The 3 Skypephone is a fully-featured 3G Internet phone with Skype built-in. In addition to Skype calls the phone makes conventional calls and can be used to access 3’s broad range of other internet services.

The 3 Skype Phone itself is a basic mobile phone device, weighing just 86g and measuring just 100 x 44 x 13.6mm, and it comes in a choice of three colours, black, white/pink and white/blue .3’s Skype phone also packs a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, an expandable micro SD card slot (up to 1GB) .

FEATURES

• 100 x 44 x 13.6 mm, 86 g
• Talk time (4.5 hours), Standby time (320 hours)
• 2.0-inch 176 x 220 (QCIF) 262K colour display
• 16 MB phone memory, microSD memory card slot (up to 1 GB supported)
• Dual-band (900 and 1800 Mhz)
• 3G, Bluetooth, USB
• 2 megapixel camera with video capture
• SMS, MMS, Email, Voicemail, Videomail
• T9 predictive text
• Skype client
• Video calling, voice recorder
• Web browser

What’s In The Box

Skypephone, battery, battery cover (magnetic), handsfree kit, charger, USB cable, CD-ROM, 256 MB microSD card, 3 user guide, Skype quick start guide.

The 3 Skypephone was built by Chinese manufacturer Amoi, will cost £49.99 on pre-pay and will be free to monthly contract subscribers. Skype calls and instant messenger are free for up to 4,000 minutes talk or 10,000 chat messages per month.

Monthly contract customers can get the 3 Skypephone for free and can make Skype calls and send Skype instant messages on top of their normal call and text allowance. Calls can be made as normal over the mobile network: PAYG customers are charged a flat rate of 12p per minute for calls and 12p per text, and access to voicemail is free.

Contract customers get a set amount of inclusive calls and texts each month. Contract customers can get the Skypephone on contracts costing as little as £12 a month.

SkypeIn and SkypeOut are not available because of technical difficulties.

This handset will not work in the US either. A 3 rep told the us that it had missed the deadline for FCC approval. The final software build was only completed three to four weeks before the launch.

WHAT IS SKYPE?

Skype uses voice over internet protocol (VoIP) to make telephone calls over the internet.

WHERE TO BUY IT ?

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