Isaiah's Tech

You may already know that Rogers is working on another "discount brand" to complete with WIND Mobile and Mobilicity, it's called Chatr. One of the first handsets that will be available on the brand will be the Nokia 2680 as "The Slider" which is a low-end handset. "The Slider" will be available for $89.99 contract-free, of course, and will feature some basic features. This will be launching in the next week.

Other handsets that will be available will be the Nokia 1661 "The Essential" for $49.99, the LG GB125R "The Flip" for $69.99, and the Samsung Gravity "The QWERTY" for $149.99.

Update: Mobile Syrup has just mentioned that the launch date for Rogers' Chatr is set for July 21st. All four handsets will be available for you to buy. Unlimited Talk will be available for $35 monthly while the Unlimited Talk and Text plan will be $45. The other three box shots are below as well!

Update: Mobile Syrup has just mentioned that it's looking like the launch for Rogers' Chatr won't be taking place on July 21st. The launch has been delayed until further notice, we'll keep you up to date.

[Mobile Syrup]

First up in this post is the Motorola Rival that's now available on Telus for as low as $99 on a 3-year contract. Other prices are as follows: $199.99 on a 2-year contract, $249.99 on a 1-year contract, and $299.99 contract-free. Just in case you forgot, the Rival has: a 2.2-inch display with a 176 x 220 resolution, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, Bluetooth, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a 2MP camera, 130MB of on-board memory, a microSD card slot, and the Telus Navigator.

Fido also released a handset yesterday, the Nokia 1661. The Nokia 1661 has: a 1.8-inch display with a 128 x 160 resolution, a flashlight, and an FM radio. Fido is now selling this phone for free on a 2-year contract or for $55 CAD on a pre-paid plan. These prices are exactly what we were expecting them to be.

[Unwired View, Mobile Syrup]

It looks like the Nokia 1661 handset will be hitting Fido on Wednesday, August 5th for $0 on a 2-year contract or $55 CAD ($51 USD) pre-paid. The Nokia 1661 is a low-end handset that has: a 1.8-inch display with a 128 x 160 resolution display, an FM radio, and an mp3 player. Just in case you wanted to know, Speak Out Wireless and Petro Canada are selling this handset for $59 CAD ($54 USD) free of contract.

[Mobile Syrup]

According to TMO News, this is T-Mobile's summer roadmap. There are still a couple of unknown devices but the highlight could definitely be the HTC Touch Pro 2 that will be released on July 22, 2009. Here you go:

• “Blade” (Sidekick 2009) - May 13
• HTC “Maple”/”Snap” - July 1st (contrary to earlier speculation, this seems to confirm a T-Mobile variant)
• HTC “Rhodium”/Wing II - July 22nd (also known as the Touch Pro 2)
• HTC “Sapphire”/”Magic” - TBD. Sorry folks.. we’ll keep you posted (a.k.a. G2)
• Sony Ericsson “CS8″ - June 24th (8mp camera? Is this the Android device they’ve been talking about?)
• Nokia 1661 (prepaid) - April 29th (We know, a week later than previously mentioned. But you know the wait will be SO worth it. No… really… it will be… )
• Samsung T349 (prepaid) - May 6th
• Samsung T239 (prepaid) - May 13th
• Samsung T559 - July 15th
• Samsung T469  - July 15th (just a simple two-tone gray, apparently)
• Samsung T749 - July 22nd (2 colors for this one: red/orange and two-tone gray)
• Samsung T659 - August 19th