This is great for the coffee-drinking public, to be sure, but it’s also pretty great for Bell Canada. Remember that Bell is already serving up the free Wi-Fi at Starbucks, McDonald’s, Indigo and Chapters locations. Adding Tim Hortons to the mix with its over 2,000 locations has got to be a pretty fantastic contract. Tim Hortons underwent a “rigorous six-month testing process with multiple service providers,” finding that Bell “delivered a fast and reliable service.”

The high-speed Wi-Fi rollout at Timmy’s has already started and they expect to cover more than 90 percent of Tim Hortons locations by September. That’s just in time for all the college kids going back to school, returning to the routine of constant caffeination and studying.

[Source]

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The Samsung Galaxy Note is certainly an awesome device, if you have any doubt about that, click here. The LTE handset was released in Canada earlier this year, and now it appears like a white version of the Gingerbread-running Smablet (or phablet) is finally headed to the Land of the Maple Leaf.

According to the internal documents that you see here, which come to us courtesy of MobileSyrup, Telus will launch the 5.3-inch white Galaxy Note on April 4^th, which, if you haven’t realized, is today. The device will have the same price tag of $199.99 with a 3-year contract or $779.99 without any strings attached.

Bell appears to have decided to launch the white ones a few days later on April 10^th. The device will be priced the same – $199.99 on a 3-year contract or $729.99 outright. There are no hints about whether Rogers will be releasing the white model.

We are expecting to hear an official confirmation from both the carriers sometime soon, so stay tuned for updates.

The post White Samsung Galaxy Note To Be Launched On Telus Today, Bell On April 10th? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

This pilot project is set to take place in cottage country north of Toronto. The plan calls for about 20 new cell phone towers, but they’ll all be cleverly disguised as trees of between 25 and 29 meters. This makes them taller than the surrounding trees, hence giving better coverage, but they won’t be as much of an eyesore as a typical cellphone tower.

The “tree” towers are made of steel with fiberglass branches and, because they’re being built on private land and are shorter than 30 meters, they don’t need municipal approval. Disguised cellphone towers are nothing new, though, as the United States sees plenty posing as palm trees, street lights, barn silos, and church steeples, but the tree design is new to Canada.

Personally, I like the idea. Technology should be seamless with its surroundings, while still providing us with all of its wonderful benefits. Like cell phone coverage.

[Source]

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Bell and Rogers were first to do it for this round, but Telus has now joined the 6GB party too. Remember that the regular $30/month data add-on usually only provides you with 1GB of data, so this is a pretty good deal. Interestingly, unlike some of the previous offerings, you don’t necessarily have to sign up for a three-year contract to get the promotional data add-on.

The $30/6GB option is available on one, two, or three year service agreements, as well as for those of you who are doing the month-to-month thing. The catch is that you still need that “$50 minimum spend” requirement that is the same for any subsidized smartphone. The data add-on is compatible with HSPA and CDMA customers, but it’s unclear if this supports LTE too. A document from Rogers points toward a February 28th expiry date for this offer, but that could get extended. No indication from Bell or Telus about expiry.

[ source ]

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While the official rollout across “several provinces” happens on February 10, your local mileage will likely vary somewhat. The new LTE network will supplement the existing HSPA+ network and it should be accessible by 25 million customers by the end of the year. The initial launch cities include 14 cities: Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Kitchener, Waterloo, Hamilton, Guelph, Belleville, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Yellowknife and Halifax.

Not surprisingly, the LTE rollout needs to coincide with some LTE compatible products. We already know that the Samsung Galaxy Note will be arriving next week, for example, in addition to devices like the LG Optimus Black. They’re claiming speeds of between 12Mbps and 25Mbps with a theoretical maximum of 75Mbps. It will be interesting to see how the speeds compare to Rogers and Bell.

[ source ]

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On the AT&T side of the equation, they’ve formally announced a launch date of February 19th for the phone/tablet and it’ll sell for the expected $299.99 with a qualifying two year contract. They’re starting pre-orders this weekend with the first batch of deliveries starting on February 17th. You’ll have your choice of carbon blue and ceramic white.

For Canadians, Rogers isn’t being quite as specific, merely saying that the Galaxy Note will come to Rogers “in February.” The Rogers Reservation System has the Note listed, so you can add yourself to the pack and wait for the LTE-equipped smartphone that way. Best Buy has apparently narrowed it down to the February 14th launch date, not only for Rogers, but for Bell and Telus too. We’re hearing a $250 price point with a 3-year contract is likely.

Happy Valentine’s Day?

The post Samsung Galaxy Note Confirmed: February Release for AT&T and Rogers appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

On the one hand, we thought for some time that the “new” BC Place Stadium would be officially sponsored by Telus and would effectively be called Telus Park (or maybe Telus Field). However, Bell is the big sponsorship partner for the Whitecaps and so we’re hearing that it’s going to be called Bell Pitch. But you can’t really have two names for one place, can you?

That’s the way it’s gearing up. For my part, I wonder if they can get away with a combination name based on circumstance: Telus Field at BC Place Stadium when the Lions play and Bell Pitch at BC Place Stadium when the Whitecaps play. For all other events, it’s just BC Place Stadium unless either Bell or Telus want to toss some more money into the pot.

Interestingly, BC Place is right next to Rogers Arena (which used to be GM Place). That’s all three major telcos sharing the same postal code. It’d be fun if Wind and Mobilicity somehow sponsored some smaller venues in the same neighborhood too. The phone booth? The dropped call zone?

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Easily one of the biggest stars coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year was the Motorola ATRIX Android smartphone. On the surface, it seemed like any number of other Android smartphones, but it’s that extra functionality that really looked like it was going to be a game changer. But how does that whole docking into a multimedia centre experience really pan out in real life?

Well, I’ve taken the Bell Mobility version of the Motorola Atrix 4G, which should be largely the same as other versions sold by other carriers around the world (AT&T), out for a test drive and now I have returned with my thoughts.

Feature and Spec Highlights

Much like the Samsung Galaxy S II, the Atrix comes equipped with a dual core processor and a full 1GB of RAM. As such, the performance for the Atrix should really be no slouch. The phone initially shipped with Android 2.2 Froyo, but it has since been upgraded to Gingerbread.

The capacitive touchscreen measures 4.0-inches across the diagonal and it boasts a resolution of 540 x 960 pixels, resulting in an effective pixel density of 275ppi. That puts it just shy of Retina Display territory, but most people probably won’t notice the difference. It’s also covered in Gorilla Glass to prevent scratches and other damage. Rounding out the specs are your usual wireless radios — WiFi, 3G, Bluetooth, GPS — as well as dual cameras, 16GB internal storage, microSD expansion, and the MOTOBLUR user interface with live widgets.

General Smartphone Impressions

The first thing that struck me about this phone was its plastic construction. I wouldn’t say that it feels cheap, per se, but it is distinctly plastic with quite a slippery back. This is not unlike the Nexus S that I reviewed earlier this year too, except there’s a design on the back and there’s no curved screen.

That said, this appears to be high quality and relatively robust plastic. The other thing that struck me was the placement of the power button, which doubles as a fingerprint reader. Since they wanted the fingerprint reading functionality, the power button is placed on the back toward the top. Again, I’m more accustomed to power buttons on top or on the sides, so this took a little getting used to. It does appear to be Moto’s M.O. to do this, though, since we saw a “back” power button on the Xoom tablet too.

Aside from that, the front side looks much like most other “slate” phones in that the front is mostly all screen. Below it are the four usual touch-sensitive Android buttons. One other thing worth mentioning is the MOTOBLUR UI. I’m personally not a fan of it, but I can’t really explain why. To be fair, I like the TouchWiz UI on Samsungs and that UI has its fair share of naysayers too.

The Lapdock Experience with Webtop UI

This is really what is supposed to set the Atrix apart from all the other Android phones out there. It was a groundbreaking idea when Motorola showed it off at CES. You take your phone, you plunk it into the dock, and you get a netbook-like experience via the Webtop UI.

At least that’s the idea. It’s curious that they went with a “full” build of Firefox when it may have made more sense to go with Chrome, being all Google property and all that. In essence, Webtop is almost like an app that runs from the phone and it is an instant boot Linux-based environment. Without having enough Webtop-focused apps, however, the novelty and utility start to wear off. This is especially true in the age of Android tablets as true alternatives.

Web browsing through the Firefox browser was smooth and you are able to “transfer” your browsing session back to the phone when you undock it. I did find the “island” keyboard to be less than optimal too; the keys were wide enough and had enough key travel, but their “height” (as in the size of the J key between the U and N) was too small. The large trackpad almost got in the way too, as I found my palm accidentally grazing it from time to time while typing.

The Lapdock experience is certainly novel and it is amazing how everything “runs” off the phone itself, but this concept was revealed before Honeycomb really took off. Considering the price of the dock, this proposition isn’t as intriguing anymore.

HD Multimedia Dock

Fundamentally the same idea can be said about the HD Multimedia Dock. This allows for a mini-HDMI output to your HDTV or computer monitor, as well as several USB ports for the keyboards, mice, and other peripherals. You get the same Webtop UI as the laptop dock.

This is an interesting concept, to be sure, but I’m not convinced it’s terribly useful for day-to-day use. I can see how it’d be neat for your living room, using your HDTV as a giant monitor for web browsing and media viewing, but this may not be the most cost effective or simplest way to go about doing it.

Quadrant Standard Benchmark

To give the Atrix a proper performance test, I ran the Quadrant Standard Benchmark. The Atrix scored 2281 on this benchmark, putting it roughly within the same range as some other Android smartphones powered by dual core processors and full gigs of RAM. This is certainly no slouch when it comes to performance.

I also ran the Speedtest on Bell’s 3G (“4G”) network and had a ping of 99ms, a download speed of 2.01Mbps and an upload speed of 1.19Mbps. The download speed could certainly be better, but your mileage will certainly vary.

It should also be noted that this phone comes with a standard 1930mAh lithium-polymer battery, which is a larger capacity than much of its direct competition. In real world practice, I was easily able to get more than a day with moderate to heavy usage and multiple days with lighter usage. That’s pretty impressive.

Conclusion

I wanted to like the Atrix and the concept of the Webtop user interface and docking stations. I’m not saying that it’s a bad phone at all. The horsepower is impressive, the build quality is solid, and Webtop-ness adds a little extra oomph to the equation. However, I can’t be convinced to spend the kind of money on all these extra accessories when I’d rather spend that money on a separate device altogether.

While the high resolution 4-inch screen was fine, the colors felt quite muted and visibility was poor under more direct light. It’s hard to go back to a screen like this after experiencing the AMOLED, Super AMOLED, and Super AMOLED Plus displays from Samsung. Again, the display isn’t bad, but it does feel distinctly muted. I’m not a fan of the power button placement either.

If I had written this review six months ago, the Atrix may have been a bigger star and it may have earned a higher rating. However, in light of devices like the SGS2 and the pending arrival of Kal-El powered devices, it’s harder to recommend the Atrix today, especially with the price of the accessories. If the laptop dock were included with the phone, though, that’d be an entirely different proposition altogether.

The post Review: Motorola Atrix 4G with Lapdock and HD Multimedia Dock appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

It’s hard to believe that Samsung’s attempt to tackle the iPhone three years ago was the abysmal Samsung Instinct. My, how far have they’ve gotten since then. Samsung has skyrocketed to become one of the top manufacturers of Android smartphones and arguably one of their greatest creations to date is the Samsung Galaxy S II 4G.

The version I was offered to review is available through Bell Mobility in Canada. A US release through Verizon, Sprint and AT&T is expected shortly the next week.

Features at a Glance

Just unveiled earlier this year, the Samsung Galaxy S II is the official successor to the wildly successful Samsung Galaxy S. Most of the variants of that phone were largely the same, like the Vibrant and Captivate, save for some minor design cues. The guts were all pretty much identical.

In the case of the Galaxy S II, the specs have pretty much been bumped up across the board. This starts with the positively gorgeous 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display. All of the original Galaxy S phones had the standard 4.0-inch screen. I don’t need to tell you that this screen is easily the most amazing one you’ve ever seen on a smartphone. Photos really don’t do it justice. The colors are amazing vibrant, making games and other graphic-leaning apps that much better. And yes, it’s damage-resistant Gorilla Glass to boot.

Of course, the processor is worth mentioning too. Whereas both the original Galaxy S and the Samsung-made Nexus S were doing the 1GHz single core thing, this phone gets bumped to a 1.2GHz dual core Cortex-A9 processor. The full gig of RAM certainly helps too.

Other highlights include the 8MP rear camera (which I’ll get to in a moment), 2MP front camera, 1080p video recording, accelerometer, proximity sensor, 16GB of internal memory, microSD slot (up to 32GB), WiFi-N, Bluetooth 3.0+HS, microUSB, and GPS (plus aGPS support).

Design and Layout

With the Google Nexus S, they did that curved oleophobic screen and a cheap-ish glossy black plastic back. With the Galaxy S II, Samsung abandoned both of those ideas. You get back to a regular flat screen and that’s perfectly fine for me. I’m also happy to see that they got rid of that cheap black plastic and opted for a slightly textured back. It offers just enough grip and just enough “class” to make this feel like a premium product.

Two things will still strike you immediately about the Galaxy S II. First, it’s thin. Like seriously thin. Like 8.49mm thin. That’s pretty amazing, easily outdoing many other smartphones in this realm. It’s also very light at 116 grams. When you compare that to something like the iPhone 4 (137 grams) or the Motorola Atrix (135 grams), the difference becomes immediately apparent.

In terms of layout, there’s not a lot to report. You get the volume controls along the left edge and the power button on the right edge. The microUSB connector is in the bottom, but unlike the first Galaxy S, the port is exposed. You’ll also notice that this phone gets rid of the usual “home” and “search” buttons that accompany most Android phones, relying on the “menu” and “back” buttons instead. There is a hardware button in the middle, seemingly taking a square-ish approach to the iPhone home button, that serves as, well, the home button.

Gingerbread with TouchWiz UI

If you want a stock Android experience, you’re not going to get it here. You’re probably better off getting the Nexus S or waiting for the Nexus Prime. That’s because, not surprisingly, this phone does TouchWiz UI v4.0.

Yes, it’s somewhat iPhone-esque in that the apps are arranged in pages and you swipe horizontally to get through them. This is quite different than stock Android or HTC’s Sense. For some, TouchWiz is going to be a turnoff, but I have no quibbles about it. Aside from that, the customizable homescreens (as usual) come in handy with all the widgets and such. Interestingly, the “main” home screen is screen 1 (all the way to the left), which is different from some previous Samsung Android phones where “home” was the middle screen (4).

Front and Rear Cameras

That’s an eight megapixel shooter on the back, but we all know that megapixels are not the same as image quality. I’m surprised that Samsung didn’t equip the Galaxy S II with some sort of specially-skinned camera app, but the resulting quality is quite good given the right lighting conditions.

Consider this shot and this shot, both of which were taken outdoors under natural light. The second one is challenging, because I was in a space between a darker shadow and overbearing sunlight, so there is some significant “washing out” of detail.
With more even lighting, this photo turned out quite well. A photo I took with flash shows how strong the flash is, but it can easily blast out the photo too. Even though the front-facing camera is only 2MP, the quality of this shot is perfectly reasonable too.

As far as smartphone cameras go, I have little to complain about here aside from the lack of additional controls. That can likely be saved with a better camera app, giving you options like zoom, color balance, and so forth.

Performance and Network Speeds

When it comes to so-called Android superphones, the Samsung Galaxy S II is currently among the top of the heap. Spec for spec, it beats out the HTC Sensation 4G in a few areas, for instance. The processor is fast, there’s plenty of RAM, and I experienced virtually no slowdown even when running more than a few apps and widgets. This was even true when streaming media over the Internet. Unless you’re doing some heavy lifting, though, it’s unlikely you’ll notice a huge difference over the single core 1GHz smartphones out there.

Interestingly, battery life is largely unaffected by the increase in clock speed and the addition of an extra core. With intermittent “normal” use, I was able to get a solid day out of the phone without having to reach for a wall outlet. This is with the automatic brightness settings activated, and with both GPS and WiFi mostly turned off. I would like to see even more battery life, but all Android phones face this challenge. Compared to single core smartphones, even with smaller screens, the Galaxy S II might even outperform their battery life.

In terms of network speeds, Bell is marketing this phone as the Galaxy S II 4G. It’s up to you to decide if HSPA+ is really 4G, but in a very real sense, it’s pretty fast. I used the iPhone mobile speed test, ensured I was on the H+ network with full bar of signal. The download was clocked at 16.32 Mbps (based on 7936KB in 4 seconds). That’s not quite the theoretical limit of 21Mbps, but it breaks the 14.4Mbps limit of the HTC Sensation 4G (also through Bell). Upload, though, was pretty abysmal at 0.37Mbps.

Conclusion

Unequivocally, the Samsung Galaxy S II is one of the best Google Android smartphones on the market today. It’s incredibly thin, the Super AMOLED Plus screen is simply breathtaking, and it has performance up the wazoo. The only thing that might hold you back is the TouchWiz UI, which isn’t everyone’s bag.

That and you know that there is always something nicer in Android land just around the corner. At some point, you need to draw your line in the sand and choose what suits your needs right now, rather than waiting for the next Android phone to come out a few months from now. And the Galaxy S II is a great place to draw that line right now. I just hope that Samsung keeps up with the Android updates.

The post Samsung Galaxy S II 4G Android Smartphone Review appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The original Google Nexus One was a statement phone. It was meant to be the Google Phone, getting first dibs on any Android updates and providing users with a pure “vanilla” experience. No carrier branding, no custom skins. The Nexus S is the second generation of that idea and now it’s available for a few more people. That’s because they’ve got the tri-band HSPA (850/1900/2100) version in the wild.

Highlights of Features

As a quick rundown of the features and specifications, you’ll find that this take on the Google Phone is pretty much identical to the AWS model that was being sold through T-Mobile and Best Buy USA. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

In addition to the whole (vanilla) Android 2.3 Gingerbread experience, you also get that beautiful 4.0-inch (480 x 800 pixels) Super AMOLED display. Just like the AWS version, this screen has a slight curve to it that’s meant to fit the contour of your face. There’s a 5MP camera on the back, WiFi, Bluetooth, and 16GB internal memory. Unfortunately, there is no microSD expansion slot, so like your iPhone brethren, you’re stuck with the internal memory.

Power comes by way of a 1GHz Hummingbird (ARM Cortex-A8) processor, PowerVR SGX540 GPU, and 512MB of RAM.

Network Compatibility

One of the biggest reasons why I was interested in this particular phone was the switching of the bands. The original Nexus S would only give you 3G access to AWS-based operators. In the United States, that’d be T-Mobile. In Canada, you’ve got Mobilicity and Wind Mobile.

However, the “big three” in Canada don’t use those bands, nor does AT&T. That’s where this version comes into play. The tri-band HSPA includes the important 850MHz and 1900MHz bands, opening up this “pure Google experience” to a much larger audience. In fact, it was launched almost simultaneously by not only Rogers, Bell, and Telus, but also underlings like Fido and Koodo. That’s a big deal.

General Design and Interface

Some of the early complaints about this phone was its “plastic” feel, especially when compared to the more robust design of the Nexus One. Yes, it’s true that the Nexus S has an all plastic body with a very slippery back, but I don’t mind it. If you didn’t mind the overall design of the iPhone 3G/3GS, then you won’t mind it either.

I appreciate the thin profile but, like other Samsung Android phones, the power button is on the right side rather than on top. That’s a personal preference thing, I suppose, but this design doesn’t really allow for a top-mounted power button. On the left side is the volume rocker, but there is no dedicated camera button on the right side. That’s an important omission.

The Gingerbread interface is pretty great, as you’d expect, with multiple homescreens that can be populated with your choice of widgets and so forth. I like the 3D scrolling list of apps, but it would have helped if it was easier to organize them in some way. I guess that’s where the multiple home screens can come into the picture.

Screen Quality

I’m a big fan of Super AMOLED. The colors are positively brilliant and cannot be captured in a simple picture. You really have to see it in real life. The blacks are remarkably dark and everything just pops off the screen. There is no better Angry Birds experience.

That said, it’s not perfect. The viewing angles, especially under certain light or while running certain apps, can be a little odd. You can still see what you need to see, but the colors start to “shift” in strange ways. Naturally, glare on a shiny screen like this can make for a difficult daylight experience at times too.

Camera Image Quality

Camera phones are getting better and better, and the Google Nexus S is no exception.

No, it’s not nearly as good as what you’d get with a “real” camera, but the Nexus S will hold its own against other similarly equipped smartphones. The built-in flash is reasonably bright and picture quality is decent for what it is. The camera app isn’t nearly as robust as I’d like it to be, though, but that’s more of an Android thing than something specific to this phone.

I have a couple other sample photos in my Flickr photostream, so you can check those out too.

Conclusion

If you’re in the market for an unlocked Android phone that is guaranteed to get first dibs on any Google updates, this is it. Samsung has typically been pretty bad with keeping up with Android versions, but this is a Nexus phone. The factory unlocked nature, regardless of which carrier you choose is a nice bonus too.

Some people may not be able to get past the plastic feel of the phone or the lack of a microSD slot. That’s understandable. You might also rather get a dual core smartphone since this single core 1GHz Hummingbird is already behind on the times. That’s understandable too. And let’s not forget that Rogers just launched its LTE network to boot, leaving you with “just” HSPA for your wireless data.

These are all valid concerns and all valid reasons why you may not want the Nexus S. For my part, I think it’s a great phone. The lack of HDMI-out and the lack of expandable memory are unfortunate, but the Hummingbird processor is speedy enough and the pure Google experience is stellar.

The post REVIEW: Google Nexus S Smartphone (850/1900 Version) appeared first on Mobile Magazine.