.

Oh, and Hands0n, thanks so much for attending the event and sharing that information with us all!

[gorilla]

Where's my pair?

So I can assume that HandsOn's gonna become a 3 convert now? If you can't beat 'em bribe 'em is the new philosophy at 3!

This is ideal for the student market.

How are the actual phones? Can you add apps?

Come on man, where's that review?

[bsrjl1]

Aliens, I demand that you return 3GSU immediately! ;-)

[Hands0n]

My pair are now back home and charging up on the mains. I have always had a solid 3G signal in my area and matters are not different today. My pair both registered onto the 3 network in seconds. Browsing is very fast - although the handsets are not HSDPA (thats in the next generation according to 3).

I have made the Skype echo call and it worked okay. I've also left Getti a voicemail as his is the only Skype ID on Talk3G I have at the moment.

I echo the sentiments about the handset build above - it is very very petite for a 3G handset, smallest I've seen to date. The black one that we all have does have that nice rubbery feel to it and very solid, not something I would expect out of a £50 handset. It does rather put the Nokias of this world to shame! Well done Amoi, well done indeed.

We have the Skype until 28 November when the "credit" runs out - even though there is £30 initial credit it (the cash credit) lasts until 28 Dec, but the Skype only lasts for a month from each cash injection.

The kids and those on low disposable income are going to love these. The PAYG plan gives 83 minutes or texts (in any mix) for £10 which is not too bad - and if the Skype is exploited then its blooming marvelous I can see whole families and communities taking this up, if they can see it. It just makes so much sense, leaving the 83 mins/texts for those calls that cannot be made over Skype.

So I can assume that HandsOn's gonna become a 3 convert now?

Y'know, I've never been anti-3 despite some of my comments. Really. My only gripe about 3 is their Indian CS [which is abysmal] and will continue to be until they fix it one way or the other. I would hate for this new venture of theirs to fall flat because Mumbai cannot cope [for whatever reason] with Customer calls. I made that point to Adam Davis today (see my opening post). What happens next is entirely up to 3. But I will, as part of this overall trial, be putting 3's CS to the fire. I am told that things have improved and I really want that to be the case. Because if it hasn't, then 3 may well reap a whole lot [more] bad publicity which they really do not deserve for the technology and effort that is put into things like the new 3 Skypephone.

Pictures and reports on the phone itself will follow in the next few days. But tonight will not be an evening of play *glum*.

[3g-g]

Hang on hang on... 3mobilebuzz (whoever they are) seem to have left a few of us out here, or is there some sort of issue with the Royal Mail they'd like to blame it on for the delay of my 2 Skype handsets?

As good as this sounds, the handset and the product, in my group of fairly extensive friends, the ones that I'd choose to talk to regularly, only one of them is a Skype user, and that makes him the only VoIP user I know too.

He's got a mobile phone, I've got free calls, why do I need a Skype handset? Ok, I could call a PC, but then most people have desk/house phones, or at least a mobile that I can call, remember those free minutes I have to use every month?

Ho hum...

[3g-g]

Aliens, I demand that you return 3GSU immediately! ;-)

It's amazing how good free stuff is eh?

Like hire cars, nothing drives better than a hire car.

[3GsINgH]

Got my two phones as well-both in black, did anybody get the white ones? Anyway im pretty impressed with the phone so far, its alot of phone for your £50 and is probably gonna be a good seller come xmas time. I too would like to thank 3mobilebuzz for the invite and the phones...nice job! Anyway first thing first IMO the phone is much smaller than i expected...maybe that comes from using an E61 too much but i had it in my mind that it would be the size of my BT Homehub phone (not that it ever would be). The camera is pretty decent as is the MP3 playback. The speaker on the phone is quite loud although this is usually a good thing rather than a negative. I also like the way that when you press the internet feature on the menu it gives you the option of a google/yahoo search instead of taking you straight to the 3 portal as all other 3 phones do. Signal wise the handset picks up pretty much full signal everywhere...except at work where only o2 works out of all 5 networks. So far so good i guess lets see what £30 of usage does to the phone.

[Ben]

Neither of my handsets seem capable to use the 2G network - they get No service or Limited service when they can't get Three. One of the handsets also seems to be less able to get Three signal than the others.

Call quality between Skype accounts on the mobile was acceptable. There were some strange noises and one drop out in a 15 minute or so call, but I can imagine people who make a lot of lengthy calls, particularly overseas, to friends/family/loved ones finding the small form factor and almost unlimited usage too much of a temptation to pass up. I only took the handsets off charge at about 5pm and the one I have tried isn't on full any more, but I wont know if running Skype 24x7 will be an issue in terms of battery life for a little while yet.

The phones themselves are certainly good looking. They're very small, a bit too tiny for me (they're almost toy-like), but the buttons are quite good for such a cheap phone and I could get up to quite a speed when texting until I hit the need for punctuation which was another story. You wont want to be changing memory card often, it's a fiddly process that involves removing the battery, but then just having a memory card slot on a £50 handset is pretty impressive.

In fact, the features this phone has are very impressive indeed. Web browser (which browses the real Internet, in a fashion...), 2MP camera, bluetooth, clear colour screen, 3G, media player and, of course, fantastic Skype integration that goes right into the Contacts. Skype is always running in the background, so you have a real 'presence' which has failed to materialise on other third party IM and VoIP offerings.

The OS is easy to navigate and use, and the Launcher softkey makes it a snap to get access to a range of modern services such as searching the web or watching TV. Unfortunately Live! Messenger doesn't work yet, a bit of an oversight I think, but then this is the Skype phone and not the MSN phone.

There's definitely value for the customer here. £10 a month is a small price to pay if you're going to heavily use the voice and messaging potential of skype. After a few more days of playing with the phones I think I'll have a better idea of just how this product will be received and, maybe more importantly, whether such a product could have any roll in my own communication needs. I do think it's unfortunate that network coverage is still so poor both where I live and where I work, here in the South East of England.

[Hands0n]

In an email that 3mobilebuzz.com sent to me this evening they also said

Also, please remember that this is a pre-launch trial, and will not be the release version of the product.

Which kind of makes one wonder what it is we have here then? All the press photos are of the same handset. Or are they

Intriguing is the "Video Call" features, even though the handset does not have a forward-facing camera!

[Ben]

Yeah, though aren't they launching in a few days? Surely the handsets have already been manufactured, so I think it's pretty likely we have the final version...

Not meddled with Video Calling. I guess it'd support it much like the 6630 (I think that's right!) did.

[a_ukboy]

Yeah no front camera so won't be any good for video calling!! LOL

Apart from that they seem very decent budget phones!!

[hecatae]

mass corporate handset, using skype for calls to everyone?

[Ben]

mass corporate handset, using skype for calls to everyone?

Mhm, no, I don't think so, the quality isn't quite there yet. I think for something like this to succeed in the Enterprise space it'd take something like a Nokia E65 with the full integration... I agree that there's potential for businesses to have all internal communication, including mobile, done via Skype in this manor, though.

Unfortunately I think the cost of supporting and administering a Skype-based business system would be prohibitive. Plus Skype doesn't really give the kind of QoS guarantee that business would want.

Fun for young people on PAYG, though, and for calling family/friends overseas.

[Hands0n]

Smiley Face - Day one of the new 3 Skypephone [to give it its proper title] in my life.

Today I have used it for a regular 3G voice call and a few texts and all is good. As good as 3 ever have been where I live, work and play - which is blooming marvelous. I have, possibly, been one of the lucky types who have a strong and resilient 3 3G signal. Others I know from the forums have not been quite so fortunate. Since the days of the NEC e606 I have been able to use Voice and Videocalling features effortlessly (I still have both of them nearby).

As I have been getting familiar with the 3 Skypephone the experience has been a mixture of pleasant surprise coupled with some bemusement. Lets deal with the last first. When using T9 to prepare text messages or use Skype Chat I tapped out the word "Skype" but the handset was having none of it It steadfastly refused to know that word - I had to add it to the T9 dictionary! Contrast that with my Nokia N95 on Vodafone [which is very anti VoIP] and happily produce the word "Skype" from its T9 dictionary. Maybe its just me, but I found that all a bit bemusing.

Pleasant surprises are aplenty with the diminuitive 3 Skypephone. Take a look at the attached picture and you will see that it is tiny, even for a 2G phone, and remember this is a full scale 3G device. The 3 Skypephone is slightly smaller than the Nokia 6300 (pictured) that is all the Business rage right now. The overall build quality of this handset is very high - far belying the £49.99 that the buying public are going to be asked for it. A few people who I have shown it to today thought that it was priced over £100.

This evening has been one of making Skype calls on the handset. These have been as much as one would expect of Skype if you've ever used it before on a PC or Mac. There were a few momentary drop-outs, but the call held and we were able to continue otherwise uninterrupted. The quality at the beginning of the call had a bit of latency in it, but this corrected itself after a few seconds of speech. VoIP can be like that. The actual voice quality itself was very good - recognition was very high (the early days of digital voice could result in the other end sounding like a Dalek). With the low latency, high recognition and audio quality the Skype voice worked a treat.

I used Skype Chat (think MSN Messenger) several times today and found it surprisingly good . Each transmission counts as one of the 10,000 chats from the monthly allowance, so you are going to have to virutally live on the thing for a month to get anywhere near that generous limit. It is a handy tool to have a quick exchange of information where a voice call would be unnecessary, or even inconvenient. I like MSN, I like Skype Chat and on the 3 Skypephone this works a treat.

There is only one fault that I have found with Skype Chat so far which relates to unsolicited chats coming in if you are at the Skype window. The 3 Skypephone does not appear to let you know who it is who is chatting at you. I had to select each Contact and then Chat in turn until I found who it was. There was no audible or visual indication that a Contact had sent something for me to read. This is a serious omission that I hope 3 and Ameo will correct in later releases of the firmware. Any chance of an online update when it is available?

It was different where I had navigated away from Skype and was at the standard phone window. The clue I had then was an audible alarm that someone had Chatted at me and a pop-up (like the missed call pop-up) saying who it was. All I had to do was navigate to the specific pop-up, click it and I was in chat with whoever it was.

So far I have not talked about the 3 proposition with its Flat Rate tariff. I will do a bit of digging in there, and no doubt our other testers will comment also. But suffice to say that the 3 Skypephone with its full-on 3G capabilities is definitely man enough to handle 3's content. There is a ton of free stuff on 3's portal, much more than when I last was a Customer of 3 - over 20 months ago. The handset seems to make full use of the 3G data speed [not HSDPA] when downloading the content or browsing the portal. There are no corners cut in the data and browser departments here.

Battery life on 3G handsets is always being slated for being poor. I think that the 3 Skypephone may just be the turning of the corner. Today I have held in excess of 2-1/2 hours Skype and non-Skype calls, browsed the portal and sent SMS texts. From a full charge this morning the indicator says that I have used up 25% of the battery charge. Of course, this is only as advised by the battery indicator, but these things are fairly accurate.

So by my reckoning I could probably hold 4 - 5 hours talk (it does not matter whether Skype or "classic" the same energy would be used) before battery charge would become an issue. Is this acceptable? In my book, yes it is.

The 3 Skypephone uses a mini-USB connector for charging and data port. This means that you will be able to charge the handset from any powered USB source such as a laptop, USB mains charger or USB car charger. That is plenty of opportunity for extending the out-on-the-road use of the handset, if needed.

And so that is day one pretty much over and done with. The 3 Skypephone has failed to disappoint and has, in fact, renewed my interest in 3. I am not quite ready to consign myself to a contract yet - their CS is yet to be tested. But suffice to say that in the 3 Skypephone I believe that 3 have given themselves a pretty vital shot in the arm for the Christmas season. That it is available as PAYG or Contract (18 months) is a smart move on 3's part.

I wonder if the Skype-ignorant will go for this? Should 3 be pinning hopes on a single segment of the UK community? For sure, removing the wired and WLAN shackles that hold Skype to a fixed location must have great appeal to Skype users. But can they (3 and Skype) widen the market interest?

They've now launched, and Friday is D-day for availability in the street. Now all they have to do is to convince the buying public that it is a worthwhile proposition. I, for one, think that for many it will be.



The attached picture shows from left to right:-
1) 3 Skypephone
2) Nokia 6300
3) Nokia N95

[solo12002]

Sorry am I dreaming?

So much praise about Three so much that 3SGU has managed to get not one but two three handsets (LOL)

[Hands0n]

Yea, don't let it go to the head yet though. We've still got to sample 3's CS. I'm cooking up a few ideas - fair mind you - to see how they respond to a Customer these days. But praise where praise is due, 3 have done very well with this implemenation of Skype into not only the handset but their network also. They have solved a load of difficulties in one fell swoop.

None of us anticipated two of these handsets. At the launch those who were there at the invite of 3 or Skype got only one handset each. It was only the good folk at 3mobilebuzz.com who were dishing out pairs of these. And today I found it particularly useful to tease out some of my observations using the pair of handsets in front of me. With a single handset it would have been much more difficult to make the assessment, so I think that 3mobilebuzz.com had the right idea in giving each tester two.

At the end of the day the price of £100 per tester is peanuts for the amount of [practical] feedback they are going to get.

[Ben]

Sorry am I dreaming?

So much praise about Three so much that 3SGU has managed to get not one but two three handsets (LOL)

Free handsets, none of us paid for them, they were very kindly provided to test and review and, of course, we're all working on them with a clean slate.

Great writeup Hands0n. One of the problems i'm having is trying to figure out how such a unique product will be accepted by consumers and how it will fit in the marketplace. I love the device, it's remarkably good value for money, but do enough people want skype on a handset to top up £10 a month?

I think existing skype users who talk to contacts all over the world will love this tiny gismo. But most skype users have never paid a penny for their service. Will convenience win out and make this tiny breakthrough device a winner?

I'm going to get my pair of phones into a few more hands and see what the reaction is over a broader spectrum of people and report back. Wish me luck! (posted on N95 8GB)

[Hands0n]

I think for something like this to succeed in the Enterprise space it'd take something like a Nokia E65 with the full integration...

Watch this space, I reckon. At the launch presentation the Skype CEO said that their venture with 3 was only a start and that they would not stay tied to 3 exclusively.

I think that Skype, with 3, have paved the way for Mobile Network Operators to deliver Skype from their network without compromising the ARPU model. What Skype now have to do is to convince the Vodafone's of this world that here is a viable proposition for mutual benefit. A Nokia E65 suitably equipped with Skype front end and deployed into their network model may well make it into Vodafone's Enterprise space - if they can only see past their personal demon of VoIP.