Skype price plunge
UKGadgeteer has news of 3’s latest offers on the INQ1 and Skypephone S2.
In line with 3’s Skype Free Calls Forever the price of both handsets has dropped. Previously £99.99, you can pick up either device on PAYG for £69.99, “for around £70 you can now buy a phone which will offer free Skype to Skype calls and not even need to top up the device to continue using it.”
Amy-Mae Elliot at Pocket-Lint has also covered this news, hailing the return of the S2 and giving a little heads up about some info gleaned from 3’s CEO, Kevin Russell, that another dedicated Skype handset will be arriving Q4…









Chris J Brady, December 30th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
The S2 is a lemon. Skype calls can only be made to contacts that the S2 knows are online when first signed on. If a friend comes online afterwards then the S2 will not automatically refresh its list of contacts. On a PC Skype always refreshes its list. Not so on the S2. And if the S2 thinks that a person is offline then it wont connect to them. Another issue is ‘call divert.’ If someone using Skype tries to call someone with an S2 but this is switched off the call is routed to ‘3’s voicemail. If the recipient also has Skype on a PC they will never ever get an incoming Skype call on that again. The solution is to get ‘3’s CS (on 333) to switch ‘call divert’ off - but this will also afftect normal incoming mobile calls. Its all or nothing. And as for Internet browsing the S2 is so bad its easier to hunt for an Internet cafe or use a netbook. Incidentally it is not widely known that the S2 comes fully fledged with links to gambling and porn web sites and applications. Great for the grandchildren’s birthday presents.
Colin, January 4th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the comment. We will feed this info over to 3.
Cheers
Colin
robert, February 23rd, 2010 at 2:47 pm
My S2 keeps asking me to upgrade to a new version of Skype and when I go through the process it seems to download but continually asks me to upgrade on subsequent attempts to use Skype.
Michelle, February 26th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Hi Robert,
I’ve put this to 3 and they’ve told me why this might be happening and also recommended a fix:
3 is upgrading the Skype software on the S2. When you sign into Skype on your S2 you must accept the software change before you can use it. However, there’s an issue with the software upgrade because of the phone’s screensaver.
During installation, to preserve battery power, your phone will start up the screensaver and stop the installation. When you try to sign into Skype again you’ll be asked to upgrade again.
There are two things you can do to stop this happening.
- During the software update keep pressing the down
key.
- Or turn off your screensaver by following these steps:
1. Select Menu
2. Select Settings
3. Select Phone settings
4. Select Display
5. Screensaver settings
6. On-Off. This is set to On by default.
7. Change this to Off
8. Select Save
9. Sign into Skype again and start the upgrade
Hope this helps, let me know how it goes.
Michelle