Before Windows Phone, the market was plagued with dull, industrialized blacks, greys and whites, so I’m glad that Nokia have stepped back into the scene to add a bit of color to things.

The Nokia Lumia 920, Nokia’s 2012 flagship device has been released in many different colors, but because demand has been so high, getting hold of anything but the black version has been difficult.

If you’ve been looking to get hold of a colored device, you may be happy to hear that Rogers will soon be offering new colors to their inventory of Lumia 920s. In their blog they have said they will be getting stock for the Nokia Windows Phone in red, yellow and white. The new colors will be available both in-store and online within the next couple of weeks, and to celebrate the long-awaited arrival of stock, and to say thank you to all the patient customers, Rogers are hosting a competition to give customers a chance to win a brand new Lumia 920 for themselves.

The competition requires contestants to write a post on Rogers’ official blog explaining what color they are most excited about and what they are hoping to do with a new Lumia 920 in 150 words or less. The comp is up till January 31^st, and official rules can be seen on the Rogers blog post.

Are you excited about being able to get your hands on a colored handset from Rogers? Or are you happy enough with the typical black color that is more widely available?

[Source]

The post Rogers Adding Color To Nokia Lumia 920 Stock appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

You have to remember that only that gold-plated portion in the middle of your SIM card is actually serving any kind of real purpose. That’s the only part that gets you connected to your carrier, identifying your device to the network. It only makes sense that we should get rid of as much of the surrounding fodder as possible.

What we see here are the nanoSIMs that will be sold by Canadian carriers Rogers Wireless and Fido. They’ll both support the fast 4G LTE network, giving iPhone 5 users the ability to best utilize the “ultrafast wireless” in their new handset. The nanoSIM itself measures a measly 8.8 x 12.3mm, making it that much easier to drop and lose. Thankfully, it’ll stay safely stowed away inside your phone most of the time anyway. The other good news is that your new nanoSIM will be included with your iPhone 5 contract price. Interestingly, someone has commented that Telus is charging ten bucks for their nanoSIM.

The expectation is that future smartphones will likely adopt the nanoSIM standard too. That little bit of extra space can accommodate other more useful bits, like wireless radios, memory and bigger batteries.

[Source]

The post First Look at iPhone 5 nanoSIM Cards appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The company reported an adjusted operating profit of $1.27 billion in the second quarter of this year from the $3.1 billion in revenues that it received. Both of those figures are up from the same quarter last year and that growth is fueled heavily by a 13% increase in data revenue. Cable TV revenues are dropping, possibly due to alternative sources like Crackle and Netflix. Home phone revenues remained flat. But data, it grew from 35% of revenue last year to 39% of revenue for this year.

This growth is “highlighted by strong postpaid wireless smartphone sales and customer retention metrics,” said Rogers president and chief executive Nadir Mohamed. He also cites the “exceptionally strong margins in both our wireless and cable businesses.” You know that $25-$30 data option you have on your phone? That’s probably pretty profitable for the boys and girls at Rogers.

[Source]

The post Rogers Rakes in 39% of All Revenues from Mobile Data Fees appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The Rogers One Number service has now officially launched and it effectively lets you enjoy unlimited calling, texting, and picture messaging from your computer. The kicker is that the person on the other end will think that you are using your phone. With Rogers One Number, your phone’s identity is carried through to the computer equivalent. It uses the existing Internet connection and minutes (and texts) used do not come out of your monthly bucket. You also get free Canadian long distance and, if you’re talking to another Rogers One Number user, you can have free video chats a la Skype or IM protocols too.

One other feature is the ability to transfer your call between your actual mobile phone and your computer, simply by pressing the corresponding button in the computer app or by dialing a special number on your smartphone.

You can get more information, as well as register, by visiting RogersOneNumber.ca. However, it seems that more than a couple of users have already encounted some problems. Some aren’t getting their PINs, others are being told that the service isn’t supported in their area code. It should also be noted that Rogers One Number does not work with business accounts, pre-paid accounts, or Alternate Line Service. And of course, there’s the issue of entrusting all your services to one provider.

[ source via Redboard ]

The post Rogers One Number Offers Free Talk and Text from Your Computer appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

It used to be that you needed to find a WiFi hotspot, like at a coffee shop or airport, in order to get your laptop onto the Internet while you’re out on the road. The USB Internet sticks changed that, but they didn’t provide the kinds of speeds you grew accustomed to having through more conventional Internet access points. That changed with the arrival of LTE.

Rogers Wireless recently launched its LTE network in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Ottawa, supposedly giving you speeds that might be even faster than what you have at home or at work. I had the opportunity to try out the only Rogers LTE device (AT&T in the USA) at the moment — the Sierra Wireless AirCard 313U mobile broadband modem — and this is what I found.

Plug, Play, Surf

The USB modem works in much the same way that your cell phone does. You plunk in the SIM card, it connects to the network, and you go about doing your business. This is similar to what I got with the Nokia CS-18 HSPA+ Rocket Stick last year, but in a more flexible form factor and with supposedly much faster speeds.

The setup process is easy. You turn on your laptop of choice (it works with both Windows and Mac), you plug in the modem via USB, and you let the setup wizard do its thing. The whole configuration process only took a few minutes and I was online right away. It installs a simple application on your computer that lets you connect to the Rogers LTE network, send text messages, manage your data usage, and so on.

Flexible Form Factor

Whereas the Nokia stick looks like a big USB flash drive, the Sierra Wireless AirCard 313U is like a small card with a bendy USB arm sticking out the end. You can slide open the “card” portion to reveal the SIM card slot. It helps that the USB portion can be folded up when not in use, making the USB modem easy to stow in any laptop bag.

The form factor, while not tiny, is certainly small enough. As mentioned, the USB arm can bend, depending on how you want to use it, but it can also rotate 90 degrees too. This is handy depending on how your notebook is configured. Also included in the package are a USB extension cable and a display clip. This way, you can “mount” the USB modem on the top of your laptop lid, presumably getting slightly better signal strength.

So, How Fast is Rogers Wireless LTE?

Since the definition of 4G has gotten quite convoluted (the existing HSPA+ network is referred to as 4G by some folks), Rogers decided to describe its new LTE network as “beyond 4G.” Using 2×2 antennas, the current LTE technology has a theoretical maximum download speed of 150.8 Mbit/s. Of course, it’s unlikely that you’ll hit this peak speed very often, if ever.

To get a sense of the speeds I could get, I tried using the card in a few locations around Vancouver and Burnaby, testing the speeds with Speedtest.net. The speeds ranged considerably, even varying a fair bit when I was in the same physical location by tested against a different data center. Speeds in Burnaby (a suburb just next to Vancouver) ranged from 14Mbps to 18Mbps downstream. Looking at the coverage maps, I should have still been within the LTE network area.

However, getting into Vancouver itself, even when I was a good 7km or more away from the downtown core, I immediately saw results north of 25Mbps. One of the best tests I achieved clocked in at 43.42Mbps downstream and an astounding 13.49Mbps upstream, including an impressive 42ms ping. That was with connecting to the Burnaby server. From the same physical location connecting to the Vancouver and Calgary servers, I got 25.00Mbps and 13.21Mbps, respectively.

Needless to say, your mileage will vary greatly, even from the same physical location, using nearly identical circumstances. To be fair, I never got lower than about 13Mbps, which is still faster than many residential ADSL/cable Internet plans.

Pricing Plans and Conclusion

The cost of the Sierra Wireless AirCard 313U device itself is the least of your worries. It’s just $79.99 on a qualifying 3-year service agreement and a mere $169.99 without a contract. The monthly plans are what will put the bigger dent in your wallet. The LTE Flex Rate Plan starts at $47.93 and that gives you 2GB of data. This ramps up to $62.93 (4GB), $77.93 (6GB), and $92.93 (9GB) as you make your way through the tiers via actual usage.

There is a $52.93 introductory plan for 10GB, which is easily your best deal. I wouldn’t use LTE to replace your home or office Internet connection, since getting through 10GB is pretty easy if you consume much media at all, but this is a fantastic supplementary tool when you are on the go and don’t want to go hunting for Wi-Fi. The “beyond 4G” LTE speeds are quite impressive and are likely faster than what you’d get at Starbucks.

The caveat, of course, is that you need to be in the service area. LTE will expand into other markets eventually, but it’s good to know that this device will fall back on HSPA+ or even EDGE as needed. The flexible form factor helps and the high speeds will put a smile on your face. Just make sure you get that 10GB plan while it’s still around.

Related Links

- Rogers Wireless
- AT&T

The post REVIEW: Sierra Wireless AirCard 313U 4G LTE Mobile Broadband Modem appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

I play a lot of games on my smartphone. The trouble is that a smartphone was never really designed for serious video game playing, and that’s where the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is supposed to come into the picture. It’s PlayStation certified and is purpose-built to give gamers what they want while still doing the usual Android smartphone thing too.

We caught brief glimpses at this phone earlier this year, but it has now launched through Rogers Wireless in Canada, 3, Orange,  T-Mobile and Vodafine in the UK, and Verizon Wireless in the USA. Is the so-called PlayStation Phone worth all these years of waiting? Let’s find out.

Specs at a Glance

The version that I received to review is white, but they’ve also got the regular black version as well. The two colors are functionally identical. And, not surprisingly, the most notable feature on this smartphone is the set of slide-out gaming controls.

We’ve seen these kinds of sliders in the past, but they’ve always revealed hardware QWERTY keyboards. That’s not the case you. You get a set of controls that mirrors what you’d get on a PlayStation gamepad: four directional buttons, four face buttons (X, O, triangle, and square), start and select. Instead of thumbsticks, you get a pair of optical thumbpads. There’s also a menu button on the face, as well as L and R buttons on the shoulders.

Doing a quick run through the rest of the spec sheet, we find a 1GHz Scorpion processor (Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon), Android 2.3 Gingerbread, 400MB internal memory, 512MB RAM, microSD slot, HSDPA/HSUPA support, 802.11b/g/n, 5MP camera, front-facing camera, aGPS, and a 4.0-inch 480×854 touchscreen display.

Build Quality and Design

The overall design is in line with other Xperia smartphones from Sony Ericsson. This was built to look more like a phone and less like a PSP, though there are some similarities to the PSP Go. The back is rounded, as are the top and bottom contours. Because of the sliding mechanism, the Xperia Play (at 16mm) is far from the thinnest phone on the block. It’s also not the lightest at a considerable 175 grams of heft.

The sliding mechanism feels reasonably solid, but I’d imagine that this will wear down over time. The gaming buttons feel very solid and should be able to stand up to the same kind of abuse you’d normally give your PSP. I did find the plastic back was a little too slippery, though, especially when in gaming position. Having the volume rocker between the L/R buttons is an interesting choice too.

And that’s the real crux of why someone would be the least bit interested in the Xperia Play. You can play all of the usual Android games — Angry Birds, YooNinja, etc. — but the key is playing games that are “optimized” for the Xperia Play. It is a PlayStation certified device, after all, even if it’s not a real PlayStation Phone per se.

What’s cool is that when you slide out the gaming controls, the handset automatically goes to the Xperia Play interface where you can choose your games. These are shown as fairly large tiles on the touchscreen, but what’s odd is that not all of your games show up here. I had other games that were supposed to be optimized for use on the Xperia Play, but I could only access them through the usual Android menu.

As far as controls, while I liked the idea of the optical trackpads in place of true thumbsticks, they didn’t work quite as well as I had hoped. I’m unsure whether they’re too sensitive or not sensitive enough, as I just didn’t get the level of precision and responsiveness that I need when I’m playing games. I tried Star Batallion (a flight shooter) and Hockey Nations 2011 for this purpose and I ended up resorting to the d-pad for the former. I mostly used the optical trackpad for hockey, but it still wasn’t perfect.

I’m not sold on the optical trackpads, for this reason, but I am sold on gaming on this phone. Madden was enjoyable, Crash Bandicoot was a hoot, and emulators would surely be a hit too. Battery life has me worried, though, since the phone could barely last a day even with very, very light usage.

So, How Does It Game?

Camera Quality

Other smartphones may have been upgraded to 8MP or even 12MP shooters, but the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is largely able to hold its own with the five-megapixel camera in tow. The flash is quite powerful and while the images will never compete with a “real” camera, they’re comparable to similar smartphones with similar specs.

• Sample Photo #1 (indoor, flash on)
• Sample Photo #2 (indoor, flash off)
• Sample Photo #3 (outdoors, cloudy)

What’s interesting is that while Sony Ericsson stuck with that TimeScape UI (albeit a fair bit simplified from its Xperia X10 days) for part of the core interface, the company didn’t do anything to skin the camera app. It’s the vanilla Android camera app, which has some options, but not really enough. I’m sure you could find some fun things in Android Market to help you with that, though, should you feel so inclined.

Conclusion

I get what Sony Ericsson was trying to accomplish with the Xperia Play. We’ve been wanting a real PlayStation Phone for quite some time and this is supposed to be it… except that it’s not. You see, Sony has the PlayStation Vita coming out pretty soon and it’s much more of a PSP than this phone can ever hope to be. The current crop of “PlayStation-certified” games that are “optimized” for this platform aren’t bad, but they aren’t that great either. For the most part, they’re still “just” cell phone games.

If someone really wants to play real PlayStation games on the go, they’ll pick up the NGP PS Vita. I think that if the Xperia Play came out a couple years ago, it had a real fighting chance of attracting some more interest. As it stands, I expect it to end up in the same pile as the N-Gage. The poor battery life certainly doesn’t help either, especially if you plan on playing any games at all for any duration of time.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is available now through Rogers Wireless for $99.99 on qualifying three-year contracts.

Manufacturer Specifications

* Battery performance does vary greatly on network and phone usage.

The post Sony Ericsson Xperia Play review: The Android PlayStation phone appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

You have a lot of choices when it comes to Android smartphones. There are some very appealing devices from the likes of Motorola, HTC, and Samsung, for example. Over at Rogers Wireless, they’ve recently released the Acer Liquid MT. As you can imagine, this is the follow-up to the Acer Liquid E.

The newer model has pretty much the same form factor with rounded edges at the top and the bottom. As the name implies, they’ve also added in a significant dose of metal to replace the plastic of old. The four main Android “buttons” below the screen are capacitive and the touchscreen itself is marginally larger at 3.6 inches.

Quick Spec Sheet Check

As a speedy rundown of what else you can expect, the Acer Liquid MT ships with Android 2.2 Froyo, does the HSPA 14.4Mbps thing, and has integrated WiFi-N and GPS. Other highlights include the 5.0 megapixel camera (no front camera), 512MB internal memory, microSD expansion, and the special Acer UI.

A clever inclusion is at the very top of the phone where you find the 3.5mm headphone jack. It may look like any other piece of chrome, but hidden beneath that are three little icons: battery, message, and missed call. This way, you can see if you need to respond to an email or plug into the wall without having to unlock the phone.

A Phone in the Hand Beats Two in the…

In terms of first impressions, the Acer Liquid MT is quite the hefty beast. By going with more of a metal finish and choice of materials, this smartphone is decidedly heavier than its plastic-clad counterparts. It just feels heavy and bulky in the hands, which isn’t helped by the sizable bezel around the sub-4.0 inch screen.

If you’ve ever held the BlackBerry Torch 9800 in your hands, then you’ll have a pretty good sense of how the Liquid MT feels. It’s heavy and it’s substantial, which may or may not be to your liking. I much preferred the thinner and lighter weight feel of the Samsung Galaxy S Captivate over this phone.

A Word on the Interface

I’ve had a shot at a few of the different manufacturer-specific skins for Android. HTC does the Sense thing, Motorola has MOTOBLUR, and so on. The Acer UI is no exception, but I’m not really sure it’s my cup of tea.

For instance, I’ve grown accustomed to holding down the “home” button in order to bring up some of my most recently used apps. That isn’t how this works. When you hold “home” on the Liquid MT, the Acer UI pops up with your missed calls, local weather and so on. Instead, you get back to the home screen, swipe to the side, and see the history of your activity. I suppose this achieves the same thing, but I prefer the “hold the home button” approach.

The app arrangement, on the other hand, is reasonable. You have two lines of four icons each that are “docked” to the bottom of the home screen. When you swipe up to see the rest of your apps, these eight icons remain “locked” at the top. The rest of your apps are then arranged on pages, not unlike iOS.

General Performance

Even though it’s not quite a gigahertz processor, the 800MHz Scorpion processor and Adreno 205 GPU are able to hold their own for most of the daily activities that you’d have on this phone. Angry Birds was smooth, YouTube playback wasn’t a concern, and everything ran quite smoothly.

It’s not really enough to make this phone stand out from the rest of the Android-fueled crowd, but it’s holding its own too.

Using the 5.0 Megapixel Camera

No one should really expect a camera phone to be as good as a real phone, but there are lots of smartphones that are really starting to challenge that assumption. The iPhone 4 is one example. The Nokia N8 is another. Unfortunately, the Acer Liquid MT does not fall into this realm.

As you can see from my sample photo, there is very significant noise throughout. You pick up on some details, to be sure, but that grainy noise just isn’t acceptable. Here is another sample. To make matters worse, the camera won’t even work if you don’t have a microSD card inserted. It comes with a 2GB card, but be prepared to buy your own higher capacity storage.

Conclusion

The Acer Liquid MT has some interesting things going for it. The curved screen is an interesting approach and I like the “hidden” notification lights at the top. Performance is reasonable and it’s among the cheaper Android smartphones when you buy into a contract with Rogers. Having Froyo out of the box isn’t bad either, considering that only the Nexus S is currently shipping with Gingerbread.

On the flip side, there are more than a few downsides to this phone. I’m not a fan of the extra weight and thickness, for instance, nor do I like the heavy noise exhibited by the 5.0-megapixel camera. This is going to be a personal preference thing, but I’ll still take HTC Sense UI (or vanilla Android) over the Acer UI. It’s also a pain that not only do you have to remove the battery cover, but the battery itself to replace the microSD card… which is necessary for taking photos.

It’s too bad that Rogers doesn’t have a newer HTC Android smartphone (yet), but you’re better off going with the Captivate from Samsung if that’s how you swing. This Acer just isn’t as good, but I guess that is reflected in its relatively lower price.

The post REVIEW: Acer Liquid MT Android Smartphone appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

We were all thumbs over the possibility of a PlayStation Phone for a very long time. We had the teaser stuff during the Super Bowl, but now Sony Ericsson has officially come forward with an official announcement for the Xperia Play.

The good news is that this is the world’s first PlayStation-certified smartphone. It’s also good that they finally ditched the all-caps XPERIA in favor of the more normal-looking Xperia. As expected, the Xperia Play runs on Android 2.3 and takes advantage of the recently announced PlayStation Suite initiative. That’s like PSN, but not really.

There weren’t any real surprises with yesterday’s announcement. We see the slide-out controls, 1GHz processor, Adreno GPU, and a wide range of content partners that include EA, Gamehouse, Glu, Namco Bandai, PopCap, and Unity Technologies.

Rogers Wireless has the Canadian exclusive on the Xperia Play, while the phone is destined for Verizon Wireless south of the 49th parallel. Both carriers are expected to launch the gaming phone in March. Let’s just hope for Sony Ericsson’s sake that this doesn’t become their version of the N-Gage.

[Sony]

The post Sony Ericsson Xperia Play Destined For Verizon And Rogers appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The current Acer Liquid E is starting to look pretty dated next to its newer Android stablemates, so it’s about time for an upgrade. We first saw the Acer Liquid Metal in November, but now it’s back with a different name: the Acer Liquid mt. Because, you know, lower-case letters are cool.

The physical appearance of the phone, as you recall, isn’t exactly a huge departure from its predecessors. The main different, I guess, is that chrome finishing to provide a slightly more upscale look. Specs include Android 2.2 Froyo, 800MHz Qualcomm 7230 processor, 5MP camera, and 3.6-inch capacitive touchscreen.

The dealio, it seems, is that the Liquid mt will hit Rogers some time in the first quarter for $49.99 on a three-year contract. If you’re not one for contracts, you can get the Android phone for $399.99 outright. In the face of all these 1GHz and even dual core smartphones, the Liquid mt is the bargain-minded alternative.

No word on whether Roger’s pet dog will be getting the upgrade too, but I imagine Fido will get the hand me down a few months after Rogers has had its fill.

[Mobile Syrup, Acer]

The post Liquid Metal In Your Pocket – The Acer Liquid mt On Rogers appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The first Palm Pre was supposed to be an iPhone killer. It never really did live up to those expectations, but a buyout from HP looked as though new fire had started with the webOS platform. And the result. The Palm Pre 2.

First Impressions

The form factor is identical to the original Pre. The curvy appearance of a river stone allows for a compact 3.1-inch display, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a 1 gigahertz processor.  The specs got a mild bump, being the first Palm smartphone with a five-megapixel camera, webOS 2.0, and HSPA 3.6Mbps connectivity.   WiFi, Bluetooth, Exchange support, and up to 15 days of standby battery life round out the specs.   I was really hoping that the HP-Palm synergy would be a bit more creative and inventive when it came to the Pre 2. Instead, what we got was a mild upgrade from the original.

At the same time, I’m happy to see a better build quality and materials, opting for a softer finish. The slider mechanism is still a little “wobbly” at times, though, so you’ll want to be gentle

The Interface and Performance

If you liked the original webOS, you’ll really like webOS 2.0.  The faster processor under the hood is a bonus, but gesture controls can take a little getting used to — there is a touch-sensitive strip beneath the screen for both horizontal and vertical swipes — but once you do, it’s quite the clean and easy interaction.

The home screen can be populated with a series of “cards,” which are thumbnail-sized versions of your open applications. What’s great is that you don’t need a real app “killer” in order to fully close them; just swipe them upward off the screen and they close. This is true multi-tasking and many apps come with push notifications.

For instance, I was using Bad Kitty for Twitter (based on the recommendations of the Twitter community) and you can set it to “push” any new tweets to a small message bar that’ll appear below the main screen icons. That’s pretty handy, but not even close to Microsoft’s out of the box tiles.

Whereas the original Pre seemed to suffer from performance issues, the gigahertz processor on the Pre 2 didn’t seem to have any trouble with more than a couple of apps running at the same time. I was able to play a game, run apps, surf the web, and watch YouTube videos all at the same time without any noticeable performance decrease.

Touchscreen and Keyboard

Remember that touch-sensitive strip I was talking about? It’s not quite as responsive as I would have liked. Sometimes, the upward swipe (to move an app into the home screen card view) wouldn’t be recognized. Sometimes, the “back” swipe would take more than a couple of tries. I almost wish they put in a BlackBerry-like trackpad in there.

Similarly, you may not be particularly impressed with the touchscreen. At just a hair over three-inches and with only a 320×480 pixel resolution, it doesn’t really hold up against the iPhone 4 or Galaxy S. That said, the smaller screen makes for a more compact (albeit not as skinny) device. There is a definite trade off, but I found the smaller screen to be adequate for most of my needs.

The keyboard, unfortunately, still suffers from many of the concerns carried over from the first Pre. You may still have some issues with the top row of keys, for example, because they’re a little too close to the edge of the upper half.

Even though the keys themselves don’t seem that much smaller than what I have on my Nokia E71, I had a harder time typing accurately on them. There’s not enough key travel and the “squishy” rubberized feel hurts my accuracy. I guess I could get used to it over time, but in terms of hardware keyboards, it’s not the best.

Camera, Games and Battery Life

As far as cameraphones go, the Pre 2 is decent but far from breathtaking. As you can see from my sample photo, the details can be blurry, the higher ISO results in a fair bit of noise, and the contrast can be completely blown out. That said, this is a phone and not really a camera. The Pre 2 camera is okay, but it’s not as good as what you get on an iPhone 4, for instance.

While the Palm App Catalog really pales in comparison to the iPhone App Store and Android Market, there is enough there to satiate the app needs of most smartphone users. Many popular games are ported to webOS, including Angry Birds and Need for Speed Underground. Gaming on the slightly smaller screen is still suitable and performance was not at all a concern.

Battery life was a concern. Even with relatively mild usage, I was barely able to make it through a regular 24-hour period without reaching for a wall outlet. Extend your gaming or YouTube-watching session a little longer and you’ll be charging multiple times a day. This is a common concern for many touchscreen smartphones, though, so your mileage will surely vary.

Bottom Line

The version of the Pre 2 that serves as the subject of today’s review is the locked model being sold through Rogers Wireless, but it will be identical to the unlocked model and the upcoming version coming to Verizon Wireless. You know, aside from that whole CDMA/GSM thing. Is the Pre 2 a vast improvement over its predecessor? Yes and no.  It isn’t a quantum leap from the first Pre (and the Pre Plus) as it is a mild evolutionary step. It’s like moving from the Bold 9700 to the Bold 9780. It’s better, but it’s not a huge difference.

I do appreciate the faster processor and upgraded camera, but something has to bedone about that hardware keyboard. It’s just not as good as what you get with a BlackBerry or a Nokia. At the same time, the interface is peppy, the card view is great, and the smaller form factor helps to carve out a special niche for the Pre 2.

You can get it through Rogers Wireless for $99 on a three-year contract or, if you prefer, the unlocked version is being sold directly by HP (USA) for $450.

The post REVIEW – Palm Pre 2 webOS smartphone appeared first on Mobile Magazine.