Primed and ready for take off, O2’s own-brand Jet supersonic mobile boasts that it can deliver 67% more talk time than its nearest comparable rival.
Created for heavy-yakking business users, the O2 Jet comes with a battery life that would see off an amphetamine-fuelled Duracell Bunny, claiming a mighty 540 hours on standby and 9.9 hours of talk time – adding up to double the talk time of O2’s most popular phone, the Nokia 6230i.
The phone’s business-like styling reflects its targeted demographic, with an austere black casing and ne’er a whiff of any fun stuff to be found – this grumpy old handset hasn’t even got a camera or an MP3 player.
However, stern-faced business users may grow to love the simple user interface, dedicated volume and profile switches, quad band GPRS and full POP3 and IMAP4 email connectivity.
There’s also a dedicated Bluetooth button on the candybar shaped 117 x 47 x 20mm phone, 56MB of internal memory and a macho little metal speaker grill, perhaps suggesting that the owner might be a bit of a tiger in the boardroom.
The O2 Jet will be ready for slipping into pin striped suit pockets from 19th October, with prices varying according to monthly tariffs. There will also be a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) version available for sixty quid.
Looking like lovechild of a bedtime romp between an iPod and a mobile phone, Samsung’s X838 phone has real “gimme!” appeal.
Because of the narrow, slimline construction, the number keys are unusually arranged in rows of two, with the usual ‘call’ and ‘end call’ buttons at the top.
There’s also an easily accessible ‘hold’ button so you don’t end up ringing your Mum when you’re rocking out to Pantera, as well as a volume up/down control on the side of the unit.
We spent some time trying to translate the text from the 
A survey released by Best of Stuff suggests that nearly a third of Brits own up to 15 gadgets.
The trusty ol’ gogglebox came in a close second with 27 per cent of the vote, and 46 per cent of those surveyed reckoned that the fabbest new innovation in the market is HDTV.
But it’s not all love-love-love in the world of gizmos, with 40 per cent of respondents declaring themselves disappointed with their gadget’s battery life, pointing the finger of blame at MP3 players, laptops and mobile phones as the worst offenders.
Pesky phone thieves may get more than they bargained for if a new anti-theft system proves a hit with punters.
Mark Whiteman, managing director of Remote XT, said: “Theft-proof phones spell disaster for the huge criminal industry that has profited from mobile theft for too long”
NTL, UK Cable provider, has announced a quad-play offering for £40.
Bigging the service up and attempting to create extra excitement for the future, Neil Berkett, chief operating officer of ntl Telewest, enthused: “Quadplay demonstrates the unique power of the cable-Virgin Mobile union and this is just the beginning. Our new package represents unbeatable value while meeting a wide range of consumers’ entertainment and communication needs.
Orange has launched, nay unleashed, the Unique phone, its first converged service using a single handset that connects via WLAN in the home and then switches to the regular mobile network when the user goes walkabout.
So far, only the Motorola A910, the Nokia 6136 and the Samsung P200 can be used with the service, but more phones will be launched in 2007.
Currently blossoming on the Ugly Tree and ripe for plucking is the new i-mate JAQ PocketPC phone.
As far as we know, i-Mate haven’t officially split from HTC, but the company seems to be following O2’s policy of sourcing Windows smartphones from other manufacturers as well as HTC – a decision perhaps prompted by HTC recently releasing phones under their own name.
Quite a hefty beast at 122x71x22mm and weighing 160 grams, the i-Mate JAQ comes with a 2.8″ 320×240 pixels, 65k colour display, Bluetooth and InfraRed, but there’s no WiFi or 3G in sight, neither is there an onboard camera, which strikes us as a serious omission.
Currently leaking out all over the Web is this picture of a Palm Treo 680 with Cingular branding.
Although it looks like a slimmer, sleeker version of the 650, the phone is aimed at the lower end of the market, so is expected to feature a rather disappointing VGA resolution camera along with Bluetooth, 64MB memory and run the trusty Garnet version of the Palm OS (sure it’s as old as the hills now, but it’s still one of the best mobile operating systems around in our opinion).
We get to see an awful lot of gadgets here at Digital-Lifestyles, so it’s not surprising we get quite a few emails asking what gizmos we personally use, so here’s my personal choices. And yes, I paid for ’em all myself!
Camera
Clad is an understated logo-free black body, this isn’t a camera that’s going to get people’s attention when you’re out and about, but its armoury of full manual controls and user configured settings means that it’s a great carry-around shooter.
Enjoying a daily hammering of ska, punk, electro and indie tunes is the 
Now in its third year (that must be something like 70 years old in laptop years!), my Sony Vaio SRX51P is still doing the business, although with a mere 850 MHz Pentium III-M CPU and just 384 meg RAM on board, it can’t keep up with the new boys.
Slated for an October release is the swish O2 Xda Stealth PDA phone, clad in ‘ebony black’ and featuring a slide-up numerical keypad.
The front panel is dominated by a 2.4 inch touch screen supporting a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels and 65,000 colours.
A SD card slot takes care of expansion needs, while the 1300 mAh Lithium Ion battery provides a claimed 150 hours of talktime and 4.5 hours of standby time.