Isaiah's Tech

Motorola Milestone owners in Hong Kong and Macau looks like they're slowly starting to get the Android 2.1 update which is good news. By the end of this month, Europe will be getting it as well. DROID owners? Well, we still don't know, but we're hoping that it'll be the end of this month or early next month... Of course, you can also do it yourself.

[Engadget]

It looks Telus is either being generous or isn't getting as much sales on the Motorola Milestone as they thought they would. It's now available on Telus (here) for just $149.99 on a 3-year contract. The handset hasn't even been available for a whole month yet and it has already dropped $50 in price.

[Mobile Syrup]

It looks like Mozilla is really hard at work on Fennec / Firefox Mobile on Android handsets. Two pictures have popped up today, one above which is Fennec on the Nexus One and below is a picture of it on the Motorola DROID. There's not much left to say here, but I doubt it's stable at this point.

[Boy Genius]

It's Telus Tuesday, okay, well, not really, but they've launched a new handset for Canada to go out and get (most of Canada at least). It's the Motorola Milestone! It's now available for $199.99 on a 3-year contract, $499.99 on a 2-year contract, $549.99 on a 1-year contract, and $599.99 contract-free. This Android handset launched as the DROID on Verizon in the US and is rocking a 3.7-inch touchscreen display with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. It's a pretty amazing phone so pick one up (here on Telus) whenever you can.




[Mobile Syrup]

Yesterday it was rumoured that Telus would be launching the Motorola Milestone on February 15th and now an internal memo has stated that they'll actually be launching it three days later - on February 18th. In two days, Telus will reportedly "start taking deposits" for the phone, kind of like a pre-order. The rumoured price is $199.99 on a 3-year contract and $549 contract-free.

Update: According to Mobile Syrup there's some bad news regarding the upcoming Motorola Milestone on Telus. Since their HSPA network isn't available everywhere yet, Manitoba and Saskatchewan will not be getting their shot at the Milestone. Incredibly bad news for those folks.

[Mobile Syrup]

It's unconfirmed at this time, but if you believe Mobile Magazine's tipster then February 15th is the date to mark on your calendar. The latest rumour has is that the 15th of this month will be when Telus releases the Motorola Milestone. It'll be running Android 2.0 so that's great news since all of the Android handsets in Canada still run 1.5 and 1.6. The price is said to be $199.99 CAD on a 3-year contract and $549 contract-free.

[Mobile Magazine]

Telus has just confirmed that the Motorola Milestone is coming soon seeing how they've just plastered it on the home page. The upcoming Milestone looks like it's now "Coming Soon." Of course, we don't know exactly when so we'll have to wait and see. Let's hope it's in a couple of days / weeks.

Update: Phandroid has just spotted the Milestone also "Coming Soon" in a recent Best Buy Mobile buyer's guide. The launch should be very soon, like I said.

[Mobile Syrup]

We already know that the Motorola Milestone is set to launch on Telus early this year but we don't know when. Well, the latest rumour has it that it will launch on January 26th - if everything is "on time". This will definitely be the best Android phone to-date that has hit Canada. Hopefully this rumour turns out to be true, especially since Telus has one of the fastest networks.

Update: That was shortlived. According to a newer Mobile Syrup post the Milestone actually won't be launching on January 26th. It's still scheduled for an early Q1 launch, but the date is still unknown.

[Mobile Syrup]

At this point we already know that the Motorola Backflip is headed to AT&T in Q1 of this year as one of their first Android phones. Well, Motorola has finally made the handset official. This handset will feature everything we already know: MOTOBLUR on top of Android 2.1, a 5MP camera, WiFi / 3G support, an awkward hinge, and there's even a touchpad on the back. To make things even better, Motorola also mentioned that all of their Android handsets will get updated to Android 2.1 eventually. Flash 10.1 will also make an appearance on the DROID, which should be getting an update (not for Flash support) soon.

Anyways, check out the Backflip page here.

[Boy Genius, Engadget]

10. Samsung (I8000) Omnia II - This phone is, obviously, the direct successor to the original Omnia and Samsung has changed it enough to impress me. The Omnia II has: a 3.7-inch AMOLED resistive touchscreen display with a 480 x 800 resolution, a 5MP AF camera (with an LED flash, geo-tagging support, and face / smile detection) that's capable of shooting video at 720 x 480 resolution, a Samsung S3C6410 800MHz CPU with a dedicated graphics accelerator, 2/8/16GB of internal storage, 256MB of RAM, a microSD card slot, WiFi b/g with DLNA / Bluetooth 2.0 + A2DP / aGPS support, a 3.5mm headphone jack, Stereo FM radio with RDS, quad-band GSM / tri-band HSDPA connectivity, and a 1,500 mAh battery.

Samsung developed this new AMOLED display back in the beginning of June, so I'm glad to see that they're already shipping these out. I don't think anyone will be upset with the clarity of a 3.7-inch AMOLED display with a 480 x 800 resolution. I don't know how good the TouchWiz 2.0 UI, but I've heard that it's been greatly improved since version 1.0. Thankfully, it's just 11.9mm thick.

Unfortunately, the display is a resistive touchscreen so it's not as responsive as it could be. I tested this handset in stores and it was running Windows Mobile 6.5, but it was fairly sluggish - which made me quite sad. The widgets on the home screen were quite laggy and Samsung's customized UI is not as good as HTC's.


You can check out the Samsung (I8000) Omnia II here or on GSM Arena (photo credit), if you'd like.

9. Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO - Here is a great QWERTY keyboard-packed phone and it has amazing specs. The OmniaPRO has: a 3.5-inch AMOLED resistive touchscreen display with a 480 x 800 resolution, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a 5MP AF camera (with an LED flash, geo-tagging support, and face / smile detection) capable of recording D1 video (720 x 480 resolution), a Samsung S3C6410 800MHz CPU with a dedicated graphics accelerator, 256MB of RAM, 2GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, WiFi b/g with DLNA / aGPS / Bluetooth 2.0 + A2DP support, a 3.5mm headphone jack, Stereo FM radio with RDS, quad-band GSM / dual-band HSDPA connectivity, and a 1,500 mAh battery.

Thankfully, it's got a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, which is a great addition to any mobile phone. Like the Samsung I8000 Omnia II, this handset is also rocking Samsung's new AMOLED display that has a high 480 x 800 resolution. This is sure to bring you the crispest pictures and video you've ever seen on a mobile phone. An 800MHz CPU also joins the party, which is welcomed. This phone beat out the Samsung I8000 Omnia II simply because it has a physical QWERTY keyboard and the virtually identical spec sheet.

But, like I said, this phone has a resistive touchscreen display which is a let down. However, Samsung has placed their new "Advanced R Touch" technology on this handset. At this point, I don't know how much it will improve the touchscreen of the device. Another let down is, of course, the OS. Windows Mobile 6.5 hasn't received the best of reviews, but if you can get past the slight lag it'll do. WinMo is still quite good in the mobile OS world, they just need to improve the UI and the speed of it. Another bad thing is that it's 16.2mm thick, simply because of the QWERTY keyboard. A like it or hate it kind of thing is the back battery cover - it's red.

You can check out the Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO here or on GSM Arena (photo credit), if you'd like.

8. Nokia N900 - This is Nokia's first Maemo 5 device and I've read that the OS is quite nice, especially since it comes with full Flash support. The Nokia N900 features: a 3.5-inch resistive touchscreen display with a 480 x 800 resolution, 32GB of internal storage, 256MB of RAM, a microSD card slot, a 5MP AF camera (with a Carl Zeiss lens and a dual-LED flash) capable of shooting WVGA video, WiFi b/g with DLNA / Bluetooth 2.1 + A2DP / aGPS support, an ARM Cortex A8 600MHz CPU with PowerVR SGX graphics, an FM radio / transmitter, a secondary video calling camera, a TV output, a 3.5mm headphone jack, quad-band GSM / tri-band HSDPA connectivity, and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard.

This handset comes with more goodies like Skype and Google Talk VoIP integration, which is great for the future. I'm sure Skype will integrate video into their mobile software soon, especially with Fring doing that with the iPhone and certain S60 devices. Hopefully they roll out support for my device soon, just saying.

Unfortunately no phone is perfect. The resistive touchscreen display isn't as responsive as people would've liked and it's fairly thick at 18mm. The thickness wouldn't bother me much though since I always have baggy pockets and the phone I have right now is 17.9mm (it's an N81) - and I don't mind it.


You can check out the Nokia N900 here or on GSM Arena (photo credit), if you'd like.

What it doesn't tell us on the spec sheet is that the Satio is capable of playing PlayStation games in nHD (ninth High Definition) format. We don't know how well the Satio will play games, but it does have the same CPU as the iPhone 3GS, which is a good thing. We'll know more about the gaming capabilities of this phone in the future. The camera is more than impressive, but just remember that megapixels aren't everything. I should probably mention that you get an 8GB microSD card in the box.

As of right now, the inclusion of a 3.5mm headphone jack has not been mentioned yet, so I'll assume that it doesn't have one. This is a huge let down to most people out there. The touchscreen is supposedly resistive, but it's not confirmed yet. The Satio runs on S60 and it's not as touch-friendly as some of the other OS's out there. Like the LG BL40 - which didn't make my list - it has a small 1,000 mAh battery.

You can check out the Sony Ericsson Satio (Idou) here or on GSM Arena (photo credit), if you'd like.




Besides the 8-megapixel goodness, the camera also comes equipped with: an LED-flash, geo-tagging support, face / smile / blink detection, and image stabilization. The 3.7-inch display is the largest AMOLED to hit a mobile phone, but unfortunately, it's not the best one to hit Samsung devices. The Samsung I8000 Omnia II - mentioned earlier - has a 3.7-inch AMOLED display as well, but it has an improved 480 x 800 resolution.

There's not much to dislike about this handset, but it does have a couple of underwhelming features. The i8910 Omnia HD runs on Symbian S60 5th Edition and it's not as touch-friendly as the iPhone OS. The browser also doesn't have Flash support right now, but that's limited to a few handsets at this point.

You can check out the Samsung i8910 HD here or on GSM Arena (photo credit), if you'd like.

1. Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 - It wasn't a tough decision, even though I've always hated Sony Ericsson; I once hoped that they would just go bankrupt already, since they release the same cheap Walkman phones over and over again. However, the XPERIA X10 was made official about a month ago and the specs are pretty damn good. The XPERIA X10 is my number one phone to-date, even though it hasn't been released yet. Its specs are truly promising.
In addition, this phone is running a sexy and customized build of Android 2.0 (as seen here). And yes, I know what you're saying. How can this be your number one phone when it hasn't been released yet? Well, GSM Arena got their first look at this handset and mentioned that it is running a Qualcomm QSD8250 1GHz Snapdragon CPU.

What also makes the XPERIA X10 interesting is that it's looking like it will be Sony Ericsson's first Android handset, since they haven't announced anything else yet. Somewhere down the line though, it looks like Android devices will have multitouch support. 4-inch capacitive touchscreen display + 1GHz Snapdragon CPU + sexy and customized Android build + an 8MP camera = Love.

The bad thing about this handset is that it won't be available until early 2010. If you were to pick the Google Nexus One or the HTC HD2 over this handset, I couldn't and wouldn't argue with you. They're all great handsets, but the fact that this runs Android, has a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, and packs a 4-inch OLED touchscreen display are the real punch-out factors for me.

You can check out the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 here or on GSM Arena (photo credit), if you'd like.

A bunch of notables - in no specific order: LG GW820 eXpo, HTC Touch Pro 2, Toshiba TG01, Nokia N97, LG Viewty Smart, HTC Touch Diamond 2, LG Chocolate BL40, Palm Pre, HTC Touch HD, , Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2, Acer (A1) Liquid, Acer (F1) neoTouch, HTC Hero, and the HTC Dragon / Passion / Bravo.

Yes, those are a lot of honourable mentions, but that's only because there are so many high-end phones that could be on this list. This list may not be perfect and I tried to do my best judging each phone by its spec sheet and other reviews that I have read. It's my first time making a list of the top phones on my blog and I understand that I can improve it. All-in-all I'm satisfied with my list - it just sucks that they're all expensive unlocked.

Of course, there are still phones to look forward to later this year. There has been talks of Samsung's WiMAX-capable handset running Android; it's rumoured to hit Sprint sometime in the future. Another phone to look forward to is a Samsung handset that will be running on the Nvidia Tegra chipset, check it out here. If this trend continues, Samsung will overtake Nokia.

It looks like there'll be another buy one get one free offer on Verizon. If you get a $99 Droid Eris or a $199 Motorola DROID, Verizon will be happy enough to give you a free Droid Eris. This deal actually started yesterday and will be in effect until December 24th so go and get one for your friends and family now. Check it out on Verizon here!

[Boy Genius]

Android 2.0 has been out for about a month on the Motorola DROID and it looks like Google is already going to release Android 2.1 in the near future - December 11th to be exact. If the rumour is true, it could be making its way to the DROID, the Droid Eris, and even the HTC Hero - as we saw in the leak the other day. This won't be that big of a change, but it should fix some problems that were found in Android 2.0.

[Electronista]

It looks like Verizon's Motorola DROID has just gotten some price cuts already. Amazon (here) has cut the price of the DROID to $149.99 and Dell (here) has cut it even lower to $119.99. It's still going for $199.99 on Verizon, but I'm pretty sure you'll be interested in these deals as well.

[Mashable]

The Motorola MILESTONE has already made its way to O2's network and Verizon's network in the US (as the DROID) and it looks like it'll be hitting another carrier. Vodafone. You can actually check it out on Vodafone's site here to get it for €99 ($148 USD) on a new 2-year contract and you can also get it contract-free unlocked for €499.90 ($746 USD). This MILESTONE will have an 8GB microSD card inside, in case you're curious. If you're one of the first 1,000 customers to buy this handset then you will get a free multimedia station.

[Slash Gear]

It looks like people in Germany can now get their hands on a contract-free Motorola DROID, which is called the Motorola Milestone over there. Unfortunately, this model only comes with an 8GB microSD card - the Verizon comes with a 16GB one. You can order it now for €549.99 ($816 USD), so check it out on O2 Germany's website here.

Update on November 17th: According to GSM Arena, this handset is also available for €1 on a 2-year contract where you'll have to pay at least €20 monthly. Check it out here.

[Slash Gear]