Another bargain smart-phone: This Thursday, September 1st, German discount supermarket Aldi Nord will offer the Samsung Galaxy S for € 299.00. It is the first time that the low-price grocery retailer is selling such a high-end device. The Samsung Galaxy S might not belong to the first league of Android smart-phones anymore, but it is still quite powerful and several former weaknesses of this smart-phone model have been eliminated by the new Android version 2.3 Gingerbread. And the price point of the unlocked Samsung Galaxy S at Aldi Nord supermarkets is attractive, too.

Low price grocery retailer Lidl will be offering the Android smart-phone Huawei Ideos X3 for just € 99.99 beginning this Thursday. The Android smart-phone will be available in a prepaid package also including a SIM card with Lidl Mobile price plan, 25 free calling minutes and one month mobile Internet access for free. This is a real bargain.

A new mobile network test by Stiftung Warentest shows: Overall voice quality in Germany is quite good even though there are still a few rural spots without phone coverage. But there are considerable differences between networks when it comes to mobile data transmission rates.

Telefónica Germany (O2) will reduce the price for the iPhone 3G S drastically to sell off the older iPhone model before the new iPhone 5 will be launched – this could already happen in four weeks. As of tomorrow, the iPhone 3G S with 8 GB memory will cost just € 361.00 with or without plan at O2 shops.

The EU has limited prices for roaming calls and SMS (but not for mobile Internet access) across the EU. The EU Roaming regulation adopted in 2007 ensures that mobile phone subscribers pay affordable and transparent roaming prices when they are traveling across the EU.

Today, Vodafone has launched the first Blackberry on a prepaid plan in Germany. Vodafone customers can now combine the prepaid plan “CallYa OpenEnd Smartphone”, which costs € 2.49 per month, with the new tariff option called “CallYa Smartphone Blackberry”, which costs additional € 9.99 per month. The new Blackberry prepaid plan offers unlimited mobile Internet access, email and Blackberry Messenger over the German Vodafone network.

At home you are used to having access to email, apps and the web and when traveling you want to have it, too. Depending on the destination country and on how often and how long the user wants to connect to the web, it might also be ok to keep the SIM card of the German provider in the smart-phone during the trip. Here is a short overview of what users of a prepaid SIM card of a German provider pay for mobile Internet access on their smart-phone when being in another country.

For the brand’s first birthday, Telefónica Germany (O2) has relaunched the mobile advertising tariff called Netzclub. Instead of having the choice between three different tariff versions, customers can now choose between two versions, both with a mobile data flat rate tariff option for mobile Internet access over the network of Telefónica Germany. “Sponsored Surf Basic” offers monthly mobile Internet access for free with up to 100 MB data volume for transfers with HSPA speeds of up to 7.2 mbps (download). Alternatively, smart-phone users can surf the web with 300 MB data volume for transfers with HSPA speed with the “Sponsored Surf Pro” tariff which costs € 5.00 per month.

The LG P990 Optimus Speed (aka 2X) has been the first smart-phone in the market being powered by a dual core processor. In more specific terms, the LG Optimus Speed is powered by the Nvidia dual core processor Tegra 2 with 1 GHz and with a separate graphics unit that should arrange for smoothly running programs and applications even when these require a lot of processing power. Here is a short review of the LG Optimus Speed.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is the first smart-phone in the market that complies with the requirements of the Playstation Suite Initiative to play Playstation certified games. Even though it does not serve as a substitute of one of the more powerful games consoles Playstation and Playstation Portable, it sports all features of an adequate gaming console and addresses smart-phone users who want to have a game pad rather than just a touch-screen for gaming with their mobile or who are not satisfied with the range of games in the Android market.