Since I contacted the German 3rd-party mobile resellers, the bundling offers have been removed. I’m hoping that they’ve just realised that the Shift isn’t a voice-capable ultra mobile PC and are now trying to fix their back-end systems to be able to display a ‘phone’ that doesn’t do voice! Expansys have got it covered in the UK though. They are offering the Shift with various data plans, like the Web-Max unlimited 02 deal. 12 months at 30 quid nets you ‘unlimited’ data (3GB fair) and brings the price down nearly 200 pounds to 645. If you don’t fancy slumming it with the iPhone users on the 02 EDGE network though, you can go for a Vodafone connect package that should bring you HSDPA capability and again, a nice discount. The Vodafone connect 250 looks good. 250MB per month for a year. I use a 200MB Vodafone package with my Q1b and Everun in Germany and I rarely go over the limit. Obviously Vodafone aren’t giving the same incentive as O2 though, you only get 145 pounds off the Shift with the Vodafone deal.
One little bit of extra info on the Expansys site now though, the availability date has slipped to 30th November.
