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Rogers Wireless has officially released the Motorola ROKR E8 and is available for $99 on a 3-year plan. The ROKR E8 is a wicked music player and a stylish phone. The main features of this sexy beast is the award-winning “ModeShift” technology that transforms the device from a phone to music player to 2.0 camera with the touch of a button, “FastScroll” navigation wheel (like the iPod) that makes searching for songs easier, Windows Media Player 11 compatibility, 2.0″ QVGA display, two-channel audio and an on-board equalizer, built-in speaker, Bluetooth, built-in FM radio, 2GB of internal memory (expands to up to 4GB with an microSD card). It weighs 100 grams and is 115 x 53 x 10.6 mm.

More info can be found here at Motorola and Rogers

Carly Biggart, Director of Marketing, Motorola Canada said: “With ROKR E8, music lovers no longer have to settle when it comes to using their mobile phone as a music player and vice versa. ROKR E8 is an exciting blend of innovative design and technology that harmonizes music and phone features into a single mobile device.”

John Boynton, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer, Rogers Wireless “With its smooth and seamless design and integrated music features, Rogers customers will be able to rock out in style.”

The BlackBerry Partners Fund launched May 12th and has been in the background ever since. Well, good news is on the way as they will be announcing three to four companies who will receive investments in the $2 million to $5 million range to create applications for the BlackBerry platform. Kevin Talbot, RBC vice president and co-manager of the BlackBerry Partners Fund said: “Since the fund was announced, we have been deluged with opportunities. We have lagged a little bit behind because of that.”"It is clearly a very exciting and dynamic market”. Majority of the ‘ investments will be in North America, with a few in Canada, Europe and Israel.

Watching the Olympics? Missing the latest stats while you are at work? The Globe and Mail has partnered with Viigo to bring smartphone users news, scores, standings and results from the Beijing Olympics

MTS has “Student Only” promotion for $19.99 a month. This gives you unlimited text messages (incoming/outgoing), unlimited Mobile Web service, 250 weekday minutes, evening and weekends free starting at 5pm and a Bonus of 3 months unlimited talk time and Call Display. The catch is that you have to sign up for a 2-year contact. MTS has also put together tips to know you have “text-itis”.

Sanyo Katana Eclipse is now available at Bell Mobility. We are waiting on the phone to arrive but have a quick video review of the hardware below.

The Eclipse has a 1.3 megapixel camera (we thought it had a 2.0 mp), video camera, digital music player, 10 MB internal memory, External memory card slot (additional 8 GB, Picture/video messaging capable, Bluetooth 2.0 enabled and 2-way speakerphone. Along with all the standard features (phone, contact, calendar…) This can be yours for $49.49 on a 3-year contract, $99.95 on a 2-year contact, 1-year for $224.95 and the always popular no contract for $274.95. More details here

Here is the video:

Push Interactive created a video that gives the full details of how day would look if you had the BlackBerry Pearl from Virgin Mobile. It is called “Sweet Life with BlackBerry” and you can see it here

The beavers we dragging Bell down as they certainly cleaned house and released some sweet looking phones… including the HTC Touch Dual.

We originally reported this a couple weeks ago, it’s now available on a 3-year term for $99.95, 2-year for $249.95, 1-year for $349.95 and no contract for $399.95.  The major difference between the Touch and the Dual is that this comes with a full QWERTY keyboard when you slide the phone up… it also can be used via the touchscreen that HTC is famous for.

Very similar to the original Touch as it measures 107 x 55 x 16  and comes in at 120g. Here are the features: Touchscreen with TouchFLO technology, 20-key QWERTY keypad, GPS Nav with full audio and visual instructions, TV, video & radio, MicroSD Expandable Memory up to 8GB, 2 Megapixel Camera, Video, Stereo Bluetooth, Operates on EV-DO Rev.A network for data, HTML browsing with Opera Mini, Wireless Modem Capable, Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional with Windows Live Messenger and Email, travel adapter, standard lithium-ion battery, charging, data cable, stereo headset, holster, extra stylus, multi-function audio cable.

More info here

Minister of Industry Jim Prentice on his meetings with the CEO’s of Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility regarding charging $0.15 for incoming text messages: “Given these undertakings by Bell Mobility and Telus, I would encourage consumers dissatisfied with existing plans to seek alternatives. The telecommunications market in Canada is dynamic — choice is available.” Bell’s texting charges started today and Telus starts charging August 24th

Rogers released a new back-to-school promo called “Prepaid Makeover” that has the Samsung J706 and Sony Ericsson W200a available for purchase.

The offer is presented in a magazine style setting to attract a youth audience and both new devices are available on a “Pay as you Go Plan”. The Samsung J706 is a slider phone that costs $144.99 and comes with a 1.3 megapixel camera,  FM radio, MP3 Player and Bluetooth enabled. The W200a is the first available prepaid Walkman phone in Canada by Sony Ericsson – this is available for $99 (after a $50 mail in rebate) and comes with a MP3 player, VGA camera. As any typical phone these days they both come with the standard calendar, contacts, calculator, alarm clock…

With any Pay as you Go plan you purchase the airtime in advance… now to corodinate with this release Rogers has introduced the “Call, Text & Click” plan. This gives you unlimited calling 3pm – 6pm daily, 30¢/minute for all other minutes, 2500 Domestic Text Messages, Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing. Read the fine print and other info here. The plan is for $29 a month.

We will have a review of both of these phones soon, in the meantime, learn more about them from Rogers here

The Telus LG KEYBO is a texting dream. This compact devise has a good music player, decent speakers, 2.0 megapixel camera, ability to surf the web and its full QWERTY keyboard is well designed. We played around with this beast for a bit and our initial thoughts are in the video below.

The KEYBO weighs 120 grams, dimensions are 102mm x 54mm x 16.5mm and is available in black and red. The external display (160 x 64 pixels) illuminates your contacts, messaging, history… when your music is playing it shows the album cover, artist, song. The internal display (320 x 240 pixels) is between the speakers and we felt this is somewhat small but certainly does its job.  With its QWERTY keypad nicely spaced out it will be easy to use for texting, e-mail, IM and typing in any url for fast action to the web. The 2.0 camera is easy to use via the internal and external display.

This is our first – and very quick – review as we basically just opened up the box and started to record.. so it gives you an insight of how easy the KEYBO is to navigate and use:

It’s available for $49.99 on a 3-year contract, $99.99 on a 2-year and $249.99 on a 1-year. If you want to buy this outright it will cost you $299.99. More info at Telus