If you use mobile broadband while you’re travelling or you spend most of the day working out of your car, you might struggle to maintain a decent connection to your network – this will be due to the fact you’re sat in a metal box with no end of interference from all the wiring and electrical gadgets in the car.
If you’re in a cafe or at home you can boost your signal by using a Clip Antenna or a High Gain Antenna, but inside a car they won’t be anywhere near as effective. For this reason we’ve just released our 3G Mobile Broadband Vehicle Antenna for use in cars, lorries, caravans, motorhomes, boats etc.
Car Antenna for Huawei USB Modems
Unlike the Clip Antenna and High Gain antennas that sit next to you, the Mobile Broadband Vehicle Antenna is designed to be mounted on the outside of your vehicle. This way it can pick up the signal from your network and carry it directly to the antenna to provide you with a better reception and faster download speeds.
The antenna is small and portable and can be stored in the glove box or a door pocket when not in use. It measures just 15cm long and has a small magnetic base that is just over 3cm in diameter. It can be mounted in seconds and won’t cause any damage to the paintwork on your vehicle.
The Mobile Broadband Vehicle Antenna is currently only available for Huawei dongles that use the CRC9 connection. These dongles include the E156G, E160, E160G, E169, E620 & E110.
One of the most asked questions on the Mobile Fun Blogs and Forums at the moment is “How do I set up email on my Tocco” and although there are suggestions and a settings spread across the site, I thought I’d bring it all together into one post to make setting up your Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo email accounts on your Samsung Tocco F480, Samsung Tocco Lite or Samsung Tocco Ultra quick and easy.
Set up email on Samsung Tocco F480, Tocco Lite or Tocco Ultra
Now, before I start I just want to say that these settings should work on all phones, not just the Tocco’s. You may find that they need a little tweaking depending on your network – particularly the SMTP settings. Without getting too technical on you, the SMTP server is similar to your local sorting office, you send your letters there and they then get sorted and sent on to the person you sent the email to. In an attempt to cut down on the amount of spam being sent, some mobile networks restrict the SMTP servers that you can use and in most cases force you to use their own.
So, if you set your phone up using the same SMTP server as your email provider, but find that you get an error message when you try and send a message, go back to the account settings and change the SMTP server to that of your network. Don’t panic if you don’t know what they are – I’ve listed them all for you at the end of this post.
Nokia have the largest handset range of all the mobile phone manufacturers, and with most of their handsets looking pretty similar, getting the right accessories for your Nokia phone can be quite tricky – especially if you don’t know the model number of your phone.
Nokia have tried to keep it relatively simple over the years by dividing their handsets up in to ’series’ or ranges. Probably the most well known range is the more recent N-Series, but every one of their handsets belong to a series of handsets whether it be 1000 series, 2000 series etc, where the series is determined by the first digit of the model number.
This short guide will show you a few quick and easy ways to work out which Nokia phone you have.
Check your phone
Some phones have the model number printed above the screen
This might seem like a really obvious thing to suggest, but some Nokia handsets will have their model number printed on the housing somewhere. If you have bought your Nokia direct from your network, you may find that the model number has been replaced with the networks logo. If this is the case – try the next step: (more…)
BlackBerry phones have really taken off over the last few years and are no longer seen as just a business users phone. As their popularity has grown, so has the range of devices – the days of just having a range of 2 or 3 BlackBerry’s has gone and with most of them looking pretty similar, getting the right accessories for it can be quite tricky if you don’t know the model number of your BlackBerry.
To confuse things a little, BlackBerry have recently started to give their handsets nicknames such as BlackBerry Pearl, BlackBerry Curve, BlackBerry Storm & BlackBerry Bold. These names aren’t always the model number of your phone as there are currently 5 handsets that carry the name Pearl and 5 handsets that carry the name Curve. To get the right accessories for your BlackBerry you will also need to know the 4 digit model number that normally starts with an 8 or 9.
This short guide will show you a few quick and easy ways to work out which BlackBerry model you have.
Mobile phones are almost a throw away item these days, with most of us upgrading our handsets every 12-18 months, if not sooner. If you’re like me, chances are you don’t want to let your old phone go, and hang on to it “just in case” you ever need a spare.
In reality though, your old handset that used to be your pride and joy is probably still sitting at the back of a drawer gathering dust and is never likely to make a call or send a text ever again. If you do ever dig it out, chances are you’ll go to do something on it that it can’t do and just throw it back in the drawer.
Well, here’s another thing you can do with it – Recycle it! Not only is recycling your handset better for the environment, but it can also be good on your pocket to, as you can actually get cash back when you send your old phone in for recycling.
Mobile phones should never be thrown in your normal household rubbish as the components in them take such a long time to break down, but knowing where to send them can be a bit tricky. For that reason, Mobile Fun are proud to announce that we have just launced a Mobile Phone Recycling Service. It’s completely free and is as easy as filling in a form and posting your phone to us – not only that, it pays you to do it!
To give you an idea on the money that you could get back, here’s a few examples of the cash back available on some of the popular phones that might be heading towards retirement.
Mobile Broadband has really taken off in the past 12 months – and USB Mobile Broadband dongles are now aggressively promoted by all UK mobile networks (3, Vodafone, t-mobile, Orange & O2) as a viable alternative to traditional fixed-line broadband.
However, we’ve heard from our customers that some of them are far from happy with the quality, reception and signal strength of their Mobile Broadband dongles. But the mobile networks continue to promote Mobile Broadband as if coverage is not an issue. Last year, the ASA even went as far as reprimanding a mobile network for some misleading advertising claims.
At Mobile Fun, we’re not entirely convinced that the quality issues surrounding mobile broadband have been fully addressed. Okay, so UK mobile networks are investing heavily in network infrastructure, but we don’t believe that customers are getting adequate coverage, signal strength, or reliability with their Mobile Broadband dongles.
Along with Stereo Bluetooth, one of the other big new features of iPhone OS 3.0 is the ability to use your iPhone as a modem with your Mac, PC or Laptop.
Tethering your iPhone is as easy as using a Mobile Broadband Dongle. You enable Internet Tethering on your iPhone, connect it to your computer using your USB Cable and away you go.
If you want to avoid having to rummage around in your bag for your USB Cable you can also connect your phone using Bluetooth. The process is just as simple and takes no time at all to set up. All you need is Bluetooth on your computer & the latest version of iTunes.
The exact process will vary slightly depending on the Bluetooth Dongle that you are using, but this is how to tether your iPhone 3G to Windows using Bluetooth:
Turn on Bluetooth & Tethering on your iPhone
Search for Bluetooth Devices on your PC
Find your iPhone and enter a Passkey of your choice
Enter the same Passkey on your iPhone
If asked to select services for device, select PAN or Network Access
Device will install and connect to your iPhone
Blue Band will show at top of iPhone Homescreen when PC is connected to your phone
Simple. I have to admit, this was about the easiest phone I’ve ever set up for use as a modem. There are no drivers to install and no complicated network settings to enter, you just connect using Bluetooth and it works.
Not Got Bluetooth?
If you don’t have a Bluetooth enabled computer then don’t panic, it’s extremely easy to add Bluetooth to any PC. All you need is a USB Bluetooth Dongle.
Adding a Bluetooth Dongle to your PC won’t just help with tethering your iPhone, it will allow friends and family to send files and photo’s to your computer quickly and easily and you will be able to use a Bluetooth headset for making calls over Skype and listening to music.
Installing a dongle is quick and easy and you don’t need any knowledge of PC’s, just plug it in to a spare USB port and wait for Windows to set it up – Easy!
If you do have any problems setting it up, I’ve put a guide together on Installing your Bluetooth Dongle that will talk you through it step by step.
Don’t forget though, in order to use tethering, you will need to have the service activated by O2, who are charging an extra monthly fee for the service, although there are ways to tether your iPhone without Jailbreaking it, although there are risks involved!
If you do have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below
Last night Apple released the long awaited iPhone OS 3.0 for iPhone and iPod Touch. The update adds a number of new features to the latest versions of both devices, including adding support for Stereo Bluetooth Headphones and Speakers.
The update is free foriPhone 3G users, and there is a small charge of £5.99 for iPod Touch users.
To update your device, you need launch iTunes and connect your iPhone or iPod Touch. Once it is recognised by iTunes, you need to select it from the list of devices and click on the summary tab. Here you will see the option to ‘Check for Update’.
If you own a Nintendo DS Lite or DSi, then one of your ‘must have’ accessories is without doubt an R4 Card. The R4 Card is an adapter that is used with a memory card to add extra functionality and software to your DS console. To get started, you need to make sure that you order the right R4 Card for DS Console:
If you have a DS Lite, but want to use memory cards (up to 32GB), then you will need the R4 SDHC Revolution Card
There are a couple of important things to remember. The first one is that you will need a Micro SD memory card that you can use in the R4 Card. The second is that in most cases you will need to download the latest version of the software free of charge from the R4 Website before you can use the R4 Card as the software is not included with the card. To make this a bit easier for you, I’ve put the download links below:
To keep installation simple I’d suggest downloading the files to the desktop. You will need to unzip the files once they have been downloaded. To install the software, you will need to connect the memory card to your computer using the card reader that came with your R4 Card. You will then need to Drag and drop all the downloaded files on to the Micro SD Card. It’s important that the files are copied into the root of the memory card, and not into any other folders that are on the memory card. Once you’ve copied the files over, you can then drag and drop your ROM files to the Micro SD card using windows explorer.
Check your phone
If you own a Nintendo DS Lite or DSi, then one of your ‘must have’ accessories is without doubt an R4 Card. The R4 Card is an adapter that is used with a memory card to add extra functionality and software to your DS console. To get started, you need to make sure that you order the right R4 Card for DS Console:
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