Since the mobile operator 3 first launched and video calling didn’t take off, it has always tried to undercut rivals with discounted call costs. Skype on mobile isn’t new. From a business perspective, the Skypephone could be viewed as just another (rather sophisticated) play on tariffs. However, take the new Skypephone and forget Skype on mobile for a moment…

What I believe what is revolutionary is the phone itself. It’s the first time we have an inexpensive 3G phone that can (nearly) match the specification of today’s smartphones. It’s amazing a Chinese ODM has produced such as capable, small and stylish phone in such a short time - and it can be sold retail for only £49.99. This raises the game for Smartphone manufacturers.

The problem with ODM phones, of course, is that they are unbranded - and people like buying brands. This is where 3 have cleverly tied in the Skype brand. I can imagine operators/ODMs producing similarly cheap phones associated with other brands - Google initially comes to mind - but it could be any company that can offer content or services… or maybe even just a strong brand.

For those of you who want to learn more about the phone, here are some more random observations…

• The phone keys have a good feel - In my opinion better than even Nokia keys
• The magnetic back cover catch adds to the great feel
• It’s great to be able to charge via USB
• The 3G, Bluetooth, web browser, camera , video recording, SMS all work well
• There’s also a built-in email application that supports POP and IMAP
• It’s great to see Skype so deeply integrated into the phone - into contacts and even the call log
• The phone installed JAVA GMail OK and functioned well
• The Java VM is produced by iaSolutions (from Taiwan I think)

I ran mobilezoo’s Java app on the phone to create the first genome for this device. This revealed a few things…

• The device identifies itself as a Amoi 8512
• The browser user agent is ‘Amoi 8512/R18.0 NF-Browser/3.3- - hence, the phone is using Access’ Netfront browser supporting WML, HTML 4.01, and cHTML
• The phone has a good selection of Java JSRs - including multimedia, Bluetooth, Fileconnection, PIM and 3D graphics

Here are some areas where I think the phone could be improved…

• The fonts seem very jagged
• It’s sometimes confusing to press the Skype key to OK things in other apps - you wonder if Skype will suddenly start up - but it thankfully doesn’t
• I have found no way to change the phone theme or colours
• I have found no way to zoom the camera
• A few larger JAVA apps didn’t install - I got Error 901 - Insufficient memory
• Standby battery life of 3 days is much less than advertised (320 hours). However, running Skype continuously probably had something to do with this.

Despite these limitations, it’s a great phone.

Related Articles:

• 3 SkypePhone

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 1st, 2007 at 10:14 am and is filed under Mobile, Phones. Both comments and pings are currently closed.