Tipsters Brendan and Ryan both alerted me to the fact that their phones (an iPhone and a Blackberry), when roaming on Voda’s 2G network, were telling them they were on EDGE rather than GPRS speeds. When I contacted Vodafone for confirmation, they gave me this response:

“Vodafone is currently upgrading its 3G network to reach areas covering 94 per cent of the Australian population, due for completion by Monday, 31 August 2009.

Vodafone’s regional 2G network will remain active and will switch from GPRS to EDGE technology, as part of the upgrade.”

So not only do Voda customers get a free boost to a 3G network, but when they roam onto Voda’s 2G network, they’ll get EDGE data speeds? I think I’ve found my next Aussie Telco…

[Thanks Brandon and Ryan!]

The problem, of course, is that monthly fees will most likely be part of the deal—monthly fees that many GPS users are probably not willing to pay. Still, the nuvi 1690 appears to be on its way, for better or worse—although pricing and a release date have yet to be announced. [Electronista]

Just spent ages on the phone to Vodafone because I thought by bill was too high ($88 data over my $500 credit limit on $79 cap). After much too-and-fro and them being adamant that the bill was correct i asked for the supervisor because i wanted them to reduce my data charges. I was also convinced that I had never used gprs for between 45-90 mins, let alone 15 times in a month.

The operator then came back and said “what phone are you using?”. I told her iPhone and she followed up with “do you use wifi at home?”. I said yes and straight up she said “ok i’m going to credit you back $88″. I was stunned and asked why and she said she had spoken to data services and apparently the iPhone using Wi-Fi is recognised as using gprs by their network. I asked if this was a recognised issue that other users have experienced, and she dodged the question. I asked if other iphone owners had reported the same problem, and she replied that “she had no information on the iphone”.

Their answer to the problem was to disable gprs on my account. I said I’ll work it out myself and if i want it disabled i’ll call back.Back to switching ‘edge’ on and off with BossPrefs.

I’ve put the question through to Vodafone as to whether this is an isolated occurrence or an ongoing problem for unlocked iPhones on Vodafone, but has anybody else out there experienced this? And is there anybody out there who can explain how this could even happen? I would imagine that Vodafone wouldn’t have a clue when the iPhone connected to Wi-Fi, but I’m not one of engineering types…

It’s called Flaik, and last Friday it walked away with the top prize at the Australian International Design Awards.

Flaik consists of two main components. The first is the tag, a stylish red pod that straps to your arm. Inside there’s a GPS chip that accurately tacks your movement around the ski resort, measuring speed, distance, altitude and airtime. The unit transmits this information every few seconds to its servers, which you can then review at your leisure either via mobile phone or online.

And that’s the second component – Flaik isn’t just a gadget, it’s a community. You can pair the Flaik with your mobile phone and use it to track your mates on the slopes, send your own location to friends and receive detailed analysis of your runs.

There’s even a safety element involved – it can warn you via SMS when you go out of the resort’s boundaries. And because it’s a GPS tracking device, if you do happen to get lost, your location can be tracked by the authorities, meaning a swift rescue and ongoing ridicule from your mates.

The Flaik is designed to withstand temperatures up to -60 degrees celcius, and has a 15 hour battery life in GPS mode. It has an impact resistant design that can withstand the bumps and knocks you get from falling down the slopes, crashing into people and trees and falling over at the end of a long night’s drinking.

The Build: Physically, the Pocketsurfer 2 is not really an internet surfer for the pocket; the dimensions of 152 x 75 x 15 mm, mean it is quite far off being comfortably pocket worthy. The 640 x 240 VGA screen is abysmal; it reduces high-resolution images to nasty grainy spaces of general distortion. On a plus note, it has a full QWERTY keyboard that is rather fantastic. It takes some getting used to if you are not familiar with RAZR-type keypads, but once you are about and clicking, it works extremely well…it works extremely well as long as you cannot hear it. The backlight kicks up the most ridiculous buzzing racket, the likes of which I have not heard emanate from a portable electronic device since the cassette Walkman was commonplace. You will not notice it when you are in the urban jungle, but at home, I kid you not, it shall give you a very real headache.

Getting Around: The navigation controls are a disaster; there is no scroll wheel, so you must rely on a four-way direction pad to get you around webpages. On a mobile phone with a 2.5″ screen, a four-way direction pad just about makes web surfing possible. On a device with a 5.2″ widescreen, that simply is not feasible. Generally, the Pocketsurfer 2 has a solid construction; it’s weighty in a good-to-hold kind of way. However, the attention to detail is poor; the chromed plastic pieces are rough and the port coverings are shabby rubber plugs that do not fit properly. The styling of the unit is not so bad, and the poor quality is only noticeable once the gadget is thoroughly inspected. So how does it weigh up for browsing the old internet?

Functionality: Datawind’s product runs their very own software, tip to toe, and though the compression system, which promises to load webpages in seven seconds flat sometimes delivers, it is far from consistent. Simply put, everything about the Pocketsurfer 2 is buggy as hell. The start up time is lengthy (approx 35s), when it works. On many occasions it refuses to connect. Indeed, during a private display of the device by Datawind’s CEO, a failed connection occurred—in the centre of London, I very much doubt that absent cellular network coverage was the cause of the mishap. It was not an isolated incident either; during my testing, time after time a connection would be reset, time out or return with a server error. When you are out and about and want to quickly check your email, the service simply does not cut it. Neither does the sub 5-hour battery. When it does work, the compression/caching of information is impressively fast for a GPRS connection.

The browser itself lacks any form of video codec compatibility, and as mentioned before, the screen will barely display high-resolution images. Even if it did, there is no way to zoom out and get the whole picture, so unless you like your picture viewing in clickity-click parts, this does not really solve the great mystery of succinct mobile web browsing. In the gadget’s defense, Google maps seem to work well on the few occasions it loads up without fault, thanks to proper GPS. Also worth noting is the optimised mobile Zoho suite, which could be useful if the text entry delay was not so severe. Unfortunately, the time elapse between a key press and that key taking effect is ridiculously long.

The Price: The UK will see the Pocketsurfer 2 available for £179.98 ($400), with 20hours of web surfing/month included in the asking price. You guys Stateside will have a much steeper deal; the product will be made available via T-Mobile for $US29.99 per month (unlimited data plan), on a 12 month contract. The hardware will be an additional $US299.

The Verdict: I really tried to love the Pocketsurfer 2, I promise you; I opened my cold, black heart to it and it failed me. I do not want this to read as a blank slating of a company’s endeavours, but the void this product fills is sadly non-existent. It has no raw power to natively run apps. It relies entirely on a GPRS connection that is temperamental at best. It has no means of effective navigation. In three words: it doesn’t work. The notion of entire back end server reliance for hardware is very much the vision of the future, but the Pocketsurfer 2 is a little ahead of its times in terms of the idea at work. Sadly, it is a little behind in terms of technology implemented. A GPRS connection is never going to be a viable means for mass data transmission; no matter how good the caching system may be. The technology used is simply too out dated (for this purpose) to be functional.

If you desperately want to give the piano black encased gizmo a chance, hit the link to purchase, but do so at your own peril. [US: Linsar, UK: Datawind]