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If you’re looking to truly go back to the past you can go sign up with Primus, they’ve just released the Nokia 2760. I mean this is just above a basic phone and the only reason it’s not considered basic is because it has an MP3 player and FM radio.

Honestly though, there are so many other great flip phones out there at a better price point. You can get this free on a 2 or 3-year contract. $49.95 on a 1-year contract or $99.95 month-to month. Overall dimensions of this beast are 87mm x 45mm x 21 mm with a weight of 80.4 grams.

Features include a VGA camera (4x zoom) that has a video recorder, Bluetooth-enabled, text messages, multimedia messages and email, however internal screen size is only 128 x 160, external screen is 96 x 68 with a whopping 11 MB internal memory. On a good note, this does come with your standard phone features like calendar, to-do list, notes, calculator, alarm and stopwatch.

Just remember before you spend any money on this that you’ll have this for a few years. Do you really want to be stuck with a phone that first came out well over 2 years ago? More here at Primus

If you are one of the 6.7 million who have signed up for the National Do-Not-Call List (DNCL) you must read this story. BIG eye opener. Michael Geist, professor at the University of Ottawa, has written a remarkable insight into why the DNCL could be coming to an end.

It’s well known that the CRTC has received a great amount of criticism for the DNCL by actually selling the list to outside companies, Canadians were getting more calls rather than less. Some organization are exempt under the list such as political parties, charities etc… however, Geist did some digging around about the NDCL and found a list of companies that have downloaded the do-not-call list:real estate agents, car dealers, financial advisers and lawn-care companies. That’s right… for us who signed up for the list to be protected have actually been sold.

Apparently the CRTC receives over 20,000 telemarketing complaints every month. More interesting is who manages the complaints first… not the CRTC, but Bell. You guessed it, an organization who’s in business to make money off consumers manages a government driven initiative. Where do our tax dollars actually go then?

So Bell has the final word on which complaints are real or not real. Geist says “In December 2008, Bell reported only 32 valid do-not-call complaints, while dismissing 2,748 complaints as invalid. In November 2008, there were 44 valid complaints as opposed to 3,981 complaints dismissed as invalid”. The complaints that Bell deems as a real issue then heads to the CRTC for further investigation. To date a total of 70 warning letters have been issued, nobody has been fined the max penalty of $15,000.

Where this story stems from is the recently passed the Electronic Commerce Protection Act, Bill C-27 or the anti-spam bill. This basically protects us Canadians from being bombarded by spammers (including text-message spam). According to Geist, a very important statement was made at the end of the report: “buried at the very end of the 69-page bill, are provisions that lay the groundwork to kill the National Do-Not-Call list… but boils down to the government repealing the provisions that establish and govern the do-not-call list. In its place, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act approach of requiring an opt-in would apply, meaning that Canadians would no longer need to register their phone numbers on a do-not-call list.”

This could be good news but with everything takes time, especially during the slow summer months when the House of Commons takes time off. Industry Minister Tony Clement has plans “later this year” to “review” the DNCL, but what is needed is some clear direction, protection and explanation of why the National Do-Not-Call List has been such a pain… when essentially it was supposed to be in place to make our lives more pleasurable.

More here at Michael Geist

It wasn’t that long ago that Koodo put their entire line-up on sale by taking $25 off each device. Today, the fun was over for some phones as they’ve been increased but one notable drop that actually stayed was the LG KEYBO. This used to be available for $225 but now has been placed at a price tag of $200 outright, or $50 when you use the Tab.

Another contest up here in the Great White North. Let’s round up what we have going on with the carriers and us too. First, we have the Nokia E71 Mother’s Day Giveaway and our Forum Contest. Bell has a NHL Award contest, Depeche Mode contest and even Sony Ericsson joined the party with their Best Mate contest that can send you to Vegas.

For all you hardcore NHL playoff fans, TELUS has launched the “Playoff Beard Challenge” through their Mike Network. It’s will actually be entertaining to watch the growth! Basically you enter your team, up to a max of 10 and start growing your playoff beard. You upload a current photo of all team members and choose your “starting line-up” and as the growth of your beard gets bigger you can swap team members in and out to join the starting line-up. The objective is to obtain the “best playoff beard”.

You can mark this one down for the rumour of the day, but it looks pretty solid as it’s coming straight from the LG site.

According to a working URL it that point to an xml file shows that the LG GT500, otherwise known as the “Puccini” will eventually make its way over to Canada (probably called something different).

I did some research on this and the LG GT500 Puccini will be launched by T-Mobile this summer. Specs on this are a little bit like the Secret. It’s slim, only 12 mm thin and weighs in at only 86 grams. Comes with a 5 megapixel camera (autofocus and flash) with video recording capabilities, GPS. Also, this touchscreen has a screen size of 3 inches with a resolution of 240 x 400 pixels.

Time will tell… for now, here is the working URL with Rogers attached to it:

http://gsm.lge.com/html/gsm/LG-GT500R-Rogers.xml

Thanks Mark!

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Even though RIM has released the new Curve 8900 this has not stopped OtterBox from developing the 8300 Impact Series Cases. With millions of Curves out there I’m sure these cases will do very well.

If you are prone to dropping, scratching or get a lot of dust on your device, the Impact Series is so incredibly simple to protect your precious berry. This case only fits the 8300, 8310, 8320 or 8330, not the 8350i. This only comes in black, weighs 85 grams and keeps the style of the Curve in tact by having easy access to the headphone jack, sync/charge jack, speakers, microphone & camera. This costs $19.95 (USD) and can be purchased through OtterBox or any store you frequent.

Check out this video here

There is something about those mail-in rebates or in-store rebates that’s always questionable. They somehow always include some sort of fine print. Perhaps it’s just to get us into the store only to be upsold on something we actually will never need or use.

I believe this Dilbert comic sums it all up and possibly could alleviate the rebate frustration with a bit of humour:

If you make your way to the Green Living Show in Toronto this weekend, not only will you be amazed to see how many companies are doing green initiatives… but you’ll also be able to get your hands on the recently launch uber green Moto W233 Renew.

This is the phone that’s Carbon Free and made with recycled water bottles. To entice people over to the booth they were asked to fill out a sheet and give all your personal info (most likely to be contacted by a Fido dealer to sell you on a new phone), then you got to pick a box from the wall of boxes to get a chance to win a water bottle or a coupon for $50 off a Fido product.

In case you are touched by this story and want to do good for the environment, the prices for the Renew are: $0 on 2-year agreement and $65 Regular price / Prepaid

The Moto W233 Renew weighs in at 83 grams and has overall dimensions of 110.9 x 14.7 x 45mm, comes with music player (dedicated music key) with 2GB of removable memory, 2.5 mm earphone jack, a screen size of 1.6″ (128 x128 resolution).

Vigin Mobile situated themselves today in Dundas Square in Toronto to promote their new Paycheck offer.

In true Virgin fashion they caught people’s attention, not zsimply people the promoters we half dressed but becuase they were giving away up to a ripe $10,000. All you needed to do was enter your name and wait. Also, if you buy a prepaid phone they will give you 50% off.

Not a bad deal, the catch is that you have to go to the following Toronto locations: Virgin Mobile Booth (Atrium on Bay), Best Buy (Younge/Dundas), Tbooth (Eaton Centre), Future Shop (Younge/Dundas) and Wireless Wave (Eaton Centre).

It’s been a very long time since Public Mobile made a public appearance, actually since they officially launched on February 5th. Yesterday, Public Mobile CEO Alek Krstajic talked with Howard Green of the Business News Network (BNN) about what we should expect in the coming months from them.

Public Mobile spent $53 million in last years Spectrum Auction to become of the new wireless carriers in Canada. With a tagline of “Everybody Talk” they are looking to launch in Q3 with an offering of a $40 monthly “unlimited flat-rate talk and text package, with no term commitment, no credit checks, no fine print and no surprises”.

In the interview, when asked if Public Mobile is going to be the carrier that people go to when looking to trade down, Krstajic stated that Public Mobile “could be that, but I think first and foremost we are going to be the cellphone company for people who really feel that today there isn’t really a choice for them. A lot of the 30% plus Canadians that don’t have a cellphone are value conscious and they cannot afford the unpredictability of bills that we see today in cellphones and the cellphone world, not knowing if it’s going to be 50, 100 or $150… In fact, we’ll have no bill! Why would need a bill if it’s $40 unlimited talk and text? There is no need for a bill, it’s part of how we drive the value piece of this.”

Also, Howard Green asked Krstajic “Are Canadian cheap when it comes to cellphones?”, in response he said, “I don’t think Canadians are cheap, I think the penetration is low because there hasn’t been an alternative like Public Mobile. In the United States you have companies like Metro, Leap, Revol… they become the supplier of cellphones to the working class, the value conscious segment.”

“What about your network, how reliable will it be because people pay for reliability” Green asked. “We are going to actually have a network that is as reliable as others, it won’t be able to do all of the data and video the incumbent netoworks can do, but it will be every bit as reliable. We have the benefit of being the last guys in so we can deploy the newest technology at less than half the cost.” said Krstajic.

When Public Mobile actually launches he said “There will be a lot of places to get a phone from us, we will be where our value conscious segment lives, works and plays. I don’t think you’ll see us in the traditional high-end malls because our segment doesn’t actually shop there. I think you’ll see us do some very interesting things on distribution, it’s a bit of the secret sauce… you will see us in strip malls, yes”.

Sure sounds like Public Mobile is ready to rock, the latest technology is questionable as they’ve bought the very limited and unwanted “G Band” spectrum, plus there will be a fair amount of competition with other Talk and Text alternatives such as Koodo, Virgin, Solo, Fido and eventually Globalive.

Watch the interview here

In addition, a couple other key segments on the show.
Iain Grant, Managing Director, Seaboard Group here
Jamie Chadwick, Managing Director, Save Cell Communications and Howard Chui of Howardforums  here