Mobile – Page 10 – rgbFilter

Rogers launches Chatr, Mobilicity pursuing legal action

July 29, 2010July 29, 2010 drsquid Bell, canada, Chat-r, Koodo, launch, Mobile, Mobilicity, Rogers, Solo, Star Wars, Telus, unlimited, Wind, Wireless6 Comments

Rogers officially launched their new discount mobile brand Chatr yesterday, after delaying the planned mid-July launch for unspecified reasons. Chatr, like the new Canadian wireless entrants (Mobilicity, Public Mobile and Wind Mobile), is a zone based unlimited cellphone service. The service will be available in in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Vancouver, and will be expanding to Montreal in the fall. Rogers originally announced Chatr on June 30th, as a new brand to cater to customers looking for unlimited plans, with no contracts — the very same market that the…

Samsung Galaxy S coming to Telus too?

July 26, 2010July 26, 2010 drsquid Android, Android 2.1, Bell, canada, event, Galaxy S, google, HSPA, launch, Mobilicity, Party, Rogers, Samsung, smartphone, superphone, Telus, Toronto, Wind1 Comment

UPDATE – According to MobileSyrup, the Telus Galaxy in question is actually going to be the mid-range Galaxy Apollo. Hopes dashed. When Samsung announced the launch in Canada of the Galaxy S ‘Superphone’, on Bell, they also said that “Canadian consumers can anticipate the release of additional Galaxy S smartphones throughout the rest of 2010.” Well, it looks like Telus might be the first carrier to have one of these ‘additional’ Galaxy S phones. On Howard Forums, one of the internet’s best discussion groups for phone geeks, the image above…

Google’s Nexus One says goodbye

July 21, 2010 Doug Groves Android, google, HTC, Nexus One1 Comment

Google had already announced that they were going to end their direct sales of the Nexus One to customers some time ago. As of today, the carrier-free unlocked phone is sold out, never to return. Though there are carrier branded versions available in some countries, the real target of the Nexus One was early adopters, looking for the most recent and uncluttered Android interface. To that end, the Nexus One will certainly be getting another round or two of official Android updates. There’s little doubt in my mind that the…

Telus officially announces the HTC Desire Android smartphone

July 19, 2010July 19, 2010 drsquid AMOLED, Android, Android 2.1, Android 2.2, canada, Desire, Froyo, google, HTC, Sense UI, smartphone, Sony Super LCD, superphone, Telus2 Comments

Though Canada often seems a step or two behind in getting the latest and greatest smart phones, we’ve recently seen what could be called Superphones (you know, large high-res screens and 1GHz + processors) hitting our shores. Rogers is already carrying the X10 Bell has announced the Galaxy S. Beyond Android, the iPhone 4 will clearly be in this category when released in Canada. [ED Note: I’d put the Acer Liquid E in there as well, given its specs]. The latest announcement, from Telus, is that the HTC Desire will…

Bell launching Samsung Galaxy S Android smartphone soon

July 19, 2010August 23, 2010 drsquid Android, Android 2.1, Android 2.2, Bell, canada, Froyo, Galaxy S, Samsung, smartphone, Super AMOLED, superphone, Vibrant5 Comments

What is a ‘Superphone’? A smartphone with a large high-resolution screen, fast (1 GHz +) processor & HD video capture? If so, then the Sony Ericsson X10 on Rogers, a phone sadly hobbled by its out-of-date OS, could be considered Canada’s first Superphone. The Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant would be the second. Announced earlier this year, and released in Europe at the beginning of June, the Galaxy S was announced on June 29th to be coming to Canada with Bell. This was surprising news to us, since usually Canadians have…

iPhone 4 to hit Canada (and elsewhere) July 30th

July 16, 2010 Doug Groves Bell, bumper, Death Grip, iPhone 4, press conference, Rogers, Telus5 Comments

In the iPhone 4 press conference, originally intended to address the Death Grip antenna issue some users are experiencing in the US, Apple also announced that the iPhone 4 will be coming to Canada on July 30th. We can only guess that Bell, Rogers and Telus will all have it launch day, unless Rogers is still the preferred carrier here. As of this writing, all three carriers were still reporting “Coming Soon”. On the antenna issue, when the phone is held ‘that way’, it causes a larger drop in signal…

App Inventor aims to democratize Android application development

July 12, 2010 Doug Groves Android, Android Market, App Inventor, google5 Comments

Google has just announced the beta of App Inventor, a new tool that makes development for Android easier than ever before. Instead of using a programming language, the App Inventor tool makes use of blocks of code that the user can manipulate and customize, and is based on MIT’s Open Blocks project. Although the interface looks very straight forward, Google mentions that amongst the predefined blocks are tools to access the various sensors found in Android phones, from GPS to accelerometer, and that this includes communication tools. The App Inventor…

Motorola BACKFLIP on Telus & QUENCH on Rogers

July 11, 2010July 12, 2010 Doug Groves Android, Android 2.1, Backflip, Bell, Dext, google, Motoblur, Motorola, Quench, Rogers, smartphone, Telus2 Comments

Unlike a good scotch, phone operating systems don’t age well, so writing a review for smartphones running Android 1.5 is a tough sell. This problem is exasperated when said phones are from the same manufacturer, have the same internals, same UI and same overall performance. That’s exactly the predicament in trying to discuss the Android based Backflip on Telus and Quench on Rogers. You see, I reviewed the Dext from Bell last month, and from a performance standpoint, they’re the same. The only real difference to an end user is…

Microsoft Kin is dead

July 1, 2010 Doug Groves Kin, Microsoft, Windows Phone 7, Zune, Zune Marketplace3 Comments

Just a couple of months out of the gate, and Microsoft has killed it’s KIN line of no-so smart phones, before they even had a chance to get outside the US. This isn’t surprising on a number of levels. While the phones were well-spec’ed, with an interesting take on the UI, the target of younger social-media centric types (read: teens) were probably not ready to shell out real smartphone monthly fees. Not many teens (or their parents) were interested in paying $70 a month for a phone. The launch of…

Rogers confirms, again, that they will carry the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro

June 29, 2010June 29, 2010 drsquid Android, canada, google, Rogers, Sony, Sony Ericsson, URmagazine, x10, X10 Mini, X10 Pro, Xperia5 Comments

A few weeks ago we posted about our discovery on Rogers website, in the list of compatible devices for the Rogers on Demand Mobile application, confirmation of the Rogers Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini and Mini pro. Smart people that we are, we reached out to Rogers to see if they would confirm, finally after a few months of rumours, that they would be carrying these phones. Of course, instead of confirming, all we got was a ‘no comment’, and the offending page was promptly changed to erase all trace…

Acer Liquid E on Rogers review

June 25, 2010July 19, 2010 Doug Groves Acer, Android, Android 2.1, Doubletwist, google, Liquid E, Rogers, smartphone, Spinlets, superphone8 Comments

Before jumping into a review of the Acer Liquid E, let’s take a really brief look at the history of Acer… Back in the days when more PC users built their own machines, Acer was known for it’s computer component parts, such as motherboards, and branded graphics cards. Although they branched out into pre-built PCs and laptops over a decade ago, it’s really been the past few years, when they’ve capitalized on the decreasing costs of components, and made a series of acquisitions, that have propelled them into the worldwide…

Meanwhile, in other news…

June 22, 2010July 30, 2014 drsquid Apple, editorial comic, iOS 4, iPhone, iPhone 4, itunes, rgbcomic, update1 Comment

Apple released iOS 4 for the iPhone 3G and 3GS yesterday, just in time for Thursday’s release of the iPhone 4 in the US. More details can be found here at Apple, though I assume if you have an iPhone, you have already hooked it up to iTunes and downloaded this update, which, in the words of Apple, adds – over 100 new features…the free iOS 4 Software Update lets you do some amazing things. Wow, the old iPhone OS must have been pretty bad if they managed to add…