Mobile Phone News

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.

We suppose we should be excited that Canada’s version of the LG GW620 Eve is getting any major update at all, but still: what the heck? LG Canada has communicated via its official Twitter account this week that Rogers’ version of the phone — its second QWERTY-equipped Android set after the Dream — would be getting an update to Android 1.6 (known to the bakers in the room as Donut, of course) this Spring. What’s crazier, it apparently won’t be an over-the-air boost since they’re saying it’ll be available from both LG’s and Rogers’ sites. That’s not a very big deal, but seriously guys, why 1.6? If it were to drop today it’d feel old — and by Spring, when HTC, Motorola, and likely Samsung all have 2.1 updates at the ready, this is just plan to look a little silly, isn’t it?

LG commits to Android 1.6 — not 2.0 — for Rogers’ Eve originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A couple days ago we covered news that Rogers and HTC were plan to upgrade the HTC Dream and Magic starting with an enhanced version of 1.5 in the coming weeks. Unfortunately for Dream owners, the upgrade path for that device ends at 1.5, — as it clearly doesn’t have enough memory to run 2.1 — where the Magic will carry on to 2.1 and — potentially — beyond. We’ve at this time heard that Rogers is looking to offer HTC Dream owners an upgrade path to the HTC Magic, and while the details are unclear as to the when and the how, it seems the price for the hardware shift will be $free. So, at this time the issue will be if an OS upgrade is really enough to push you off a keyboard and onto a touchscreen, so, do fill us in on what you plan to do. Hopefully this all pans out as it seems it’s plan to, and if it does, all we can say is: well done Rogers, golf claps all around.

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