Mobile Phone News

Let’s circle back and take a look at a couple of big handset launches in the Great White North this month, shall we? Rogers nabbed the LG Pop — sans solar back — for a mere CAD $19.99 (about $19) on three-year contract or CAD $174.99 ($166) commitment-free, living up to the phone’s philosophy of taking full-touch awesomeness downmarket with a 3 megapixel cam and 3-inch WQVGA display. Next up, Rogers’ value brand Fido added the Naite from Sony Ericsson — the first GreenHeart-branded handset to land anywhere in North America — for $25 on a two-year deal. The eco-focused candybar (which might tug on the heartstrings of ex-T610 owners) keeps it simple with a 2 megapixel camera, but still manages triband 3G and an integrated FM radio. Both are available at this time.

Rogers gets LG Pop, Fido goes green with Sony Ericsson Naite originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Thought that one of the first major Android devices in the world would go away without a fight? Think again! T-Mobile and Rogers have taken two very different roads to extend the lives of their HTC Sapphire-based devices. Big Magenta, of course, has opted to make a hardware tweak, adding a much-needed 3.5mm headphone jack and spitting out a faux wood limited edition; Rogers, meanwhile, rather suddenly updated the firmware with Sense. Oh, but that’s not all — it turns out that Rogers views the Sense upgrade as such a big deal that it’s changing the name of the phone altogether, tacking a plus symbol on the end. Yep, that’s right: meet the Magic+. Apart from Sense on 1.5 with a promise of 2.1 down the road, though, there’s nothing materially new in this place, so don’t feel too bad if you’ve been stuck with one of the plus-less models. No, seriously.

For Rogers, HTC Magic + Sense = Magic+ originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It’s not every day that a carrier exclusively offering contract-free service spits out a full touchscreen device, so the freshly-declare Caliber from Samsung becomes a pretty engaging attention proposition for MetroPCS customers. Although it lacks EV-DO Rev. A, it still makes do with Rev. 0 and features a 3.2-inch touchscreen, full HTML browsing, microSD expansion up to 16GB, and 3 megapixel camera all stuffed into a 2.2 x 4.5 x 0.47-inch package (interestingly, those dimensions are quoted with the “standard battery,” so there might be an extended battery in the pipe that produces a hump on the back of the phone). It’s available right at this time for $249.

Samsung Caliber coming to MetroPCS, TouchWiz in tow originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.