4G LTE to launch in UK on October 30

iPhone 5 owners in the UK have something to cheer about -- 4G LTE service will be available for the first time in the country starting on October 30th.

The ultra-fast LTE service will operate on the network of EE (formerly known as Everything Everywhere), a new joint venture of Orange UK and T-Mobile. Although Orange and T-Mobile customers will soon see their carrier change to EE, they'll need to have an EE data plan in order to take advantage of the faster speeds provided by 4G LTE.

At this point, the service is expected to roll out in 10 cities on October 30th. By the end of 2012, 16 cities -- which contain a third of the population of the UK -- will have 4G LTE, and EE expects 98 percent of the population to be covered by 2014.

[Source: TUAW]

Motorola's Razr i arrives in the UK at Phones4U

Motorola's Razr i has landed on British shores, and is available today from Phones4U. The handset, the first born of a union 'twixt Moto and Intel, skates pretty close to the competition in the performance stakes and promises vastly improved power efficiency. The handset is free to anyone grabbing a plan costing £21.50 or more, while the first 500 to snap up the phone will also get a complimentary pair of MOTOROKR headphones, too.

[Source: Engadget]

Amazon brings Cloud Player music service to the UK: choice of free or premium tiers from £6 per year

Brits who've been straining for a reason to care about Amazon's budding Cloud Player service can probably relax. It's live in the UK as of now, offering 5GB of online storage and the ability to stream 250 of your tracks (or 256Kbps matched versions) to a range of devices free of charge. Adding extra storage will cost from £6 per year for 20GB, rising to £320 p/a for a full terabyte. If you're a heavy user, though, you may also need to fork out £22 p/a for the right to stream up to 250,000 of your tracks. Paying to play to music you already purchased? Indeed, further exertion may be necessary to figure out if it's all worth it, along with a glance at the detailed press release after the break.

[Source: Engadget]

iPhone 5 contract prices for UK phone networks revealed

While Apple had its preorders primed since 8am BST, British carriers have only just unveiled their monthly prices for the newest iPhone. Vodafone will offer it on contracts from £25 per month -- with an initial £249 outlay) or free on £47 per month for two years. That free deal will net you a 16GB iPhone 5, with 2GB of data, unlimited texts and voice minutes. On Orange, a 24-month contract at £46 will nab you the same 16GB model for free, with 3GB of data and unlimited calls and texts. If you drop down to the £20 rate, you'll have to pay £320 upfront and pick up a lightweight bundle of 100MB of data, 50 texts and 50 minutes. EE stablemate T-Mobile isn't offering any free iPhones on its carrier plans, but you'll be able to glean unlimited internet (alongside 2000 voice minutes) on a 16GB iPhone 5 for £109 and £36 per month on contract.

Confusingly, anyone looking to grab the UK's first LTE network on the iPhone 5 will have to sign up to a "4GEE from EE" plan -- which still hasn't revealed its pricing. Meanwhile, Three UK currently has the 16GB iPhone on its unlimited data One Plan at £79 upfront, on a £36 per month deal. We'll update again once we hear O2's plans. 

EE says "Customers can either wait for EE to launch (we will be announcing the date in the coming weeks) or they can sign up to a contract with T-Mobile or Orange and upgrade to EE free of charge once it has launched, as long as they move to an equivalent priced and length plan"

Phones4U is taking its own pre-orders for those who want to enlist with Orange, T-Mobile or Vodafone. O2 has also chipped in with its details and is offering the iPhone 5 on plans starting from £26 per month; like Orange, you'll have to opt for at least a £46 monthly outlay to get one for free. The O2 plans offer the same unlimited voice and texts, but just 1GB of data. Lastly, Carphone Warehouse has chipped in with its own advance order campaign, although it's only taking online orders for the 16GB black iPhone at this stage: you'll need to call in for everything else.

[Source: Engadget]

Premier Farnell, Sony, team up to move Raspberry PI manufacturing to the UK

One of the biggest holdups to owning a Raspberry Pi was its stuttering availability, so much so that it even prompted a few copycat boards. Creator Eben Upton and equipment makers Premier Farnell might have found the solution, teaming up with Sony to produce an initial run of 300,000 of the educational computers at the company's UK Technology Center, in Pencoed, near Bridgend in Wales. Upton hopes to keep the cost at $25 and $35 for two boards, thanks to employing Sony's "lean manufacturing techniques," and the Japanese company has already spent £50,000 ($80,000) on new package-on-package assembly equipment -- ensuring that we'll all be able to get our hands on one soon enough.

[Source: Engadget]

Plusnet pushes its UK-fibre-optic broadband to 76Mb/s

Stereotype-embracing ISP Plusnet has added a new tier of fibre-optic broadband, offering speeds up to 76Mb/s. The revamped Extra Fibre package now offers upload speeds of up to 19.5 Mb/s, with a 250GB monthly usage allowance, matching those offered by parent company BT. Of course, those of us who can't even get ADSL2 will just have to watch on, with jealousy in our eyes.

[Source: Engadget]

Sky Sports TV app for Android now available, brings live events to the UK and Ireland

Not to be outdone by The Worldwide Leader in Sports, Sky's just released its own application to keep football enthusiasts entertained while on the go -- at least Premier League fans using Android slabs. Unlike the ESPN app, however, Sky Sports is charging £5 (around $8) per month for its offering, though it will -- with the help of ESPN, no less -- stream over 100 EPL matches live, so you're not limited to only highlights and previews. That being said, Sky Sports TV also lets UK and Ireland folks watch other sporting events, including F1 races, PGA Golf and tennis events like the US Open. The bad news is the app currently doesn't support Jelly Bean-loaded devices, which, for now, will most likely only affect atiny section of Mountain View's user base -- if that's not you, though, the link to download is down below.

[Source: Engadget]

Facebook’s Instagram Deal Moves One Step Closer: UK’s Office Of Fair Trading Gives It The All-Clear

Facebook has today moved one step closer in its proposed acquisition of photo-sharing app Instagram. The Office of Fair Trading in the UK has given the deal the all-clear.

The announcement was made via an RNS regulatory statement, which briefly says the OFT would not refer the deal to the Competition Commission. A spokesperson for the OFT has given us more detail:

“We examined this in light of them both offering social networking services, looking at potential competition in social networking services, and in the supply of photo apps and whether the merger might result in the merging parties limiting people from others using other apps or other sites,” he said. “In brief we concluded that there are several relatively strong competitors to Instgram which appear to pose a stronger constraint to Instagram than Facebook does.”

[Source: TechCrunch - Read the full story]

T-Mobile UK confirms unlimited tethering won't be available to new Full Monty customers

Well, well, so much for being "truly unlimited," right? As TechRadar adequately reports, T-Mobile UK's confirmed that any new customer looking to snag the Full Monty data plan won't be offered an unlimited tethering feature on their all-you-can-have bundle. Effective immediately, the change is a sudden move from the carrier and it wasn't quite clear as to what made it backpedal on its initial "unlimited" promise, only saying, "From 8th August, tethering is not permitted for new customers under the terms and conditions of the Full Monty." Surely this is a small blow to UKers hoping to grab the Full Monty for the all-out tethering alone -- but hey, at least you've still got the data, texts and calls.

[Source: Engadget]