Many mobile phone manufactures have started to introduce dual sims to their phones. This means you can have two lines on your handset at any one time and receive call on both ( although not at the same time).

The benefit of these newer type of dual sims handsets is that its simple to compartmentalize your work and private lives with different ringtones and different numbers but all on one phone.

The other really cool and potentially cost saving benefit is choosing which calling plan you want to use at any particular time to make your call. The clever folks out there have free off peak call or some tariffs and by dialing out on this sim rather than your regular number you can make substantial saving with dual sim phones.

The phones themselves are not really any dearer than single sim phones although the battery generally lasts a little less and with prices for the handsets only often less than $50 ( £30 ) its a cool thing to try out , plus you don’t have to carry two phones around with you too!

Nokia’s latest sales figures do not make pleasant reading. The Finnish manufacturer saw its sales drop and its losses rise during the final quarter of 2011 as sales of its Symbian smartphones dropped off, and it launched a new Windows Phone device which failed to ignite the market.

The Nokia Lumia 800 was one of the first Nokia phones produced since the partnership between the Finnish firm and Microsoft was announced. Although they have released scant details about how it went down, Nokia has revealed they sold “well over 1 million Lumia devices”. A huge marketing campaign, early positive reviews and topping the smartphone lists in both the Netherlands and France for a period, there is no way of knowing whether this was within expected margins or represents a disappointing campaign.

The Windows Phone campaign continues with the Nokia Lumia 900. This looks set to be top tier Nokia Phone, ready to do battle with the biggest boys in the smartphone playground. It keeps to the same design as the Lumia 800, has a 4.3 inch AMOLED display with an 80-0 x 400 pixel resolution and the same ClearBlack technology on the screen. Gorilla Glass means it can take the knocks in the pocket or the handbag and the handset is made again in polycarbonate coming either in matte black or cyan blue. Expect more colours in the same way the Lumia 800 did. It should be speedy too with a 1.4 GHz single core Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU – although why they are not opting for a dual-core may frustrate some, particularly in the US market where this device will be launched which already has 4G. The Lumia 900 comes with a 1 megapixel forward facing camera and a wide angle lens to the rear.

The design looks engaging and fun. It’s looking as though Nokia are focused on a new streamlined and colour enhanced smartphone design. Under the bonnet and in terms of operating system, the Lumia 900 runs Windows Phone 7.5, same as the Lumia 800. Mango showed a great improvement in terms of OS and some have suggested the poor Nokia figures for late 2011 for Nokia represent a lack of take up for Symbian combined with a late emergence of WP. Perhaps with a longer campaign and the opportunity to start the year with a new release, until waiting until the end, it could have a more positive effect. Nokia does not make bad phones and the operating system works well on the Nokia devices.

The Nokia Lumia 900 is currently a US exclusive but at the very least it provides hope of a viable and stylish alternative to the usual players. Nokia does need a success though and it could well spend much of the first half of 2012 pushing the Lumia phone contracts if it wants to make up ground it lost in the months from October to December

Recent survey by World Finance News suggests internet speeds differed by up to 69% between the evening and early morning

UK broadband speeds drop by an average of 35% from their off-peak highs when most people are online in the evening, according to a report.

The research, conducted by the comparison site Uswitch, was based on two million broadband speed tests. The peak surfing times between 7pm and 9pm were the slowest to be online, the report said. There were also huge regional variations between evening and early morning surfing times. The report suggested the best time to be online was between 2am and 3am.

Users in Evesham, Worcestershire, fared worst, according to the survey, with a massive 69% drop-off between off-peak morning and evening surfing. Those living in Weston-super-Mare did little better with speeds falling from an off-peak average of 9.5Mbps (megabits per second) to 3.4Mbps in the evening – a 64% drop.

The difference was often most noticeable in rural areas where even peak speeds were relatively slow. In Wadebridge, in Cornwall, speeds nearly halved from 4.1Mbps at off-peak times to 2.1Mbps at peak times.

“It really is surprising just how much broadband speeds fluctuate at different times of the day, with drop-offs of almost 70% in some areas of the UK,” said Uswitch’s technology expert Ernest Doku.

Broadband speed is becoming more important as bandwidth-hungry services such as on-demand TV become more popular and the telecoms regulator Ofcom recently revealed that British households download an average of 17 gigabytes of data every month over their home broadband connections. That monthly data diet is equivalent to streaming 11 movies or 12 hours of BBC programmes via iPlayer.

Critics say consumers are being misled by internet service providers who continue to advertise their maximum broadband speeds, even though many users do not get them. New rules from the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) say that from April next year providers will no longer be able to advertise maximum speeds for net packages unless 10% of customers receive them.

Almost half of broadband users are now on packages with advertised speeds above 10Mbps but the average broadband speed is 6.8Mbps according to Ofcom.