Datawind launch three new mobile Internet devices

Remember the Pocketsurfer – the little handheld device that allowed you to surf the net on the go and not end up with a huge bill? Makers Datawind haven’t been sitting on their laurels, and just over a year since they announced the PocketSurfer 2 it’s time for the next generation to hit the streets – plus an interesting netbook offering too.

Here’s the deal. The PocketSurfer3 and PocketSurfer3 Lite, like their older siblings, have a Vodafone SIM superglued into the device. When you buy the device you get 30 hours per month of GPRS Internet browsing included for a year (it was 20 hours per month with the PocketSurfer 2). After a year you pony up £29.99 and get another years worth of 30 hours per month. Or at anytime you can pay £5.99 a month for unlimited access and £59.99 for ‘lifetime of the product’ unlimited access.

Now comes the interesting bit – roaming. Instead of paying per megabyte, Datawind charge European access at 5p per minute. There’s even a little timer on the screen so you can work out how many minutes you’ve been online.

Anyway, some brief specs on the device. At 152 x 75 x 15 mm and weighing in at 174 grams, both the PocketSurfer3 and its ‘Lite’ version have a 640×240 TFT colour screen, quad band GSM/GPRS radio, backlit QWERTY keyboard, and about four hours of usage with a standby time of four days. It runs Linux and apart from a web browser has email and IM applications built in. The PocketSurfer3 also has GPS and a funky touch pad, which the Lite doesn’t have.

Price-wise? The PocketSurfer3 is £199, and PocketSurfer Lite is £159. It’s available now from Maplin and, rather curiously, the Ideal World TV shopping channel.

Datawind also unveiled the Ubisurfer – a new netbook. Similar in concept to the PocketSurer, it’s got a 7″ TFT screen running at 800×480, 128MB of RAM, 1GB of Flash, onboard Wi-Fi, an Ethernet port, sound, an SD card socket, 3 USB ports, and a few more applications – like media player, XIP Office (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation), PDF Viewer, Paint, and a handful of games. Again it runs Linux, and as with the PocketSurfer it comes with 30 hours a month of Vodafone GPRS surfing, and 5p/minute roaming access in Europe.

Pricing for the UbiSurfer is a rather reasonable £159, and again its available now from Maplin and the Ideal World TV shopping channel.

Review units should be hitting the streets in the next few weeks, so as soon as they wing their way here we’ll bring you a full in depth road test. In the meantime you can find out more about the UbiSurfer here and the PocketSurfer3 here.