Looks like Rogers are starting to pay more attention on Android phones versus Windows Mobile. They have just released the new Samsung Galaxy Spica Android device. The device has a 3.2” AMOLED touchscreen and super slim 13mm design. It comes with 2GB of expandable memory, a 3.2MP camera and a powerful 800 Mhz processor so you can run multiple apps at once. It will be launching with OS 1.5 but will be upgradeable to 2.1 later on. The device goes on sale today and can be purchased for $79.99 with select 3 year voice+data plans.Get em while they’re hot!

For more information. Click Here

High School and Post Secondary students are now being offered the new Rogers Student plan.

For $25 (plus Government Regulatory Recovery Fee), high school or post secondary students with a valid student ID can get.

• 50 Daytime minutes
• Unlimited evenings and weekends starting at 6pm
• Unlimited incoming and outgoing text messages

For more information on the student plan, you can visit rogers.com/student

Rogers has just announced their partnership with Acer as the first company to offer it’s Liquid e smartphone device in Canada at the World Mobile Conference in Barcelona. The Acer Liquid e will be the only Android 2.1 enabled device, including high definition display, advanced new features and functionality. I’ve already got to play with this device in Taiwan and I can definitely tell you that this is one hot smartphone. The device will be available exclusively from Rogers beginning this spring.

Check back for more information and launch date.

With the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver coming up. We know that all you people around the world are excited to come and see the big thing, but you’re already spending hundreds or even thousands on that pricey plane ticket, why pitch another few hundred on your phone bill just to make a few calls? Well problem solved.

Rogers has released a special Pay As You Go plan specifically for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. This package can be purchased in Vancouver only at any Rogers location.

For $29.99, the Visitor Pack includes:
- One GSM Sim Card
- One $20 Pay As You Go top up voucher
- One customized Starter Guide to help customers through the activation process and use of their Pay As You Go service

The Sim can be use to activate on any of the existing Pay As You Go price plans.

The Pay As You Go Plans include:
- No activation fee
- Free incoming calls from other Pay As You Go phones
- Free Call Display
- No monthly fee for voicemail, call forwarding, call waiting & group calling (pay per minute only if services are used)

Additional information:
- Anyone with an unlocked GSM phone or Rogers Wireless phone can purchase the Vistor pack and activate on Pay As You Go
- International SMS packs available.

For more information you can visit any Rogers location in the Vancouver area.

Duracell released a couple portable chargers for your cellular phone or portable devices early July of 2009 and we’ve been lucky enough to receive one of their Instant USB Charger’s.

Read the full story

Rogers dropped another color choice for the Curve 8520. Looks like RIM is starting to pay more attention to teenagers, not a bad choice. The BlackBerry Curve 8520 will now be available in White, Lavender and Black. Prices still stay the same at $49.99 on a 3 year voice+data plan. The White 8520 is not currently available on the Rogers site but can be purchased at most Rogers Wireless or Rogers Plus stores (depending on their stock).

[Source via CrackBerry]

It looks like Rogers is starting to pickup more Android devices, and why not add the new LG Eve to that list. This is a touchscreen smartphone with all the smartphone capabilities, however it looks a lot like the LG Xenon that was released a while back, but the size and style of it in general doesn’t stand out to many smartphone consumers.

Features & Pricing

The new LG Eve will run you for about $49.99 on a 3 year voice & data contract or $399.99 for just the phone on Rogers.Features include a fairly decent 3 inch screen, a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, Face Recognition app, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, and 3.5G 7.2mbps data speeds. The Eve has 150mb of built in memory but also includes a 2gb MicroSD card, expandable up to16gb. You’ll find a large slide out qwerty keyboard as well a touchscreen which isn’t the best but gets the job done.

Design

The design of the LG Eve looks very nice with the glossy front touchscreen and grey color combination. There are three dedicated Home, Menu and Back buttons on the front of the phone. The Home and Back buttons are actually touch sensitive which are quite annoying because sometimes you accidentally tap it. The build quality is quite sturdy and the slide out keyboard is very well built with no looseness.

The Eve weighs about 139g which is quite comfortable and isn’t to heavy in the pocket. The top of the phone you’ll find the 3.5mm headphone jack as well as the Power/Lock, Unlock button. The left of the phone has the MicroUSB port and the volume rocker and the right has a dedicated camera and music key along with the MicroSD card slot.

Interface

The LG Eve runs Android firmware 1.5 specifically designed for social networking. The main menu has changed quite a bit from the two original Android phones (HTC Magic and Dream) that had the basic slide up menu. To access the menu, you press the menu button on the main screen which has been setup as a permanent icon. From there you’ll find the main menu which shows categories sorted by Rogers, Communication, Multimedia, Utilities, Google, and Downloads. It’s fairly simple to slide up and down and most of the applications are still the same as the other Android devices. The notification bar on the top is still there and is easily accessed by sliding it down to reveal your notifications as well as the ability to turn on and off Bluetooth and WiFi.

Social Network

Rogers has made this phone specifically for those who love to keep in touch in anyway possible. They have included a Windows Live Messenger application as well as Yahoo Messenger. Both these apps can run in the background and any messages you receive will show up on the notification bar.

The LG Eve features a special application called SNS Manager which brings together Facebook, Twitter and Bebo networks into one place, letting users check status updates in real time. You can now setup other email accounts including Rogers, Yahoo, Telus, and many other email providers listed.

Dialing & Call Quality

The dialing keypad is a bit different from the other Android devices. It’s quite simple and nothing to fancy. I would rather have a physical send and end key instead.

Call quality is loud and very clear but unfortunately, there isn’t always signal. I seem to have a hard time making calls while in my basement because of low to no bars at all. Speaker-phone isn’t that great either because it echo’s quite often on the other line.

Camera Quality & Battery Life

The LG Eve has a decent 5 megapixel camera. I found some pictures to show up quite bad in low lights, even with the LED flash. But when outside in daylight, you’ll find pictures to show up quite well but not as vibrant as expected for a 5 megapixel camera. Colors seemed to be washed out and photos sometimes come out grainy which is quite annoying. The Eve has a decent video camera and is quite fast, but sometimes choppy at points when viewing and the quality isn’t the greatest either.

Battery Life I must say is quite bad. I’m not sure why but for some reason, the three Android phones that we have reviewed from Rogers have all had about the same battery life. I could barely go 8 hours of  normal use (WiFi & Bluetooth Off). This phone is definitely something that has to be charged daily, and if you find that a problem. You’ll definitely have to lug around some sort of charger or extra battery.

Photo Examples:

Conclusion

While LG tries to make this a smartphone. I just don’t see how it can be. With the small touchscreen which is quite hard to press, to the slowness of navigating around menus, to even the battery life just doesn’t make me say that this is the phone that business users want or should have. That being said, I would definitely recommend this phone to teens of younger age as a first smartphone because of the all the social networking applications crammed into this phone but if your expecting your daughter/son to keep this phone for 3 years. I wouldn’t recommend it.

[View with PicLens]

Rogers released the new Nokia N86 not too long and after using it for quite a while, I’ve found this to be one of the best camera phones around. This device would run you for a pricey $300-$500 retail at a Nokia store but Rogers has somehow drop that price-tag to $99.99 with a 3 year. Read the full story

Rogers recently dropped prices on 6 of their phones to a ridiculous $0.99 cents. These select phones include the BlackBerry Bold 9000 in White and Black, LG Eve, Sony Ericsson X1, HTC Magic, and Nokia N86, just in-time for the holidays. Now if you haven’t gotten yourself (or your family) a new phone. You might want to reconsider these deals. Were not too sure if its because of the holidays or if it’s because of the new WIND carrier launching. Either way, in benefits all of us so why not take advantage of that.

To purchase these devices. Visit Rogers website for more information and deals.

The new BlackBerry Bold 9700 has just hit Rogers last month, just in-time for the holidays. The most anticipated BlackBerry device to come out which has all the best features from the BlackBerry 8520,  BlackBerry 8900, and BlackBerry 9000 crammed into one device and we’ve been very lucky to receive one of these devices to review for you smartphone fanatics. So let’s get started…

Pricing & Specs

The Rogers BlackBerry Bold 9700 will run you for about $249.99 on a 3 year term (dropped from the original $299.99 on the release date) or $599.99 without a contract. The 9700 features a fairly well sized 2.4 inch LCD screen at a resolution of 480×360 and has an amazing 3.2 megapixel camera and LED flash. All that plus 3G HSPA bands and the new optical trackpad from the 8520 curve, making this device the most elegant and best BlackBerry device out to date. Not to mention the size, 109 x 60 x 13.6 mm, almost the exact same as the BlackBerry 8900 Curve. You can expect up to 6 hours of talk-time. I’ve managed to squeeze in a full day of use. from 6am to 2am, much better then the 9000 Bold.

Design

The 9700 has a very professional look to it with the leather battery cover while making the phone small and compact for daily users to use. It also has the chrome bezel which looks similar to the 8900 and 9000, but is tinted a bit darker. You’ll also notice that the keys on the side of the phone are now ruberized to blend in with the phone. Similar to the 8520, and the micro-usb port has been moved back to the top left corner where it originally should have been versus the 8900 where it was at the bottom right hand corner. The qwerty keyboard is similar to the 9000, but a bit smaller which might bother some users. One thing I disliked about the new 9700 is the numbers on the keypad are now white instead of red where it originally was with the 9000 and 8900.

Call Quality & Signal Strength

The 9700 signal strength is beyond my expectations. The fact that it has 3G in such a small and compact form size just makes me smile. Not only that, but I believe that the 3G boosts the quality as well as the signal strength of the phone comparing it to the 8900 and 8520. What I found very weird was that the BlackBerry website stated that the 9700 has UMA support, but Rogers for some reason does not support it. Call quality is expected, superb like many BlackBerry devices. I haven’t had a single call dropped yet and I doubt I ever will with this phone. Speakerphone was not the best. Coming from a BlackBerry 9000 user, you’ll notice that it’s a bit quieter and now only has one speaker where as the 9000 had two. It’s not a big loss considering how much your gaining.

Messaging

With the new 5.0 operating system firmware loaded onto the new BlackBerry 9700’s. It finally supports threaded text messaging. If not your too sure what it is, it’s your conversation between you and the other person in one message instead of it being scattered upon the phone. A great feature that RIM has implemented. BlackBerry Messenger comes standard with the phone as well as the option to download many IM clients including AIM, Windows Live Messenger, G-Talk, Yahoo, and so on. As always, emailing on a BlackBerry device is one of the best and RIM hasn’t changed too much to that. It’s still your basic setup and RIM stores your emails on their servers as usual.

Camera Quality

(Photo Samples Above)
There is no doubt that BlackBerry’s are a business phone, but it’s great to have a good camera once a while to snap that moment you want to remember. With the new BlackBerry 9700, the 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash can do so, a much improvement from the BlackBerry 9000’s camera. I found however the LED flash not being as strong and a xenon flash would have been much better. Pictures show up very vivid and bright during the daytime, at night however, the LED flash doesn’t seem to come in handy. Video camera was decent for a phone but nothing to stunning. The microphone is located at the bottom so when recording, you must remember not to cover it with your hand.

Conclusion

The BlackBerry 9700 is no doubt one of the best smartphones around right now. It might be a little pricey at the moment but the build quality and all the features included will make the phone last. Not to mention the 3G support, everyone needs that. I can say that RIM has finally stepped up their game and for those who can’t decide between the 9000 and the 8900. This is one of the most elegant BlackBerry’s I’ve seen from the design to the features to even weight of the phone and I will definitely be purchasing one to add to my collection.

Follow me on Twitter: @AndrewCjDuong