GadgITs

Win a T-Mobile Walkman Jukebox

T-Mobile are expanding their Mobile Jukebox to include albums from £6 from today. Gadgits was treated to a demo of the site at https://www.music.t-zones.co.uk/ and the new service is a great improvement for T-Mobile customers who can now chose from  top featured albums including Madonna, Scooter and Pendulum at £10 a time. It offers tracks to buy and download over the T-Mobile network - anywhere you can make calls.
Unlike some mobile download services, the track you choose can be also downloaded to your PC from our website at no extra cost. The track can then be burned to CD or copied to any Windows Media Audio (WMA) music player.
While browsing the Mobile Jukebox, standard charges apply - these will be never be more than £1 a day, regardless of how many pages you view. If you're a web'n'walk customer then browsing charges are covered by your price plan. As soon as you click a download link you no longer pay for browsing - so it's either a free preview, or the indicated price of the full-length track. The only exception is if you are browsing and downloading abroad. In this case you will be charged for international browsing on top of the charges above.
If you're a pay monthly customer, all charges will appear on your bill. If you're a pay as you go or U-Fix customer, browsing charges and the price per track will be deducted from your balance.

And you can try it for yourself by winning one of these great Sony Ericsson Walkman W890 phones, the ideal mobile to take to any festival. Its tune recognition feature is awesome. Simply press a button and hold it up towards the music source and it will text you the name of the track. Our prize phone comes preloaded with Jukebox and there's even some free credit so you can buy some tracks.

For your chance to win answer this question on an email and send it to comps@notw.co.uk with your name and address by midnight, Saturday June 8th. What is the name of Madonna's latest album?

First correct answer drawn wins the phone. Usual competition rules apply. Editor's decision is final.

Lot to Tocc about

SAMSUNG have come up with the biggest challenge to the iPhone so far—the Tocco.
The touch-screen mobile features a brand new menu with brilliant drag and drop features.
This new user interface stands head and shoulders above the menus on most phones. It reduces some operations that would take five button pushes on many phones to just one touch.
You can customise your LCD screen by pulling out your photo albums, clocks, calendars and music just like on the picture above.
The menu icons are vividly coluored for faster identification and you can zoom in and out on web pages in the internet browser, using the up and down keys on the side of the device.
There’s also a page pilot view to quicly scan though internet sites. Phone numbers are highlighted in blue and you can choose to call them directly from the browser, just as you can on the iPhone.
When you consider the F480 has a 5megapixel camera with features such as face recognition, picture messaging and ultra-fast web-browsing where available, it might start to eat away at iPhone sales.
Especially if you put it with a new £25 pay-monthly tariff from Vodafone which includes web downloading of up to a stonking 500MB a month (see 6th post down).
You also get 100 minutes and 50 texts on that tariff. But for £40 a month on Vodafone you now get 700 minutes and 250 texts and unlimited calls to landlines OR other Vodafone customers.
So that compares very favourably with the iPhone, because you will probably get the Tocco free on a £40 a month contract (prices yet to be confirmed by Vodafone) as opposed to paying £329 for a 16GB iPhone with 600 free call minutes and 500 texts and unlimited browsing for £35 a month. See samsung.co.uk for more.

Big four lite-tops

Slim and stylish, Toshiba’s Portege R500 looks the part (top left). But handle with great care, its no toughie. www.morecomputers.com  Portege: 1.1kg, £1,031.

FOR Mac lovers, the Air is the slimmest and lightest Apple WiFi laptop (top right). Disk drive is an optional extra though. www.apple.co.uk  Air: 1.36kg, £1199

Sony’s VGN-TZ231 is simply the best (bottom left). Big memory, long battery life, brilliant display and very, very fast. www.pcworld.co.uk  TZ231: 1.24kg, £1,699.99

Samsung’s X22 320 GB hard-disk offering ticks every box (bottom right). Might be heavier than the rest, but easily the best value. www.pcworld.co.uk  X22: 2.18kg, £899.99

Edge ahead on fitness

THE Garmin Edge 705 GPS gives you every imaginable cycle stat you could need: heart rate, calories burned, speed, ascent, even your cadence (revs—the number of times you turn the pedals per minute). Plus the maps give you turn-by-turn directions (couldn’t find cycle lanes though). Around £320. See garmin.co.uk for more info.

WIN DIGITAL INTERNET RADIO

WE’VE teamed up with Freecom, makers of the award-winning MusicPal, to give away ten of the stylish black wireless digital internet radio and MP3 streamers.
It comes with built-in speakers and you get a choice of more than 5,000 stations as well as your own MP3 collection.
MusicPal can be connected to your hi-fi system or amplified speakers — and within seconds you can connect wirelessly to your PC, Mac or  storage device, putting your music library at your fingertips.
To be in with a chance of winning, simply answer the following question: Which of these is a radio frequency? a) GM b) PM c) FM
Then send a text message to 80855.
Start with the word GAME, leave a space then your answer (a, b or c), then next your address. For example, GAME b Paul Jones, 43 London Road, Anywhere. Or call with your answer on 0904 040 0715. (ROI—1517 303 315)
Terms and Conditions: You must be 18 years old or over. Texts cost £1.50 (€2) plus standard msg rate. Calls cost £1.50 (€2) only from standard BT landlines. If you call or text in after the closing date/time of this competition, you will not be entered but you will be charged. Competition closes at midnight on Monday. Winners, selected at random from all correct entries received, will be contacted on Tuesday. Free unlimited helpdesk support and one year manufacturer warranty is included as standard. For more information visit www.freecom.com

JOIN THE FANG CLUB

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HERE'S a bite-sized look at Dracula Origin, the blood-thirsty PC adventure that hits the shops in a couple of weeks. You play Prof. Van Helsing, the most famous vamp hunter ever who is on a Dracula steak-out. Check out the spooky screenshots below. Watch this space for a review of the game to see if it's bloody brilliant or if it sucks.

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FOGGY HAZE, by Owen Anslow

Haze

FORMAT: PS3

GENRE: FPS

RATING: 15

OUT: Now

LOOK up the word Haze in the dictionary, and you’ll find: Obscurity of perception, feeling etc. Sadly, this is exactly what you’re left with after blasting through this FPS from Free Radical Design.

At times, it’s thrilling, but at others, it’s just frustrating.  Firstly, the futuristic storyline of two factions battling for control of South American territories is great – but the tale told from then on doesn’t really pull you in.

The weapons are superb, assault rifles handle like a dream and make the shooter a blast. But who needs an accurate arsenal when the enemy are kinda dumb? Yep, the AI is anything but intelligent, meaning that sometimes the bad guys like to dive TOWARDS your grenades and your teammates like to wander into your line of fire.

It’s not all bad news though. There’s a cool little booster where your soldier pumps himself full of Nectar, which leaves him buzzing, accurate and turns the battlefield into a 60’s Woodstock trip. And if you overdose on the sweet Nectar, you go mental, lose control and fire off random rounds that end up mowing down teammates. The game also looks quite good and, at times, this can be a fantastic shooter.

Single player mode doesn’t last that long so it’s somewhat of a relief to get online with your mates (up to 16 of them), who are a lot brighter than the game’s AI, thus resulting in an enjoyable shoot ’em up romp.

Overall, Haze seems a bit rough round the edges. What looks like a potentially mind-blowing experience ends up falling a little short. Instead of a rush, it looks like a rush job.

VERDICT: Hazed and confused

SCORE: 6.3/10

Let us know if you Hate It or Rate It . . .

Internet free on Vodafone contracts

Vodafone have restructured their mobile browsing tariffs so that pay-monthly customers will now have virtually unlimited internet access included in their contracts, starting at £25.
So there’s no need to pay the additional £7.50 a month.
And anyone who pays £40 or more a month will have an additional choice of an unlimited number of texts, landline calls or calls to other vodafone users.
When Vodafone says unlimited access to the web, what they mean is  subject to a fair usage policy of 500MB/per month.
And to put that in perspective they’ve provided examples of average usage: Streaming three 90-second video clips from YouTube would be the equivalent to 4.5MB
Download one 3 minute movie trailer from Odeon — 3MB
Browse 50 Internet pages — 1MB
Find your way to the restaurant using Google Maps — 0.6 MB
Check for updates on Facebook and upload a message — 0.1MB
Check your emails and reply — 0.5MB
Read breaking news on the BBC (4 pages) — 0.1MB
Place the winning bid on eBay (10 pages) — 0.25MB
Existing customers can ask for the unlimited 500MB use and be put up free of charge BUT they will still be paying £7.50. Alternatively they can ask to change their tariff over.
Vodafone have brought in the new web tariffs because of the increase in demand for mobile phone browsing.
Favourites for customers include quick access to Facebook, MySpace or Bebo to share pictures and news, YouTube to check out videos on the move, and fast connections to eBay to make that last minute bid.
Top 4 searches on the Vodafone Mobile Internet (VMI) (ranked by most searched first)
1.Facebook, 2.Bebo, 3.eBay and 4.Windows live Hotmail
Top 10 mobile internet sites on VMI (ranked by most visited first) 1. Facebook, 2. Google, 3. BBC, 4. MSN, 5. Bebo, 6. Sony Ericsson, 7. Yahoo, 8. MySpace, 9. Windows live Hotmail and 10. YouTube

YOU CAN'T BT IT

HERE’S a deal that’s hard to BT—for just £5 a month.
Over three million BT Total Broadband customers now have the option to pay a fiver on top of their existing contracts to access the net at 333,000 wi-fi spots around the globe on a new phone.
And if there’s no wi-fi access, they can use the phone network to access the web because each tariff for this service includes free phone minutes. So with the entry level tariff, you get 50 free minutes at £23.99 for the first three months (£29.99 after that).
It comes with a FREE HTC S620 or S710 smartphone worth over £150, loaded with Windows Mobile 6 and built-in camera. So you can easily sync your home pics, sounds, videos and office files with the device.
And you are operating from the same web servers that you use at home so your browsing is seamless and there’s no need to switch between email accounts. We tested the device and were very impressed, especially with the preloaded software.
The HTC S620 has a solid, well-built feel and compares favourably with a Blackberry Curve, and it comes with full Qwerty keyboard.
The only slight downside is that the website displays are not up to the standard of the iPhone. The slideout keyboard on the S710 is perhaps better for those with bigger fingers
This deal is a must if you are an existing BT Broadband user because no other phone contract offers as much for so little.
For example, the £5 extra a month is cheaper than adding the web to your mobile phone on Vodafone, O2 and T-mobile, who all charge £7.50.
It is what it says on the tin, the most complete broadband experience.

IXUS NEVER OUT OF FASHION

IT’S amazing how Canon keep coming up with stylish new versions of the IXUS.
The 8.0 megapixel Digital IXUS 80 IS is slim but packed with features including face recognition and comes in candy pink, caramel and silver for £219.