I posted a few early photos and videos of the 3 Skypephone S2 on the UK blog on Tuesday, but thought it was time to share some more of what we’ve seen around the blogosphere.

The combination of free calls and cheap high speed internet access (using the handset’s HSDPA modem capabilities) seems to be a favourite among those who’ve tried the phone so far, and I’ve summarised a few of the latest reviews below.

Neil Bird at iGadget Life has posted a follow-up to his original photos of the 3 Skypephone S2, this time focusing on its HSDPA modem capabilities, and seems impressed:

I think its a great combination, of a great mobile phone, that allows you to make free Skype calls, plus you can plug it into you laptop and bam you can surf the web! Neat! You can even do this wirelessly via Bluetooth if that’s your thing!

TechDigest seem reasonably happy with the phone on the whole

Now this is nice. 3 launched their new Skypephone yesterday, and wow - I’m impressed…

We use Skype a lot at Tech Digest, so it’ll be useful for that, but I’ll be using it mostly just as a wireless dongle. I can also use it as a secondary phone for emergencies. I’ll be testing a review model out extensively first, and will let you know what battery life and HSDPA coverage is like across London. Look out for a video review soon.

Sister blog Shiny Shiny focuses on the free aspects of the phone:

There’s so much free stuff on the latest incarnation of 3’s Skype phone, it wouldn’t surprise me if the next step was for them to pay you to use the phone. Obviously being a Skype phone you get free calls to other Skype users, but plug it into your computer and it becomes an HSDPA modem (as well as being able to store 4GB of data). Whilst not free, five quid for 10MB of data isn’t anything to be sniffed at.

Episode 22 of the Mobile Industry Review Show features Dan Lane, Ben Smith and James Whatley talking about the 3 Skypephone S2 (skip to 2:19 for the start of this segment) They highlight the fact that it can be used as an HSDPA dongle out of the box as well as making free Skype to Skype calls.

Neville Hobson’s also been ‘messing about with phones’, and gives us another sneak preview of the 3 Skypephone S2 before his full review, which will be coming soon.

Reviewing

Finally, Pocket Lint gave the phone a very balanced review, and admitting that any glitches in call quality were more than made up for by the fact that the calls in question hadn’t cost them a penny:

Call quality was good on our tests, not perfect, but good enough and certainly in line with Skype call quality on the PC or Mac. It’s one of those catch 22 moments: if I was paying for the call I would be at times disappointed, but I am not so I was happy to put up with the odd blip. After all, I’ve just phoned a mate in the US and Australia for nowt whilst in the pub.

Photo by nechbi

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