What you get:

• Unlimited 8MB BT broadband
• Free evening and weekend BT broadband calls
• Free Wireless BT Home Hub with Hub Phone
• BT ToGo smartphone to take broadband with you everywhere
• 50 minutes and 50 texts included

Let’s start by saying that this isn’t the cheapest broadband offering on the market but hte mobility features more than make up for that. The BT ToGo deal effectively gives you all the advantages of BT’s Option plus mobile broadband and a free handset - more on that in a moment.

Ok, the free smartphone - there are two choices. The package comes with a free HTC s620 which is great for reading emails or browsing on the move. Trying to create documents on it is a different story - don’t bother. It’s far too fiddly. Now, if you want that little extra in the form of the HTC s710 you have two options: pay an extra £29.99 for the smartphone or FREE when you upgrade to 250 or 600 additional minutes. The sliding keyboard on the s710 is far easier to use. I had no problems creating documents. The only downside to this device is that it has no 3G - so if you’re not range of WiFi you’re back to the GPRS snail express! The real bonus with the ToGo package is that you can use BT cells to connect to WiFi - there are currently thousands of these around the UK and the number is growing. The best place to find these cells are either in large towns or cities (and motorway service stations). You get 500 free BT Openzone Wireless hotspot minutes so unless you spend your life online whilst you’re travelling you’re unlikely to use these up.

Both handsets feature Windows Mobile Edition with the usual range of additions like voicemail, Snap and Send (send photos from your handset BT Digital Vault - for FREE), contacts and calendaring services etc. The usual things you’d expect in a smartphone. I was pretty impressed the the Snap and Send feature - this actually worked rather well. The only problem I found was that transfer times could be slow over GPRS.

Free texts, etc.

The standard package gives yout 50 free texts and 50 free minutes to any UK network. Not great if you’re a textaholic!

You also get unlimited BT FON Wireless minutes.

The BT FON connection is made up of other BT customers around the country who offer a little secured section of their broadband service for wireless users. In return, they get access to the other BT FON hotspots around the country.

There are heaps of these, and they’re rapidly gaining in numbers.

Right, let’s get down to the crux, home broadband. I’ve been using BT for about 3 years now and I have to say that I haven’t always been impressed. All I can say is that I’ve made a lot phone calls to the helpdesk. Things have changed since I upgraded to BT ToGo. Now this could simply be because it’s a relatively new product and BT want to pull in as many customers as possible or it could be that they have got their act together. BT states a connection speed of 8Mb on their site but I’ve yet to see that. I’m seeing a max of 5Mb. But remember this; BT states that you will receive a maximum of 8Mb - that doesn’t mean you’ll get 8Mb. The really nice part about this package is that there’s no download limit - but do check AUP first.

The home broadband package comes complete with the updated Home Hub which provides connections of PC’s and consoles. On top of that you can connect your house phone to the hub and make internet calls, which is just like using Skype. Internet call quality over the Home Hub was very good. Not like the bad old days of VoIP!For more traditional phone users you get free evening and weekend landline calls.

Overall signal strength from the Home Hub was very good. I could even browse the web from the comfort of my garage (no comment!) which has pretty thick walls.

One aspect of this package that catches many peoples eyes is the free telephone support -24/7 and considerably better than what I’ve become accustomed to. The only gripe I have about the free support is that it seemed to be frequently engaged - users must have been having problems at exactly the same time! That said, when you get through the teams are genuinely helpful but sometimes need a little push if you want them to put you through to deeper technical support.

The contract is 18 months long but there are no set-up fees!

On the whole, I’m pretty impressed by the BT ToGo package. I’m not so concerned about the home broadband, even though the overall service was very good. For me mobile usage was key as I travel a great deal. I’ve never had any form of outage with the mobile aspect of the package but I’m frequently  in London where there are a huge amount of BT cells to connect to. If you’re happy with periodic use of EDGE when you’re on the move then this could just be the mobile broadband offering for you.

If you’re interested, here’s the link so you can take a look for yourself: BT ToGo.

Popularity: 87% [?]

Wii fans rampage across EBay in search of deals!!

Nintendo Wii has taken the top spot in EBay’s 2008 list of technical toys with over 2 million devices sold on the auction site. The Xbox360 came in second place with around 1.3 million sales. The Sony PSP and iPod touch dropped into the third and fourth spots, respectively.

The full tally:

Nintendo Wii: 2,056,866 (and related hardware/software), Microsoft Xbox360: 1,297,903 items sold, Sony PSP: 350,591 items then the iPod Touch in fourth place with 281,361 items sold.

Nintendo Wii Fit, Apple iPhone 3G, BlackBerry Pearl and Curve, PS 3 all accounted for over a million more sales for the online aucition giant.

Popularity: 42% [?]

Strafing the supermarket from 10,000 feet!

Ever wished you could fly to the shops? What about jumping over that traffic jam that’s held you 400m away from your motorway exit for the past hour? Maybe, just maybe, you’ll soon be able to soar high in the Moller M400 Skycar.

Ok, I’ve taken the fantasy a little too far; the Moller M4 isn’t a car that converts into a plane at the flick of switch so you won’t be seeing cars lifting off from the motorways anytime soon.

* the 300mph flying car

The M400 is the brainchild of Canadian-born inventor Paul Moller and it basically the equivalent of an airborne supercar - the Supercar with wings that cruises at 300 mph. And at 20 mpg it’s certainly more economical than some its earth bound brethren.

The Moller M400 is powered by eight, tiny Wankel rotary engines, each cranking out 150 hp. The engines are hidden away inside pods that can rotate to give the M400 VTOL just like the Harrier Jumpjet…the ideal opportunity to imagine yourself as Maverick, Danger Zone blasting out whilst you manouevre your airborne VW Beetle in attack formation. Sweet.

There is a major sticking point - the authorities. Before the M400 gets the green light, Moller needs to convince them that this isn’t going to create a motorway pile-up in the sky. If he’s successful we could soon be seeing the (low level) skies filled with M400’s.

Popularity: 54% [?]

The ‘world’s most advanced mobile computer’, apparently.

Following on the heels of the massively popular N-series mobile phones come the Nokia N97 and this looks like is going to be a must have phone when it launches.

The N97, which features touchscreen and a QWERTY keyboard, takes up where the N96 left off and is set to go head to head with other touchscreen handsets such as the Apple’s iPhone 3G, Ericsson’s X1 and BlackBerry Storm.

The Nokia N97 isn’t due to be available for another 6 months so this gives current market leaders Apple plenty of time to plugin in more gadgets/release an updated iPhone/buy Nokia!

N-Series reloaded

It seem that the world is going touch mad, in the nicest sense of the phrase. But the additional features packed into the N97 should be a real hit with Nokia fan; HSDPA, Wi-Fi, 32GB of memory plus microSD expansion and a 5 Mpxs camera (lens courtesy of Carl Zeiss) and video capture (apparently, video capture will be ‘DVD quality’). This is probably the biggest gripe I have about the iPhone - the crappy camera. The N97 could score big points on this feature alone.  The N97 also packs in about 36 hours of battery life for audio playback which is reasonable.

The Nokia N97 is expected to start shipping around July 2009 with a price of about £470…unless those pesky Chinese produce yet another ripoff!

Popularity: 60% [?]

Rumours abound that Microsoft is prepared to stump up $20 billion (£13 billion) for Yahoo.

The proposal forms the centrepiece of a complex transaction that would see Microsoft support a new management team to take control of Yahoo. However, it doesn’t appear that Microsoft will be aiming for a full takeover of the web giant (looks like they’ve learnt a lesson after having their fingers burnt once…twice…or was it three times?).

There have been rumours cirulating that former AOL CEO, Jonathan Miller, and Ross Levinsohn, a former president of Fox Interactive Media, are being positioned to head up the new management team. Although it’s widely believed that senior management at both Microsoft and Yahoo have agreed the deal there’s no guarantee that it will succeed.

Yahoo isn’t really in a position to argue though; when the first Microsoft bid was launched the search pioneer was valued at $33 per share - right now, it’s about $9 per share.

A number of commentators are suggesting that now is the ideal time for Microsoft and Yahoo to work towards a new deal, although, if you think about it, Yahoo don’t really have much say in what happens. It really is a case of ’sink or swim’ and Microsoft is holding the life preserver!

The deal between Yahoo and Microsoft will see Redmond obtaining a 10-year operating agreement to manage the search business. Microsoft would also receive a two-year call option to buy the search business for $20 billion. This would leave Yahoo to concentrate on their core business: e-mail, messaging, and content services.

This deals allow Microsoft to attempt to recoup some the ground lost to Google. Microsoft’s search efforts have only managed to give them a rather miserable 5% of the market share in contrast to Googles 77%. Adding Yahoo’s search customer base to this figure would, theoretically, give them about 23% of the market.  That said, a large number of Yahoo search users favour it because ‘it’s not Google and it’s not Microsoft’!

Microsoft may own the desktop but, when it comes to the web, they’re rapidly slipping behind. Steve Ballmer has said he is not interested in buying the whole of Yahoo company, but has expressed a strong interest in buying the search business. Maybe the days of Microsoft’s stranglehold are coming to an end only to be replaced by Google!

Popularity: 85% [?]