The full interview is below and there are some good takeaways. He said Chatr will be an entirely separate division, separate billing system, separate outsourced customer care organization, separate staff in a separate building. Chatr started about a year ago and is based off the Metro PSC and Leap Wireless model in the States. In the interview he used what could be their tag line of “Unlimited Wireless that works”.

The Chatr target customer is “the very basic need customer with above average usage, average to below average income, sophisticated in the sense that they’ve been a wireless customer for a little while so they don’t need a lot of help with support. They get it and don’t need their phone other than text and voice.” Boyton also stated that Chatr is an “Urban brand” (each city will have calling “zones”) and “Is not a 21 network, doesn’t need to be the fastest”.

When I asked John Boyton about directly going after their competition such as WIND, Mobilicity and Public Mobile he stated “that a statement that bugs me little… what did they do? They looked south of the border and said, ooh look at that, that might work. So why are we any different?… We are later that WIND, Mobilicity and Public but earlier that Videotron and Shaw… We’re not first but not last. But a big difference: our works.”

The early rumours of these where Chatr will be available are in Toronto, Calgary, Ottawa, Edmonton and Vancouver. But with the above statement you can also bet that you could see Chatr cover the Quebec region.

In closing Boynton stated that “If people thought that we were going to leave this segment to just everybody else to have and not us, then they don’t understand the competitive nature of the industry. We’re going to compete for our customer needs just like we would and any other company in any other industry would.”

Check it out here:

The overall design of the Liquid E is well put together. Sleek, all decked out in a glossy back with curved edges (dimensions are 116×54×12.75mm and weighs in at only 135 grams). The specs are solid too. The 3.5-inch touchscreen display has a resolution of 480×800 but captures a massive amount of fingerprints. Pictures and videos from the 5 megapixel camera show all show up nice – the only issue I found with the camera is the quality of sound from the video. It came out sounding really low and muffled.

Using the QWERTY keyboard on the screen didn’t present any issues over the past few days. The touchscreen is responsive and the Liquid E comes with a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor that’s unfortunately been reduced to 768MHz to preserve its battery life.

Even with all the other goodness that’s packed into this Acer such as WiFi, full HTML browser, GPS, 3.5mm headset jack, access to the Android Market, all your e-mail, Google Maps, Google Talk, Bluetooth and that it can holds up to 32GB… I found the device somewhat had a cheap feel to it. There’s a good reason why Rogers priced this at $49.99 on a 3-year contract. This is not something I would be proud to carry with me for the next several years. In addition, we’ve already seen this hit the low no-contract price of $375. I’m sure we’ll see this hit the $0.00 mark within a couple months max. Check out the review here:

This then begs the question about what “value” actually is. In these highly competitive wireless days isn’t every customer valuable? Value in this case is clearly about how much per month a subscriber contributes to the bottom line and making sure the shareholders see a profitable return on investment. I believe when Nadir Mohamed speaks about “Quality” he’s referring to the size, speed and reliability of their network.

Flanker brands such as Koodo Mobile, Solo Mobile, Virgin and Fido and the new entrants like Public Mobile, Mobilicity and WIND Mobile all have marketing strategies to go after the “value conscious” segment. The incumbent players like Rogers, Bell and TELUS have certainly adjusted their price plans accordingly to keep and grow their subscriber base. In addition, all Canadian carriers offer some type of Smartphone (not Public Mobile) and according to research more people are migrating to this type of mobile device.

With subsidized pricing usually coming in around the $49.99 – $99.99 price point on a 3-year, any device is actually affordable. Smartphone plans start these days around $10 a month for basic data. So these days even the lower-value customers could afford a Smartphone. Not the newest one on the block but one good enough to get started.

Nadir Mohamed makes a solid point because he knows with all this competition that customers might go and try something new. Even with Rogers being the largest wireless player in Canada with over 8 million subscribers…  a customer leaving is never a good thing as it takes more time, money and resources to eventually bring them back.

Via: Yahoo

3-year contract: $49.99
2-year contract: $324.99
1-year contract: $374.99
No-Contract: $424.99

The Quench comes with Motorola’s MOTOBLUR, runs on the first Android OS version 1.5, a 3.1-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 320×480, 5 megapixel camera, auto-focus, flash & video capabilities, WiFi, Bluetooth, holds up to 32GB with a microSD card, GPS, SWYPE full HTML browser. Overall dimensions are 116.8 x 60 x 12.5mm and weighs in at 119 grams.

Here’s a video of the Quench demo in action.
Check it out here at Rogers

3-year contract: $49.99
2-year contract: $299.99
1-year contract: $349.99
No-contract for $399.99

The Messenger comes with a 2.6-inch display (resolution of 320 x 320), full QWERTY keyboard, 3.2 megapixel camera with video capabilities, Bluetooth, WiFi, built in GPS, full HTML browser, FM Radio, speakerphone, can hold up to 32GB with a microSD card. Overall dimensions are 115.0 x 59.0 x 10.8 mm with a weight of 108 grams.

More here at Rogers
(Thanks Tristan!)

Even though the document below shows it’s the launch date of the 4th, we’re informed that the Messenger will be available at Rogers locations early this coming week. Also, this will eventually be available through TELUS.

The Samsung Messenger comes with Windows Mobile 6.5 and a 2.6-inch display (resolution of 320 x 320). In addition, a full QWERTY keyboard, 3.2 megapixel camera with video capabilities, Bluetooth, WiFi, built in GPS, full HTML browser, FM Radio, speakerphone, can hold up to 32GB with a microSD card. Overall dimensions are 115.0 x 59.0 x 10.8 mm with a weight of 108 grams.

This will come in a White and Black version. I got hold of one a couple days ago and have started to play around with Sony Ericsson’s first venture into the Google’s Android platform. The X10 will come with OS 1.6 and there is vague talk about it being upgraded to possibly 2.1 at a later undisclosed date.

Check out the video below as it’s a quick look a the hardware – which I must say is a massive step up in design for Sony Ericsson. A complete shift in the right direction with it’s simplistic elegant design. Remember how much hype the Xperia X1 received for it’s design? The X10 completely blows it away… I actually found with the X1 the keyboard was tight, keys were small and the screen was a bit tiny also. With the X10 ranks up there with all the other popular touchscreen devices. The 4-inch LCD capacitive touchscreen display is a reason to get this (resolution is 480×854). However I found with minimal use it does catch a great deal of fingerprints (but the good news is that it’s scratch resistant).

Rogers will be shipping the X10 with a 16GB microSD card and it can hold up to 32GB. Other key features are the
1GHz Snapdragon processor, 1GB of ROM/512MB of RAM, 3.5mm headset jack, an 8.1 megapixel camera that can do basically anything you want it to do – LED flash, auto-focus, face detection, video capabilities. The X10 has a 1500 mAh battery so it should last you the entire day depending on what you do. Regarding it’s weight, only a 135 grams which is the same as the iPhone. Overall dimensions being 119 x 63 x 13mm.

The Samsung Galaxy Spica was recently released by Rogers. This is their newest touchscreen Android-powered device and runs OS 1.5 but will be upgraded “soon” with no exact date in mind. We got hold of one and did a quick unboxing and will follow up with a full review.

The Galaxy Spica has a 3.2-inch AMOLED HVGA capacitive display with a resolution of 320×480. This also comes loaded with a 3.2 megapixel camera with video capabilities, GPS, Wi-Fi, 800MHz processor, 3.5 mm headset jack (comes with white earphones) and can hold up to 32GB with a microSD card (Rogers ships a 2GB card in the box). Overall dimensions are 115 x 57 x 13.2 mm and holding the Spica felt light at 124 grams, even on the back of the device there’s a grip feel to it.

Rogers has this on a promo currently for $79.99 on a 3-year contract. Other price plans are: 2-year contract for $349.99; 1-year contract for $399.99 and No contract: $449.99.

Check out the video for the unboxing, might be a bit pixelated as YouTube is still processing it.

The Flight has a number of great things going for it. First and foremost it has a 2.8 inch touchscreen display (resolution is 240×320) that is incredibly responsive. The overall design of the Flight reminds me of the Palm Pre a bit, but the slide out full QWERTY keyboard is another great feature the Flight has going for it. The keyboard is well put together and the buttons feel soft to the touch when pressed. There are dedicated keys for your messaging (text, MobileMail, Gmail, IM), directional keys and voice mail. The keyboard lights up nice in the dark and has a similar layout to the Samsung Reclaim. In addition, the actual slide mechanism is smooth and won’t cause you any grief over time.

For other features of the Flight, the 2 megapixel camera also has video capabilities but it gives you exactly what you expect. Pictures and video come up a bit pixelated but are perfect for sharing via picture messaging. For the video quality, sound is great (speaker is located at the back of the device) but the quality of picture again comes up very pixelated. The good news about the Flight is that it can pack up to 16GB of storage with a microSD card.

Surfing the web was decent, nothing incredible by any means. Speed was good and we checked out YouTube for streaming videos and it uses the entire 2.8 inch screen. Missing from the Flight is a standard 3.5mm headset jack… you’ll have to use the microUSB that comes in the box to listen to your music/videos etc. Overall dimensions are 58 x 106 x 13.95 mm and weighs in at 115 grams.

Check out the video review below:

The LG Pop (GD510) just crossed the worldwide 1 million sold mark and Rogers hopes to significantly add to this number. The Pop was recently released and costs $19.99 on a 3-year contract. I’ll be doing a full review but wanted to put an unboxing video together so you can see what you get inside.

The Pop is so incredibly light as it only weighs in at 89 grams… in addition to it’s weight it’s also small. The overall dimensions are 95.3 x 49.6 x 11.2 mm and has a 3-inch touchscreen WQVGA display (resolution of 240×400). There are the standard buttons you would always see on a device: volume rocker, mirco USB port, one-touch button to the 3 megapixel camera and power/lock.

We’ll follow up with a full review but at first glance the Pop is well worth the $19.99 and probably within a month will be price dropped to $0.00.