Quick Look at the Motorola Charm

The latest Android phone from Motorola has He-man written all over it!! “Charm” is just as manly and intimidating as “Droid”, right?!

The TELUS Motorola Charm is going to be a phone you either love or hate. It’s cute in an ET kinda way and very pocketable. Whether you love it or not, you have to love the price; $249 off contract makes it almost an impulse buy (as smartphones go) and it comes with Android 2.1, full QWERTY keyboard and more.

Here is my quick look at the Motorola Charm. Full specs are in the link below the video

Full specs (and I DO mean “full”!!) here

The Telus HTC Desire in the Flesh

As Mike reported on Friday, Telus released the HTC Desire. It is their latest Android device, and it is running OS 2.1. It has a 1Ghz processor, with a 3.7″ Super LCD screen. The following video walks you through my thoughts on the first full day of use.

HTC Desire Becomes Officially Available from Telus

It should come as no surprise to regular MobileJaw readers that Telus was going to be launching the HTC Desire. Well, if you’ve been holding out waiting for the day Telus has stock and is ready to sell you the phone, then today is your lucky day!

What I find most interesting is the timing of this launch. It’s just 1 short week after launching the iPhone 4 and there’s no question that Canadians are going crazy over the iPhone – many stores are reporting people are still lining up before they open to grab whatever stock came in over night. So with such a big draw already available, why would you launch something else, regardless of how great it is? I would have expected the carriers to hold off on launching any other devices for at least 4 weeks.

Anyway, if you’re looking for the Desire, you can grab it from Telus for $450 without a contract. That’s a pretty great price for this phone. With a contract the price drops to $400, $350, and $80 for a 1, 2, and 3 year contract. You can check out all the details at the Telus website.

WalMart to Sell Telus HTC Desire for $448

Some interesting news hit the web this morning – WalMart will be selling the Telus HTC Desire for $448.83 with out a contract. And, if you look closely at the screen shot, you will notice that WalMart’s cost for the Desire is $360. It’s nice to know the cost, but I don’t expect anyone at WalMart to be willing to negotiate on the price. If you’re more the contract type, the 3 year contract price is expected to be $79.99.

(Source = mobilesyrup.com)

Telus Brings HTC Desire to Canada

Telus and HTC have announced that the much loved Desire will be coming to Canada exclusively on the Telus network. The Desire was originally announced along with the Legend at Mobile World Congress back in February. The Android based phone has been available in the UK for a while now, is commonly referred to as HTC’s version of the Google’s flagship super-phone – the Nexus One.

The press release from Telus fails to offer any information about when the device might be available for purchase, or at what price. Although, I can’t really seem them charging more than the Motorola Milestone ($550 without contract). The full press release can be found after the break along with details on the specifications of the Desire.

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Mobilicity Gets the Green Light to Launch

Late last week the CRTC gave the green light to Mobilicity to launch their mobile service Canada. Mobilicity is not ready to give out a date of when you will be able to subscribe, but they do say that they are expecting to launch in Toronto before the summer and then in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and Ottawa before the end of the year.

When Mobilicity does finally launch, it will mark the second new carrier to enter the Canadian market. These new guys are a direct result of the limitations that were placed on the spectrum auction a couple years back, preventing the big 3 from locking up the spectrum and keeping the competition out.  In the last 6 months, since we saw the first new carrier enter the market, Bell, Telus, and Rogers/Fido have been dropping their prices like nothing Canadians have seen before.

We’ll keep you posted on the prices and launch details as we learn more.

Update on Wireless in Canada

It’s no secret that Canadians have been at the mercy of the “big three” cellphone carriers in Canada with little to no competition for far too long. 

So, how are we doing now that we have at least one new choice?

The honest truth about consumer choice in Canadian cellular is that for a long time we have had none.  Sure, there has been three carriers but if they haven’t been secretly meeting in dark alleys to discuss rates they at least have not been competitive.  The result is that pricing for voice and data has been extremely high in Canada until recently.  So, what changed?  New blood!

The latest carrier to enter the scene in Canada is WIND Mobile and they bring with them a refreshing focus on consumers.  While their plans are not earth shattering they at least represent a decent option for some.  I’ll get back to WIND in just a bit.

Our big three – or rather, ‘big two’ since Bell and TELUS are conjoined twins – milked consumers to the point of breaking but with no choice, what could we do?  The government dragged their feet for a long time but FINALLY offered cellular spectrum in an auction open to everyone but Rogers and Bellus.  These companies finally saw that some form of competition was coming and I think that is when they decided to become more competitive; well, at least Bellus did.  Roger’s plans have changed very little, probably because they are still on a high from being the exclusive carrier of the iPhone.  But of course, that is no longer true either, so hopefully we will see changes from Rogers.

I personally use Bell and am happy with the rates they have for data.  I still pay far too much overall for my cellphone but they have improved.  Of course, they still are not connecting with their customers in any measurable way.  While Rogers has made strides on Social Networking sites like twitter there is nothing from Bell that I have seen and little from Telus.  I’m pretty sure Bell executives are still scratching their blue hair over that new fangled site “MySpace”. [to any Bell executive reading this I apologize.  You hair is actually a very nice shade of blue, I meant the guy in the office two down from you.]

WIND Mobile does represent the kind of company we have been waiting for in Canada but how are they doing so far?  Apparently they signed up 10,000 subscribers in their first month.  Uhhhh…

Ok, maybe some would think that is good considering they are new, they have limited coverage, they spend all day playing with Microsoft Surface, but the point is they need to do MUCH better.  They are currently looking to raise money to roll out in other cities, but return on that money would have to be extremely speculative at this point.  Lets hope they are able to get on Dragon’s Den and win over at least a couple Dragons.

Things are looking a bit better for Canadians but we have a long way to go.  Let’s try to support new carriers as much as possible, or at least the carriers that are trying to change for the better.

High Resolution Images of LG IQ

Last week I had a chance to play with the upcoming Windows Mobile 6.5 LG IQ smartphone. Unfortunately, the lighting in the venue was less than ideal for pictures. I snapped what I could at the best I could, but they’re not my finest device shots. Thankfully, I now have some really nice clean shots of the IQ so I’m posting them here for everyone to enjoy.

Click on the images below to view the original size image.

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Rogers Gets its Hand Slapped

In a mirror image of what is happening in the US, Rogers has been told to stop making claims of being the “most reliable’ network in Canada. Rogers has been making this claim for a long time now but Telus has finally taken them to task on these claims.

What I’m really surprised at is Telus’ slightly between-the-lines assertion that this has actually been true until November 6th when they rolled out their HSPA network. If you think about that, this claim isn’t actually saying that Rogers’ network is inferior now but that there is simply no basis, or no third-party data to assert this claim. In other words, it’s actually possible that Rogers’ network is the more reliable but they need the backing of a third party in making this claim.

The flip side of this could very well be that Telus and Bell may actually have the more reliable network but they too would have to have confirmation to make that claim. At this point they don’t seem to be making trying to lay claim to these bragging rights, they simply want Rogers to stop their advertising campaign.

I’m personally a Bell user and find their network to be as close to rock solid as wireless can be. Their HSPA network actually gave me better signal strength than their own CDMA network.

The New Cellular Competition in Canada

FINALLY there is some competition happening in Canada. Unfortunately it isn’t a new cellular provider but at least there are some new and decent things happening. How does some competition for Rogers stranglehold on GSM and iPhone sound?

I’m referring to the launch of the new HSPA network by Bell and Telus. Ok, ok, I suppose its technically “networks” but there is so much sharing going on with these two companies we really have to call it a single network. That’s not really a bad thing as it means exceptional coverage for Canadians; up to 93% of the population of Canada according to Bell.

While we are on this topic I should mention that coverage will continually improve over the next short while. Bell and Telus are both in the process of identifying coverage gaps and applying to use each others towers for those gap areas.

Since I’m a Bell customer I’ll let you know my experiences with their network. I’d rather give more print time to Bell right now anyway, because their data plans are fairly decent. More on that in a bit.

Bell’s HSPA network went live on Wednesday, November 4th, well ahead of their original schedule. The plan initially was to launch in early 2010 which was then bumped to late November. Bell moved that date to Friday the 6th and just a week before launch bumped it again to be on the 4th. I like that! I don’t remember the last time Bell was aggressive with a roll out. Maybe spells a new mindset at Bell? I hope so.

Bell’s real motivation for rolling out in November was to be all set for the Olympics in Vancouver in February 2010. They even signed a sweet roaming agreement with AT&T to snag all the roaming iPhones when they visit.

Being the cautious Canadian that I am and in showing great restraint I didn’t run right out and hook my plan to Bell’s new network at the time of launch. I waited a good and proper 4 hours…then ran in! I had an unlocked AT&T Fuze (aka a GSM version of the HTC Touch Pro) burning a hole in my pocket.
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