Another cool smart phone — HTC Touch Diamond
Another really slick looking smart phone arrived this week, the HTC Touch Diamond which looks like it’s another direct iPhone competitor. Now if I could only find a nice data plan here in Canada and if some of these phones would actually be released here that would be nice too.
You can check out the specs on the official site. I don’t think the HTC Touch Diamond is a multi-touch like the iPhone. When I get the chance I’ll be doing some research into many of these new phones before I choose one for myself and posting my findings.
iPhone coming to Canada… Finally!
So it was finally officially announced today that the iPhone will be coming to Canada later this year. Rogers will be providing it as rumoured ever since it was released.
“We’re thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year. We can’t tell you any more about it right now, but stay tuned.”
Let’s hope Apple was able to convince them to have some reasonable pricing. Now the question is do I get a Blackberry, iPhone or XPERIA X1.
I talked about Sony Ericsson’s XPERIA X1 a few months back, and the iPhone last year.
Sony Ericsson’s XPERIA X1
Today I did my usual series of iPhone searches in Canada, and like usual, found no information on a Canadian release date. I have never owned a cell phone before, and even though I am a gadget nut, I’ve never really found them all that compelling. Lately though the tides have been turning and more and more I find myself wanting one, but I want a really cool one with lots of features on it. Up until today the iPhone has had my complete attention.
While Googling today I came across the Sony Ericsson’s XPERIA X1 phone. It was announced in early February, but I missed out on this news. This phone looks great and is probably a serious contender for the iPhone, but like all great things I want it’s not out yet, and who knows when it will be available in Canada. At least now I have two phones to wait for, and if this phone is all it’s cracked up to be, the deciding factor might be whichever one is available in Canada first.
The XPERIA X1 has a touch screen, but it’s also got a physical key pad which slides out from under the phone. I’ve used the iTouch many times, and I’m not totally sold on the touch screen key pad. Another thing I find is that the iTouch looks so gunky after you play around with it. With finger print smears all over, it looks a lot less compelling, especially in the Apple Store, I feel like I should wear a pair of gloves before I touch it. That’s one thing I really love about my DS Lite, I think a stylus is such a great idea, the screen always stays nice and clean and the precision can’t be matched in my opinion by a finger touch screen. That said, scratches can be an issue. I know that touch screens are the future now and the stylus is probably dead in the water for now.
So basically I’m waiting for an iPhone, or an XPERIA X1 so far, both phones look really slick. The XPERIA isn’t even out yet, but at least it is going to be released in Canada. You can read more about the details on Kris Abel’s blog. You can find more information on Gizmodo’s site, and the official XPERIA X1 site.
iPhone in Canada, When!
There’s a tonne of articles discussing the lack of an iPhone in Canada. Out of all the gadgets I want and follow, Apple’s new iPhone has become my mission; I want one. I know I can buy a hacked one, but that costs a lot, and at the end of the day I would rather just have it work without me having to do anything to it.
This is one of my most anticipated gadgets. I don’t have a cell phone of any kind and never had, so the iPhone will be my first cell phone. Hopefully when we do finally get it, it will be the newer model and reality will have set in with the major telco’s in Canada that our wireless broadband is too expensive. If the broadband costs too much, I won’t be getting one, because the ability to surf the web anywhere is a major selling point for me. I think handheld web surfing is about to explode. I feel that in about five years from now we will all wonder how we ever lived in a world without wireless Internet anywhere.
I won’t post the rumors, there are enough sites for that already, but I’ll keep posting on any facts I find, and if and when I get one, I’ll post all the info here. Read up on the rumors at iPhone Info and the MacRumors iPhone section. There are also a lot of Canadian specific rumors about Rogers, Apple and the iPhone trademark issues.
