I am considering purchasing an HSDPA enabled phone for connecting my n800 to the net. As T-Mobile offer the best connectivity packages via web'n'walk I was looking through their offerings.

As far as I can see they have 3 options that would do as I wish: -

Nokia n95
Tmobile MDA Vario II
Samsung SGH-Z560

As I understand it .. the Tmoblie MAD Vario II is a Windows Mobile Phone and unlikely to work because they support PAN and not DUN (If I got this wrong please tell me)

The Nokia n95 Nice phone, but a little expensive for my tastes (especially after buying the tablet) but I imagine almost certain to work.

Lastly the Samsung SGH-Z560 seems cheaper and I think has DUN support.

Does anyone have one of the above phones working as a Bluetooth Tether for their n800 via T-Mobile UK ? ...

If so does it work well for you ?
Has anyone done this with a SGH-Z560 ?

Thanks !

Cant help you with those phones but I connect mine via a Nokia N70 to T-Mobiles web and Walk. The connection wizard sets it all for you. I get about 15k a second downloads over bluetooth. The speed of the bluetooth connection is the speed limiting factor.

Rgrds,
Jon

Just be aware that the standard Web'n'Walk £7.50/month tariff doesn't permit modem usage so you should in theory be discussing the Web'n'Walk+ £12.50/month tariff. While you can use the £7.50 tariff with your 770/N800 you're breaching the T-Mobile Ts&Cs and T-Mobile could throttle your connection, or worse.

By the way, you might be interested in the Three £5/month unlimited internet tariff: http://three.co.uk/personal/products...s_/add-ons.omp

It's technically the equivalent of the T-Mobile Web'n'Walk tariff but £2.50/month cheaper, and I've heard that Three turn a blind eye to modem usage. But don't quote me on that, they can change their mind at any time!

Going back to T-Mobile, what about the Nokia E61 or Sony Ericsson W880i? They're both 3G phones and not too expensive (free on some packages).

Speaking of T-Mobile and Web'n'walk, I got Web'n'walk and a Vario II last year. The Vario II being less than useful, I eventually sprang for an unlocked Sony-Ericsson M600i and stuck the sim in it. The M600i has one or two quirks (don't use it as a clock!) but it's a decent phone and it works fine with the N800.

(The one thing to remember is that HSDPA phones eat juice like there's no tomorrow. The M600i can manage almost 60 hours on standby, compared to about 30 hours for the Vario II (aka HTC TyTN); but switch the M600i to GSM/GPRS and it'll go for a week. In actual connect time, you want to make sure it times out after only a couple of minutes, or you'll find it's only good for 2-3 hours before you're hunting for a charger.)

Three UK are launching three new data tarrifs on 3 September according to this article.

These are tethered/modem plans, unlike the existing £5/month plan which doesn't allow modem usage.

If anyone is on the verge of renewing their existing contract it might pay to look at 3 in a few weeks time - I think with the new plans they will offer a better combined monthly voice+data deal than T-Mobile.

I note that only the first of those 3 tariffs will be available to add to a handset - the other two will only be available with their USB modem (ie a new contract I guess)...

My emphasis

The first two deals (£10/month/1GB and £15/month/3GB) will be available for both handset and USB modem, while the third (£25/month/7GB) will be USB modem only (which needs it's own contract/SIM in addition to any voice contract). It's not clear if the £25 deal will ever be available for handsets - the quote kind of suggests it might become available later in the year, depending on how you read it. However £25/month is too expensive for me, and 1GB/month should be enough to feed my N800 - if not, there's always the £15/month option!

That would be handy- I am already on 3 and have just got a new N73 to replace my old n73. I got £10/month of my contract for being with them a year, so if I put the £10/month back on it I won't miss it (especially as I ebayed the old n73 for £130).

I was looking at the three broadband lite £10 deal to use with my Sony Ericsson W950i. It's not an HSDPA phone, but that shouldn't be a problem, should it? What I really want is to be able to connect to my asterisk (VOIP/SIP) server at home and make calls that way, and leave the phone in my pocket. 3G (UMTS) should be fast enough.

The sales-drone in the shop was trying to tell me that you can't use an hsdpa connection with a phone over bluetooth, because bluetooth isn't fast enough. OK, bluetooth has a theoretical max of ~1mb and hsdpa is ~2.8mb, but surely my connection will just be slower over bluetooth?

Has anyone tried this to confirm? Alternatively, the forthcoming Nokia N83 will apparently act as a wifi modem

Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR, as present in the N800, has 3Mbit/s bandwidth, of which up to 30% may be considered overhead, leaving about 2Mbit/s for actual data which should be plenty fast enough for an HSDPA phone.

However the sales drone may have had a point - although the W950i supports Bluetooth 2 it doesn't support EDR in which case the W950i's BT 2.0 bandwidth is around about 720kbit/s. Still a respectable spead though - better than 30-40kbit/s you get with GPRS, or 80-100kbit/s with EDGE!

I use my W950i over 3G on O2 (no HSDPA) and it's OK - I don't use it much, because O2 are fleecing bast*rds who charge a fortune per MB. Once the 8GB N95 appears on 3, I'll be all over it...