vodafone

To celebrate the launch of the Lumia 800 in Ireland, Vodafone has an enticing offer active should you look to purchase Nokia's Windows Phone on contract or PAYG (Pay-as-you-go). By investing in a shiny new 800 before March 1st, you'll automatically be entered into a draw for a chance to win an Xbox 360 console along with 12 months of Xbox LIVE Gold membership.

Source: Vodafone

The Nokia Lumia 710 (our review) is now available for purchase from both Three and Vodafone in the UK, with contract prices starting from just £20. Should you wish to buy the handset outright, Three is offering this option for £199 - not a bad price for a Windows Phone Mango handset.

The Lumia 710 packs a 1.4 Ghz processor, 3.7" screen, 5MP camera, 8GB storage, and -of course- comes loaded with the exclusive Nokia Lumia app bundle. Both networks also offer the Lumia 800, should you require some extra umph.

Source: Three, Vodafone

Nokia has confirmed the upcoming arrival of the Lumia 800 to Australia in a press statement today. Not only that, but the manufacturer stated that the handset will be available in cyan, magenta, black and the rumoured white. Australian carriers (Optus, Telstra and Vodafone) have shown interest in Nokia's Windows Phone (possibly due to the launches that have been hosted across the world), which is good news for those who are looking for better platform support and more generation two handsets.

We've continuously seen reports of frustration from consumers in Australia due to the lack of support from not only the carriers, but Microsoft itself. With Nokia tackling world domination, looks like this commonwealth nation will be seeing some love. If you're interested as to when Telstra will be sporting the device, be sure to register your interest.

Check out the press release after the break.

Looks like our friends Down Under are in for a treat, like a nice serving of OS 8107. Vodafone just tweeted that the update will be rolling out within the next day, which means you can start plugging your phone into Zune Desktop and hitting refresh as fast as you can.

The changelog contains the following:

• If a user’s email is hosted in an Exchange Server 2003 server, in some instances, original email messages are blank (or not included) when the user replies to or forwards an email message
• When a new voice mail is received, and the user already has one voice mail waiting in their voice mail queue, the OS does not provide the user with notice of the new voice mail via Live Tile, SMS message or other notifications
• When typing using the on-screen keyboard, the keyboard periodically disappears.
• On occasion, Gmail contacts would not fully synchronize.
• If Local Scout was launched from the Search home screen, it would not correctly identify the user’s current location
• Background Transfer Service improvements

Pretty run of the mill for 8107, though we now have a better understanding of that "Gmail issue" which evidently had to do with contacts not fully syncing. Big news though, especially from Vodafone and Australia which have yet to see any big device launches of late.

Source: Vodafone; Thanks, gh8421, for the tip!

On Friday we covered Microsoft's plan to alter how updates for Windows Phone are communicated to consumers. Depending on how you read and took the announcement (some readers were slightly heated in the comments), Microsoft is looking to the future with how they can effectively publish said information. Currently, the "Where's my update?" page displays a huge table covering each carrier and handset. With more handsets being released, and older devices continuing to be supported with new updates, this table would continue to significantly grow.

The pending changes will alter the way we are currently waiting for updates. The software giant wishes consumers to wait for the notification on their Windows Phone (or in Zune once connected to a PC) and check Update Central, as opposed to focusing entirely on the likes of "Where's my update?" for dates and status reports.

What happens with regards to carriers and update control will have to be seen with what occurs with the 8107 rollout and in the coming months. We're not entirely certain if what's in store will be good or bad, but WPDownUnder has taken things into their own hands and has released their version of the "Where's my Update?" with "Where's my Bloody Update?".

This new webpage will be useful for Aussies who wish to continue to keep up-to-date with updates across the Australian carriers: Telstra, Optus and Vodafone. For the rest of us, we'll be in for a ride to see what happens.

Source: WPDownUnder; Thanks, Sheeds, for the tip!

We only recently covered Nokia's statement about sales of the Lumia and what the mission is for the manufacturer, and now we have some indications to back the positive statement published by the company. For starters, we can see in the above shot that Vodafone UK is selling the Lumia 800 (our review) in both black and cyan (pre-order) well enough for them to be sitting in 2nd and 3rd place behind the disappointing iPhone 4S. Not only that but take a look at the customer review rating for the iPhone 4S, and now look at the black Lumia 800.

It would appear that Vodafone AU is waiting on HTC to provide them with the Internet Sharing (tethering) update for the Trophy to begin testing. The carrier was one of the first to announce they have completed testing Mango a few months back and are now keeping customers up-to-date with the latest features.

Source: @Vodafone_AU, thanks Gary for the tip!

It looks like Vodafone Ireland will be adding the HTC Titan to its WP7 offerings, which currently only consists of the LG Optimus7 (E-900).  They have added a "Coming Soon" page for the 4.7" monster where you can register to be notified when it is available.  The Titan is available for pre-order on Clove, who says that initial stock arrives in "early October" and we know it will be hitting the Netherlands on October 7th, so it hopefully will arrive in Ireland around the same time.

Source: Vodafone Ireland (Thanks for the tip, Mike!)

For those of you on Vodafone, you may be disappointed to know that you won't be getting visual voicemail with your Mango update. That's not too surprising as many carriers won't be able to support this feature, which seems to us to be downplayed by Microsoft.

Likewise, tethering, at least according to the Vodafone blog, won't be initially supported either:

"Regarding Wireless Hotspot, it isn’t integrated in the initial release of Mango however it may be deployed at a later date."

That's kind of interesting about the "initial release" of Mango and wireless hotspot--for now we haven't see too much of this feature and perhaps it's coming down the line in a subsequent patch. Either way, while both visual voicemail and tethering are awesome, the other 498 features that Mango brings will surely make up for it, no?

Source: Vodafone Blog; Thanks, Garry, for the heads up!