Archive for July 28th, 2010

Rogers’ budget-friendly chatr brand launches in Canada

We knew it was coming, and now it’s official: Rogers Wireless has today launched its entry-level “chatr” wireless brand for Canadians everywhere — and by “everywhere,” we mean Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa (Montreal is coming soon, as is possibly elsewhere). Two plans are available: $45 monthly for unlimited talk-and-text and $35 for unlimited talk and 50 free texts. As of now, the official website’s showing four devices to choose from, available at full price only (no subsidizing). On the low end, relatively speaking, there’s the Nokia 1661 candybar for $60, followed by the LG GB125R flip for $75, the Nokia 2680 portrait QWERTY slider for $95, and Samsung’s Gravity landscape QWERTY slider sitting at the top of the chain for $130. Rogers — whose name appears nowhere in Chatr’s branding so far — expects “hundreds” of chatr kiosks to be rolled out at Future Shops, Best Buys, Costcos, and other retail outlets.

The brand will compete with other budget-conscious options from the likes of Wind Mobile and Mobilicity, but this one’s got the advantage of Rogers’ more established, wider-reaching network. According to The Globe and Mail and CBC News, Wind will be offering a whopping $150 credit for those who switch to its network from Rogers / chatr. Mobilicity’s chairman John Bitove has a different strategy altogether, threatening to complain to the Competition Bureau that Rogers’ possible goal here is to drive other discount phone brands out of business before dissolving chatr and leaving the market with only a higher-priced segment. And if you were wondering where Telus and Bell Mobility stand, well, both companies are reportedly expected to follow suit with entry-level brands of their own. Data plan-averse Canadians should have quite the selection from which to choose.

Rogers’ budget-friendly chatr brand launches in Canada originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola announces Rambler QWERTY feature phone for Boost Mobile

Today Motorola announced its latest feature phone for Boost Mobile, the Rambler. The phone sports a QWERTY keyboard and a well rounded feature set. It will be available on August 11th.

Read the full story here.

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Google Rolls Out Android’s New Anti-Piracy Mechanism

If we’re hearing any one thing from developers that is scaring’em away from Android, it’s that Android apps are just way, way too easy to pirate. Hell, you don’t even have to go through shady third party download sites; just buy an app, copy it to the sd card, and refund the application. Ta-da! (Read: [...]

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HTC Announces the Use of SCLD Displays on Its Handsets

HTC Corporation, maker of famous HTC smartphones has just announced that it’ll move on to using Super LCD displays (SLCD) on its devices. These models include Nexus One and HTC Desire and the implementation will take place till the end of the summer. The reason for this swap? As PC World claims in a recent [...]

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100 Million Facebook Profile Pages Leaked to Torrent Site [Privacy]

A 2.8GB torrent is floating around out there containing data from 100 million Facebook profiles. But don’t freak out: all the data was already available publicly. More »

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