» Wireless

TELUS to offer the Android-powered
MOTOROLA BACKFLIP with MOTOBLUR

First mobile carrier in Canada to offer MOTOBLUR

Toronto, ON – TELUS today announced that it will be offering the acclaimed Android-powered MOTOROLA BACKFLIP with MOTOBLUR later this year, available in Canada only on the TELUS 3G+ network, Canada’s biggest and fastest.

Awarded 2010 CNET Best of Consumer Electronic Show award in the Cell phones and Smartphones category , the MOTOROLA BACKFLIP is the ultimate smartphone, combining the best in social networking, personalization, and multi-tasking all in one place. The BACKFLIP also has an innovative backward flip design, which features a touchpad on the back of the touchscreen and a large user-friendly QWERTY keyboard. BACKFLIP features MOTOBLUR, the only solution to sync all your friends, posts, feeds, messages, e-mails, photos and much more – from sources such as Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo!, work e-mail and more – with continuous updates, automatically delivering them to your home screen for immediate reply. MOTOBLUR delivers these updates in easy-to-view streams, so there is no need to switch between different mobile applications to keep up with the latest content.

“Leading the smartphone market means offering Canadians the best-in-class devices such as the acclaimed MOTOROLA BACKFLIP,” said David Fuller, senior vice-president of Product and Services at TELUS. “TELUS’ state-of-the-art 3G+ device line-up already includes industry leading Android-powered smartphones that helps Canadians stay connected and entertained on-the-go. We’re thrilled to add the MOTOROLA BACKFLIP to our list of TELUS exclusive devices.”

TELUS Android-powered smartphones offer a high-performance browsing experience with personalization and multi-tasking options that enables users to organize their device to best suit their needs. Users get their favourite Google applications and services – YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Talk, and more – and get real-time notification of new e-mails, IM, Twitter and Facebook in one device. Plus, users can access more than 20,000 applications on Android Market.

TELUS is the only mobile carrier in Canada to offer the world’s best Android-powered phones including the Motorola Milestone, the thinnest touchscreen QWERTY slider; the HTC Hero, the first smartphone in Canada featuring the intuitive HTC Sense user interface and named Best Mobile Handset of 2010 at Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress; and soon the acclaimed MOTOROLA BACKFLIP with MOTOBLUR on Canada’s biggest and fastest 3G+ network. For more information about TELUS product and services, please visit www.telus.com.

Protect your Droid with Proporta – Introducing Aluminium Lined Leather Case for Motorola Droid/Milestone

The Motorola Droid/Milestone is a fantastic device, and deserves to be kept in tip top condition – so Proporta has it covered. The Aluminium Lined Leather Case for Motorola Droid/Milestone incorporates Proporta’s trademark Screen Saver System, which features a sheet of aircraft grade aluminium to guard against shocks and impact damage. A stylish pinstripe lining adds a touch of class, and clever cut outs mean that you can use the device without ever having to take it out of its case. 

Just to make sure that nothing is left to chance, there’s also the Proporta Advanced Screen Protector for Motorola Droid/Milestone Series made from ultra high clarity plastic, and includes a screen cleaning cloth and application card to make fitting it a doddle.

So whatever you’re looking for, Proporta has solutions that are stylish and clever – much like the Motorola Droid/Milestone itself.

P.S. Look out for the Proporta Mizu Shell, coming soon for the Motorola Droid/Milestone.

The Apple iPhone has been such a hit that 1 out of 10 of my friends has one, be it the first generation or the new iPhone 3G. They are always constantly looking for iPhone Accessories to personalize their iPhones.

Wireless Emporium, Inc offers a huge selection of iPhone Accessories such as iPhone leather case but I much prefer one of these Silver Aluminum iPhone cases.

WE (Wireless Emporium) also sells screen protector films as well as a huge selection of faceplates of different colors and styles. Aside from selling these protective products, WE also sells iPhone compatible hardware such as chargers, data cable, battery, holsters / belt clips and over 50 different hands-free headsets to choose from.

Wireless Emporium not only provides accessories for iPhones but it also offers accessories from other brand name wireless products like Sony, BlackBerry, LG just to name a few. There are also a few phones that you can purchase on the site as well.

The web site is also user friendly because you can browse the products by their brand names, accessory types or carrier types. For those that do not know the model of their phones, the site also teaches you where to look for it (as quoted from the site “The model number is noted on the back label of the phone”).

If you are looking for accessories for your cell phone, you should drop by Wireless Emporium and check out its huge selection of wireless accessories at very reasonable prices.

I haven’t written a daily rant for a while, I have to get this off my head. TheStar.com reported that our cable, home phone and wiresless monopoly giant Rogers Communications Inc., is once again raising their internet (3-9% except the Extreme Plus plan) and cable fees (5% for basic cable), effective March 1st. In my opinion, this is a very bad move for Rogers specially after reporting a $138 million fourth-quarter loss, according to TheStars. They are already losing new customers in the last quarter, now they decided to raise fees, yet again and we, as customers are furious. Not only they are losing new customers, they are also losing their existing ones because there are other providers that provides similar services, if not better, for a much more reasonable price.

One such company is Primus, their bundle which includes home phone, calling features (Call Display, Voice Mail, & Visual Call Waiting plus), high speed internet and unlimited long distance between Canada and US, offers more than 30% of savings compare to Rogers or Bell. Unfortunately they do not provide cable services. I’m not trying to sell you anything and there is no affiliate links anywhere in the post but rather trying to point out how much premium Rogers and Bell are charging us.

I have a feeling that Rogers’ first quarter isn’t going to be too bright either after this raise. So basically we are now paying more for the same services, if not worse (and its pretty well known that their customer service is terrible). Although I understand a company should focus on making a profit, I still don’t think it makes sense to raise any fees during this global economic slump. They might be able to suck some money from us for a short period of time, once people discover there are cheaper alternatives, they will start to lose even more in the long run.

I’ve actually been playing the three games that are included with the cellphone since I got it a few days ago. The said games are Need for Speed ProStreet, Solitaire and a photo hunting game (forgot the name, the game’s name I have is in Chinese). After playing all three, there is one disappointment and one positive surprise. The photo hunting game is actually not new, its one of the games for my now dead Sony Ericsson K790i.

Need for Speed ProStreet is the disappointment here. I knew it wouldn’t be too enjoyable since its on the cellphone but I didn’t expect to be this bad. I will skip the how good or bad the controls are because its hard to play this type of games using cellphone keys anyway. The major issue I have with this game is graphics. I know graphics is only one of many factors that determine if the game is worthy or not. But I expected something better than the graphics for this mobile version of Need for Speed ProStreet. I closed the game within two minutes. Oh yes the music also sounds horrible.

I honestly did not expect Solitaire to be THIS addictive. This game is not just A game, but rather a series of card games such as Klondike, Freecell, Pyramid, Poker, Spiderette, Flower garden, Scorpion, Yukon, Golf, Calculation, Seven Sisters and Beleaguered Castle. That is an impressive total of 12 card games in one! Klondike is pretty much the classic Solitaire you play in Windows, Pyramid is the one where you take away cards that have a sum of 13 and your goal is to clear all the cards. Finally Poker is not the one which you play with your poker friends, but a grid of 25 cards so you can chain pairs, flushes, 3 or 4 of a kind vertically or horizontally. It forces you to do more thinking because there are now more ways to get good hands. Unfortunately I have never heard of the other 9 games until now.

You think that’s it for this game? Think again! This game also has an RPG element to it. You will start off with a character and you get to choose your gender. You are in a cafe and your goal is to keep playing cards, gain more experience points and ranks. As you gain more experience you will unlock more clothing to customize your character. You will also get trophies and see the cafe gets bigger as your ranks go up.

The photo hunting game will have you take pictures under the sea, there are different types of sea creatures such as fish, obviously, sea horses, turtles etc. As you complete missions you will unlock more missions. The objective is straight forward, you will have to complete missions like taking pictures of given species or capture a group of the same species within your air tank’s limit. Your air tank will be refilled for every 1000 points, for the first time, by 30 seconds, then it will gradually refill less until you reach 10,000 points where it will stop refilling.

Well I think that’s it for this review!

This 4 series review should cover most, if not all of the features for the Sony Ericsson c902i. I hope this will help those that are looking for a new cellphone as well as those that are thinking of getting this cellphone but are unsure if it will suit you or not. In my opinion, the c902i is perfect for those that want to have everything in one but does not need a data plan, much like one you will need when signing up for an iPhone. Although it has a built-in 5 megapixel Cyber-shot camera, it CANNOT take quality pictures at a distance like a digital camera can due to lack of optical zoom.

Related articles:
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 1)
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 2)
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 3)

As promised, I had a chance to play with the built-in 5 megapixel Cyber-shot camera for the Sony Ericsson c902i. After going through the menus of the camera, its pretty safe to say it has most, if not all the commonly used features as you see in a real digital camera. Functions such as Normal, BestPic, Panorama, Frames (wrapping the actual picture inside 1 of 18 preset frames), timer, movie mode, flash on/off and face recognition etc. After all it IS branded as a Cyber-shot camera so having those functions should not be a surprise.

Although it does pretty much what a real digital camera can do, it does not offer optical zoom but only digital zoom. You will quickly notice “noise” as soon as you start zooming in. Then again that is the case for all cellphones’ built-in cameras. Even though it has 5 megapixel, picture quality is only good if you don’t zoom in. I don’t think these built-in cameras are meant for taking pictures at a distance anyway.

I recently downloaded WipEout HD (yes capital E) and I thought it was perfect opportunity for testing the camera’s strength, at least close range. By default, the picture is 2592×1944 averaging about 1.3mb in size. I’m no photographer but the picture quality is as good as pictures taken from my 4 megapixel Canon SD400 (I know its old!) if not better. See for yourself!

  

Finally, what one feature that makes this camera phone stand out from the rest of the camera phones out there is the 8 blue backlit touch sensitive buttons surrounding the screen (4 on each side) and when you press any of them the phone will vibrate a little so you know you pressed something. The keypad will also be backlit by blue light as well and when you are not in camera mode, the keypad is backlit by white light instead. These buttons are basically the functions I mentioned from above but I still find it very cool and I have yet to get bored of pressing them. I know you iPhone users are probably laughing at me right now about this touch sensitive feature. Oh well, I would love to get one but I just can’t justify paying for data plan as I don’t really need to use any.

Stay tuned on Friday for the games review. See what kind of games this phone has to offer! I probably cannot write the review since I will be out for Winterlicious.

Related articles:
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 1)
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 2)

First I want to apologize for not taking the protective sticker off the screen because I haven’t had a chance to buy a real screen protector yet.

Today I had a chance to play around the c902’s interface. One thing I want to point out is that instead of having two rows of buttons surrounding the center Navigation key like the T616 and k790i, the c902 actually has 3 rows of keys or buttons (the manual calls them keys). The top row has “Selection” keys and they function based on what are displayed on the screen. As for the middle row, you have the “Call” Key which also displaying the call history and “End” key on the opposite side which also acts as a on/off key as well as closing all the menus. Finally the last row has the “Toolbar” key as well as the “Clear” or cancel key. There are more on the right side of the phone but I will cover that tomorrow when I review the camera.

Honestly I am still trying to get used to these three rows of keys and I still press the wrong key once in a while. I don’t recommend this phone for those with big fingers because the keys are rather narrow. I’m not a big person myself but I’ve hit the wrong key before because of the narrowness as well as the little space in between them.

First thing I noticed when navigating through the Grid layout (default style) menu is how fast the screen saver gets activated for inactivity, roughly 20 seconds. I have no luck finding the option to extend the screen’s active time. There are four styles for the menu layout – Grid, Rotating, Single icon and From theme. I am unable to test the last one because I don’t have a theme that supports menu layout yet. After testing the other three styles I still prefer the classic Grid style that displays all 16 icons.

The menu is pretty standard with the only a few additions comparing to my T616 and K790i. The PlayNow, Radio and the Alarm function is now on its own separate icon as oppose to having it as part of the Organizer. The PlayNow allows you to buy and then download music to your phone. For more information, visit the Sony Ericsson page I found.

Basically the menu offers functions that are pretty common among other cellphones out there, nothing special in particular which is fine because I think the real strength of this phone is the 5 megapixel Cyber-shot digital camera as well as the games. Stay tuned for my camera review tomorrow and games the day after!

Related articles:
Sony Ericsson c902i hands-on review (Day 1)

I just read news, or rather rumors from DailyTech that Walmart will be selling the 4GB version of the ever popular iPhone. If the rumor is infact real, then its no brainer about seeing more people with iPhones. Hack, even I am tempted to get one myself now. I was tempted to get the 8GB version from Rogers AT&T when I saw the 8GB version for $199 with 3 year contract. For $99 you get a 4GB version, size doesn’t really matter to me here really. And I think 4GB is more than enough for me anyway. iPhone is more of a cool gadget to have and chances are I won’t be using it for heavy gaming, as a multimedia player, checking emails or surf the web even though it is capable of doing so. Most likely just like any other cell phones.

And there is this data plan that I have to worry about because as I said it comes with a 3 year turn, that’s the price to pay when you can get an iPhone for $199. The minimum cost for monthly cost is $35 (Voice Plan) + $25 (Data Plan) which equates to $60 + all that tax and other lame charges. Which is probably going to end up being 2-3 times more than what I am paying now.

Either way definitely a great move by Apple if in deed the rumor comes true and great news for those that crave for an iPhone but cannot justify buying the 8/16GB versions or without contract.

[update] Looks like the rumor will remain just a rumor. According to WIRED Appl WIll start selling iPhones through Walmart but not the $99 version like in the rumor. But will be selling the same 8GB and 16GB ones that we are seeing now.

Oh well, it doesn’t hurt to dream right?