Motorola – rgbFilter

Best Buy Canada’s Free Phone Fridays – more killer (on contract) deals including the Xperia PLAY

May 27, 2011 drsquid Android, Atrix, Bell, Best Buy, Blackberry, canada, Free, Gaming, google, HTC, Incredible S, Mobile, Motorola, Nexus S, PLAY, Rogers, Samsung, smartphone, Sony, Sony Ericsson, superphone, Telus, Torch, Virgin Mobile, Xperia1 Comment

Best Buy Canada’s Free Phone Fridays returns with some killer deals – if you sign a new 3yr contact. This week’s deals include the Nexus S, ATRIX & Xperia PLAY for $0. With the announcement that the mobile version Minecraft is coming exclusively (at first) to the PLAY perhaps it’s time to consider getting a 2nd phone? Also if you are on the fence about the PLAY we should have some videos posted later today of it in action – it is, IMO, hands-down the best mobile gaming experience you…

Best Buy’s Free Phone Fridays – this week’s Android deals

May 13, 2011May 15, 2011 drsquid Android, Atrix, Bell, Best Buy, canada, contract, Desire HD, Fido, Free Phone Fridays, Galaxy S, HTC, Incredible S, Motorola, Nexus S, Optimus One, Promotion, Rogers, Samsung, smartphone, superphone, Telus4 Comments

Best Buy Canada has followed the Best Buy US lead and is offering a selection of ‘free’ phones every Friday. Of course there is a catch – they are only free if you buy the phone on a 3-year term, as a new activation. While this means that not everybody can take advantage of these deals, if you are no longer in a contract or looking to switch carriers, you can pick up one of the latest Android phones by just signing a piece of paper! The phones included (and…

Motorola XOOM hands-on video, now available at Telus

April 19, 2011April 26, 2011 drsquid Android, Android 3.0, google, hands-on, Honeycomb, Motorola, Motorola Xoom, slate, tablet, Telus, video, Xoom1 Comment

On April 7th Motorola announced that the XOOM Android 3.0 tablet was available in Canada. Future Shop had jumped the gun a bit and started selling them the day before so instead of waiting for a review unit to be sent, I rushed out to buy it right away. I had hoped that I would be able to get some hands-on videos posted soon after. Sadly, due to Real Life™ this was not to be.

Telus releases the rugged Motorola DEFY Android phone

April 5, 2011April 5, 2011 drsquid Android, Android 2.2, canada, DEFY, launch, Motoblur, Motorola, phone, release, smartphone, Telus0 comment

Already available on T-Mobile in the US since November 2010, Motorola has decided to bring the rugged DEFY to Canada. This mid-range Android smartphone stands out from the competition in one major way – its durability. It has a scratch proof Gorilla Glass screen, is water-resistant, dust-proof, and can take a few more drops than your average smartphone. However keep in mind water-resistant doesn’t mean water-proof, so I wouldn’t suggest trying to duplicate the conditions of the image above! While the DEFY is certainly not a cutting edge Android phone,…

Telus bringing Motorola XOOM to Canada

March 21, 2011April 4, 2011 Doug Groves Android, Best Buy, Futureshop, Honeycomb, Motorola, Nvidia, tablet, Tegra 2, Telus, Xoom4 Comments

Motorola announced today that the XOOM tablet, running Android 3.0 Honeycomb, will be coming to Telus in April. There’s no official date at this time, but Futureshop’s website suggests that it should arrive mid-April. Although there are both 3G and WiFi only variants of the 10.1″ tablet, Telus will initially only be offering the WiFi model, which they’re recommending be paired with one of their mobile hotspot ‘Flex Plans’ to give users on the go connectivity. It will be available at Telus stores and other electronic retailers with no contract starting at $599.99.

The Bell Motorola ATRIX, coming March 17th: Revolutionary, but at what cost?

March 8, 2011September 26, 2012 drsquid Android, Android 2.2, Atrix, Bell, canada, Froyo, Gaming, Lapdock, Motoblur, Motorola, smartphone, superphone9 Comments

When Motorola announced the ATRIX at CES, I was very excited – even more so when they followed up that announcement with news that it was coming to Canada on Bell. Up to that point, as a long-time Milestone (Droid to our US readers) user, though, I had been a little disappointed in Motorola. They had seemed to have forgotten about Canada. Both the Droid X and Droid 2 were released in the US last year, but they never came up north. By year’s end, it was almost like Motorola…

Wind Mobile launches it’s first high end Android Phone

September 24, 2010September 27, 2010 Doug Groves Android, Android 2.1, Eclair, google, Motorola, unlocked, Wind Mobile, XT7202 Comments

Wind Mobile has finally launched its first ‘high end’ Android based phone, in the form of the Motorola XT720. Priced at $450, with an instant rebate bringing it down to $430 until the end of September, the XT720 runs Android 2.1 on top of a Cortex A8 processor, and sports an 8 Mpixel camera (auto focus and flash), with a 3.7 inch capacitve screen. In many ways, the XT720 is comparable to other high end Motorola Android devices, such as the Milestone, but with a better camera and no physical…

Rogers and Telus launch Motorola Flipout and Charm entry-level Android phones

September 10, 2010September 14, 2010 drsquid Android, Android 2.1, canada, Charm, Flipout, google, HSPA, launch, Motoblur, Motoblur 1.5, Motorola, QWERTY, Rogers, smartphone1 Comment

Google Android’s assault on the smartphone market share has been relentless this year, and along with HTC, the battle has been spearheaded by Motorola. The latest Android phones available in Canada from Motorola are two entry level models that bring unique form factors to the wide variety of phones available, and they both run Android 2.1 with an update of Motorola’s Motoblur UI. Google’s strategy to win the war against RIM and Apple is simply to overwhelm the enemy with numbers – there are a staggering amount of Android phones…

Motorola BACKFLIP on Telus & QUENCH on Rogers

July 11, 2010July 12, 2010 Doug Groves Android, Android 2.1, Backflip, Bell, Dext, google, Motoblur, Motorola, Quench, Rogers, smartphone, Telus2 Comments

Unlike a good scotch, phone operating systems don’t age well, so writing a review for smartphones running Android 1.5 is a tough sell. This problem is exasperated when said phones are from the same manufacturer, have the same internals, same UI and same overall performance. That’s exactly the predicament in trying to discuss the Android based Backflip on Telus and Quench on Rogers. You see, I reviewed the Dext from Bell last month, and from a performance standpoint, they’re the same. The only real difference to an end user is…

Bell Motorola DEXT review

June 7, 2010June 15, 2010 Doug Groves Android, CLIQ, Dext, mobile phone, MOTO, Motoblur, Motorola, review, smart phone, smartphone9 Comments

At the height of the RAZR’s success, Motorola was a force to be reckoned with in the mobile space, but the migration to an increasingly smartphone world has left Motorola behind. To make make a push back into the phone market, they’ve decided to hitch their wagon to Google’s Android train, with the announcement of the qwerty keyboard packing CLIQ in the US last fall. To appeal to social networking aficionados, the CLIQ and it’s brethren are adorned with Motorola’s custom UI called MOTOBLUR, which provides a constant feed of…

MOTOBLUR phones come to Canada on Telus, Bell, and Rogers

May 19, 2010May 19, 2010 drsquid Android, Backflip, Bell, canada, CLIQ, Cliq XT, Dext, google, Motoblur, Motorola, OS 1.5, Quench, RIM, Rogers, Social View, Telus4 Comments

The last in the trio of Motorola Android phones running their custom UI, MOTOBLUR, launched in Canada on Tuesday, with the release of the Motorola QUENCH on Rogers. The two other phones in the Motoblur line-up are the DEXT on Bell, and the BACKFLIP on Telus. The QUENCH is available now for $49.99 ($424.99 outright) on a three-year voice and data plan. It is a touch-screen only device, and has a 3.1” 320×480 screen, 5.0 MP camera, and uses Android OS 1.5, with the MOTOBLUR UI. To make up for…

Episode 020 – Mobile Madness

November 15, 2009November 16, 2009 Doug Groves Bell, droid, HD2, HSPA, HTC, HTC HD2, iPhone, milestone, Motorola, Motorola Milestone, Rogers, Telus16 Comments

After taking a hiatus, which allowed us to catch up with our Fan Expo footage, we’re back on a regular schedule. Given the big news in the mobile phone space over the past couple of weeks, we talk about the new Bell / Telus HSPA+ network, and some of the new phones they’ve introduced (or soon will be) such as the Motorola Droid/Milestone, the HTC HD2, the end of Rogers iPhone exclusivity and much more. If you’ve been contemplating switching, or getting a new smartphone, then this is the episode…