This announcement hardly comes out of left field. We already knew that Bell/Virgin would have about a month’s worth of exclusivity on the new Android phone during the holiday shopping season, but the other major carriers would get their shot at ICS in January. While it was previously rumored that Rogers and Fido would get the Galaxy Nexus on January 10 (Tuesday), it looks like they’re getting bumped to the same release date as Telus: Friday the 13th. Hopefully that’s not a bad omen.

While Rogers, Fido, and Telus haven’t made a formal announcement about the pricing for the Galaxy Nexus, we imagine that it’ll fall in line with Bell’s pricing scheme of $160 on contract and $650 straight up. At the same time, considering what we saw with the Nexus S before it, the competition between carriers might see some price adjustments for further enticement.

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.

Sony Ericsson is expanding their GreenHeart collection of environmentally-friendly phones with a Canadian release of the Cedar. With post-consumer recycled plastics, a low-consumption charger and waterborne paint, the phone is being sold exclusively by Fido in Canada and direct from SE in the UK, aimed at consumers and businesses looking at a low-impact mobile solution.

But it’s not just a novelty phone for hippies. The Cedar boasts EAS push email, fast browsing and Widget Manager 2.0 for quick access to social networks such as Twitter and Facebook via the stand-by screen. With Bluetooth and quick, easy browsing on 3G and HSDPA, you can stay connected – whatever that means to you. You can even use the Cedar as a modem for your laptop.

The only two complaints I would have seem to have simple enough solutions. At 0.6″ it’s a bit thick for the size, but the “human curvature” design now typical to Sony Ericsson handsets ensures it’ll sit comfortably in your hand regardless. It’s not a “smartphone,” but it is smarter, and greener than most.

[SE Cedar, UK Product Page

Even though a lot of people have made the transition from using regular mobile phones to using fully-featured smartphones, there still appears to be a market for those in-between devices. Some people call them feature phones, others call them quick messaging devices (QMDs), some even call them dumbphones. Whatever you want to call them, they’re still here.

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro is a little different. Even though it is largely sold as a “feature phone” rather than a smartphone, it has real smartphone brains under the hood with its Symbian S60 5th edition operating system. Does this make it a really good value for people who want web connectivity and smartphone-like functionality at a “dumbphone”-like price point? You’ll soon find out.

Features at a Glance

The “Pro” part of the Vivaz Pro’s name comes by way of the hardware QWERTY keyboard that slides out the side. In essence, you get a phone that is very similar to the original Sony Ericsson Vivaz, but with a keyboard. The trade off is that the camera is downgraded to “just” a five-megapixel shooter. It retains its 720p HD video recording capability though, making this a reasonably suitable cameraphone.

Runing through the rest of the specs, we find tri-band HSDPA to go with the quad-band GSM, as well as a scratch resistant surface, handwriting recognition, 3.2-inch TFT resistive touchscreen, microSD expansion, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, and a 720MHz processor.

First Impressions

If you’re expecting the premium build quality that you would get with a device like the Nokia N8. (which is only $50 on contract with Rogers now), you’re going to be sorely disappointed with the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro. It feels very “plasticky” in hand, but on the plus side, it’s quite light at just 117 grams.

It’s also quite interesting that they went with such a curvature for the back cover. I guess this is supposed to give it a sleek and unique profile, but it just ends up making for a somewhat strange experience. This is exacerbated by the fact that the power button is towards the top of the back panel, partially recessed into the battery cover. From what I can tell, the keyguard can only be activated by tapping the power button, then choosing to lock the keys from the touchscreen interface. This is less than ideal.

Resistive Touchscreen without Kinetic Scrolling

I wouldn’t say that I’m terribly disappointed with having “just” a 3.2-inch display, but it is a shame that they went with a resistive screen on this device. Everyone is doing capacitive screens these days and going back to a resistive display felt archaic, as if I jumped into a time machine and went back to the days of Windows Mobile 5.

While there appears to be some kinetic scrolling in certain situations, this is not the case with the web browser. I’ve grown so accustomed to “flicking” my way around a webpage that it was quite jarring to see the page just stop deck on my movements. It also felt strange going back to using my fingernail rather than my finger.

The Web Browser

Bearing in mind that this is being marketed as a feature phone and not a smartphone (even though, strictly speaking, it may be closer to the latter), I was disappointed with the performance of the web browser on the Vivaz Pro. Web pages rendered, but there would always be a couple of issues.

When I tried to visit Mobile Magazine on the phone, for example, the entire header portion came muddled with a strange effect happening on our site logo which uses a transparency. It works, I suppose, but don’t expect to get the “almost desktop” experience that you would get with iOS or Android. It’s just not there.

The Hardware QWERTY Keyboard

I think it was a good move including the slide-out keyboard on this device, because I’d imagine typing on the resistive touchscreen to be quite a pain. The keys have a nice “squishy” or “rubbery” feel to them and there is a suitable “bump” to each key so that they don’t sit too flush with the phone. That’s a good thing. Key travel was pretty good too.

It might take you a little while to get used to the key layout, since it’s a on perfect grid rather than the staggered rows you find on a “real” keyboard, but it gets the job done for mobile e-mails, text messages, and whatever else you want to type on this phone.

Conclusion

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro currently sells for $75 on a two-year contract with Fido or $50 on a three-year contract with Rogers Wireless. Under both instances, you’re not bound to a true data plan. It’s not technically classified as a smartphone, so you can get away with the $10 unlimited browsing option on either carrier. If you opt for Rogers, they’ll toss in a free Bluetooth headset too.

If you really are hesitant about tackling a real smartphone with a real data plan, I suppose the Vivaz Pro can mostly get the job done. You can use the somewhat broken web browser to do what you need to do, but after you’ve used a smartphone, you can’t possibly go back to “half” a device like this. It’s like it’s trying to do the smartphone thing, but consistently coming up short.

When I think about the Vivaz Pro strictly as a “feature” phone, it’s adequate but nothing special. I’d give it a 6/10 or 7/10 with that mindset. If I were to consider the Vivaz Pro as a smartphone, though, it’d barely be passable for a 4/10 or 5/10. It just becomes an exercise in frustration. The only reason why I would want it is for the $10 mobile browsing option. I guess it’s better than something like the LG Neon, but not by much.

But doesn’t this just seem too good to be true? The phone companies are finally doing something that will benefit the consumer. That is, because it is a little too good to be totally true. Yes Rogers and Fido will unlock your phone, and yes it will cost you a minimal fee of $50, but there are still a few conditions that current contract holders may not appreciate, a requirement to be able to have your device unlocked is: Your account must be in good standing and you “Have paid the un-subsidized/no term cost for the device at least 30 days prior or have finished their Commitment Period. Which pretty much means they want you to buy the phone out right before they ask you to pay another $50 to unlock it. The small print has managed to spoil the good news for everyone, but we can’t blame them, they’re still taking baby steps. Anyway, you can always just ask the guy down the block who is more than willing to unlock your phone for $20, or check eBay for a $2 unlock code.

“I’m calling on Telus and Bell to catch up with their competition – and the rest of the world.” said New Democrat Consumer Protection Critic Glenn Thibeault. “They need to start unlocking the full range of their customer’s handsets, including iPhones. And they need to do this without barriers. Whereas our legislation mandates carriers unlock their customer’s phones for free outside of contracts, Rogers is only offering to unlock for a $50 fee. That’s a lot to pay for full use of hardware that their customers already own.”

[Net News Ledger]

Believe it or not, there are still people out there who don’t want a smartphone. They don’t want a full data plan, but they may still be interested in some smartphone-like functionality. That’s where something like the new Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro would come into play.

As a so-called Quick Messaging Device, or QMD for short, it gives you a full QWERTY keyboard, web access, social media applications, and other functions that you would otherwise find on a smartphone… except it’s not really a smartphone. Both Rogers and Fido just picked it up and it looks like a very affordable option for people in this “in-between” segment of the market.

In terms of the lowdown, the features aren’t half bad with a touchscreen display, 5.1MP camera, HD video recording, media player, microSD expansion, and even Wi-Fi and GPS. If you didn’t, you know, actually turn it on, you may have thought this was another cheap Android phone.

And cheap it is. Over at Fido, you can get it for $75 on a two-year contract or $275 outright. If you want to go with big brother Rogers, they’ll do a three-year agreement with you and a $50 net price on the device.

Expect a review soon.

SOURCE: Mobile Syrup via Fido

I’m not completely sure what Rogers is doing with the Fido brand these days, but it looks like the dog is becoming a mid-tier brand to fit between budget-minded Chatr and higher-end Rogers. This is further confirmed by the pending release of the Acer Liquid E smartphone with Fido.

This hasn’t been officially confirmed by Rogers yet, but it sure looks like Fido is getting its first Android phone in the form of the Acer Liquid E. This smartphone has been available through big brother Rogers for a while, so it’s good to see it slotting down into the dog house too.

As a quick refresher, the Acer Liquid E for Fido will get bumped to Google Android 2.1 and comes loaded with the peppy 768Mhz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 5MP camera, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, and microSD expansion slot. As a mid-tier phone, you can expect to pay just $50 with a three-year contract, or $350 outright.

LG Neon2 QWERTY dumbphone

Maybe you want a touchscreen and a full QWERTY keyboard, but you’re less inclined to get a real smartphone with a hefty data plan. If that’s the case, your ears may perk with the pending launch of the LG Neon2 through Rogers Wireless.

We had a look at the original LG Neon last year (the Fido version) and this second-gen version should be a slight upgrade. The specs include a 3.0-inch WQVGA (240 x 400 pixel) touchscreen, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, five hot keys, and a 2MP camera.

You can also expect a microSD card slot (good for up to 8GB of storage), FM radio, MP3 player, Bluetooth, and your choice of four different colors. Looking at the menu screen, it looks like you can access a lot of apps without having to scroll; that looks like four rows of eight icons for a total of 32 virtual buttons.

We haven’t been able to find an official launch date, but dummy phones are reportedly already making their way into stores. Expect to pay $29.99 with a qualifying three-year contract. My gut tells me that Fido might get this too.

[Full specs of upcoming Rogers LG Neon2 [MobileSyrup]

My friend Gary from iPhoneinCanada.ca started lining up outside the Apple Store at Pacific Centre (Downtown Vancouver) last night and, as of 6am this morning, he said the line was about 300 deep. I’d imagine lineups would be similar at other major stores across the country. Crazy!

So, in case you haven’t heard (and you didn’t go line up this morning), here are the prices for the iPhone 4 in Canada. Just make sure you sign up to get that free bumper case too!

• Telus: 16GB/32GB iPhone 4 for $159/$269 with a three-year contract, $649/$749 outright
• Bell: 16GB/32GB iPhone 4 for $159.95/$269.95 with three-year contract, no outright price available on website
• Rogers/Fido: 16GB/32GB iPhone 4 for $159/$269 locked on contract, $649/$749 outright
• Apple Store: 16GB/32GB iPhone 4 unlocked without contract for $659/$779

Based on this, you can pay a slight premium ($10-$30) to buy from the Apple Store to get a completely factory unlocked iPhone 4 versus the outright price at Telus or Rogers, both of which will presumably have their iPhone models locked to their respective networks.  One thing that is still unsure is the data plan for Rogers and Bell have 6GB for $30, but Telus is mum.  Did you grab an iPhone today?

[iPhoneinCanada]
Photo: tomsaint/flickr

Apple iPhone 3GS boxed

Maybe you’re not interested in having the latest iPhone 4 with five-megapixel camera that takes yellow pictures. Or even having to hold it a certain way to get signal. Maybe you just want to save a few bucks and go for the tried, tested and true model. Although the iPhone 4 has not yet launched in Canada, the iPhone 3GS has been available for ages, and up until now, you could only get the 3GS in 16GB and 32GB flavors.  Adding to the portfolio, Fido is now offering an 8GB iPhone 3GS for just $99 with a qualifying three-year contract; the 8GB iPhone 3GS will presumably replace the 8GB iPhone 3G.

It comes pre-updated with iOS4. No, you’re not going to get a front facing camera or that high-res retina display, but you’ll have a few more bucks in your back pocket to spend in the App Store. And that’s not really a bad thing.

[IntoMobile via Fido]