$10 credit if you were affected by Vodafone Network Outage

You may have read in the newspapers that Vodafone had a phone tower outage on Sunday. If you are on the Three or Vodafone network and were affected by this outage, you should contact 3/Vodafone to request compensation as they have offered compensation in the news articles on the outage. I have received a $10 credit on my account. You may be successful in requesting more compensation if the outage has caused more than a small inconvenience.

If you're signing up for E63 in Australia

I have noticed that the price of the Nokia E63 has not really moved in the last 12 months. I bought it around 18 months ago on a $29 cap plan on Three which was only a contract for 12 months. This enabled me to recontract with three six months ago to get a Nokia E72 on the same $29 cap plan but this time for 24 months.

If you are looking at getting a Nokia E63, Vodafone is one of your best options. And one thing... DON'T go for the 24 month plan!! You have to be crazy to commit yourself for 2 years with a Nokia E63 when you can get the same phone for the same cap plan with a contract half the length (12 months). The only thing you miss out on is the $50 online credit. In 12 months time, you can get a brand new phone.

Full details of this plan are here:

Cap Inclusion
Calling National rates International rates
SMS 28c each (up to 160 characters) 28c each (up to 160 characters)
MMS (Video) 75c each 75c each
MMS (text, pic, audio) 50c each 75c each
Voice calls 90c per minute + 35c flagfall See International Call Rates
Video calls $1.35 per minute + 35c flagfall 1.5 x international call rate + 35c flagfall
Other calling Rates
13, 15 & 1800 numbers 13 & 18 numbers: standard call rates apply
15 numbers: dependant on service you are calling
Customer Care (1555) FREE OF CHARGE
Voicemail retrieval 90c per minute + 35c flagfall
Re-routed calls $1.20 per minute + 35c flagfall
Directory Assist (1233) $2.60 a call (+ standard call rates if you're THRU-connected)
Other services I can enjoy
National Roaming See National Roaming Rates
Voicemail deposit FREE OF CHARGE
Vodafone live! browsing Free, only pay for what you download

Services not included in Cap

Premium TXT: Rates dependant on service
International roaming: as per standard Vodafone International roaming rates with both options available on all plans; Vodafone Traveller (default) and Vodafone World
Voda live! STK and Content Downloads: as per standard rates
International roaming: See International Roaming information
Mobile Internet Data Inclusions per month (on Vodafone): 200MB with minimum session of 12KB
Additional Data charge per MB (on Vodafone): 50c per MB with minimum session of 12KB

QuickOffice 6.0 is out

You know one thing that the Nokia E63 still has over new phones such as the Nokia N8? The E63 still gets QuickOffice free, including the new upgrade to 6.0. If you have not upgraded yet, check it out by going to  OFFICE > QUICKOFFICE > OPTIONS > UPGRADE.


So what features are new in 6.0 and relevant to E63 users? 

View Excel® 2007 Charts

See your charts recalculate when you make data changes.

View PowerPoint® 2007 Files

Open and view PowerPoint® 2007 .PPTX Files

Localization Support

Language support for French, Italian, German, and Spanish is included.

Enhanced File Manager

Easily navigate digital files and folders. Most file types listed so you can now organize your music, photos, and office documents.

ZIP File Support

Browse and Open files within a ZIP folder.

View Password-protected Files

Open and view password-protected Word and Excel files. Common Microsoft encryption supported.

Word Count

No more worries about having too many or too few words in your Word document. Works just like word count on your desktop.

"Go To" Cell

Quickly navigate large worksheets by simply entering in the cell address you want to find.

Ollie's Battery Life and App Review

One of our readers posted a comment which I thought would be worth highlighting here. He gives a good review of the battery life for the E63 even to the number of calls he makes. So how long does the E63 battery last? Ollie says..


My battery lasts 1 day and 19 hours on average.
Wifi: 8 hours a day (email, chat, surf, download). If wifi is unavailable, I use data for the same duration and purposes (eats power fast, though).
Texts: 80 msgs a day
Calls: 5 mins a day
Music player: 15 mins a day.
active standby is on all the time.
My charger is AC-8A. Battery is BP-4L. All original.
Beware of fake batteries and chargers. Phone is almost a year old now. I have no complaints about battery life. This is the perfect budget smartphone. Period. 


As for Ollie's favourite apps, they are: 

• Kaspersky Mobile Security
• SMS Preview
• Opera Mobile
• eBuddy
• Remind Me
• Cuckoo
• Nokia Chat
• Nokia eMail

I personally have not used SMS preview or Remind Me or Cuckoo but I'll probably check these out after this.