Starting Feb 10, Bell will be aligning with Quebec and Manitoba (and the other carriers) with their launch of the Subsidy based cancellation fee model.

This will affect clients entering into an agreement on or after February 10, 2013.
This will affect Consumer - Personal and Corporate - EPP accounts only.
All other accounts (Corporate, Corporate-INDV (which many of you have), and Small Business) remain on the current model.

Take your total subsidy, divide it by the total of months in your term, and multiply it by the months remaining to calculate your cancellation fee.

E.G. Client receives a $500 subsidy when activating on a 36 month term. Client wants to cancel 20 months into their contract.
$500 / 36 = $13.89. $13.89 x 16 months remaining = $222.24 cancellation fee.

If a client does not receive a subsidy when activating, but still took a term, their cancellation fee is 10% of their monthly recurring charges, multiplied by the # of months remaining, to a maximum of $50.

Clients wishing to perform an early upgrade (not eligible for an upgrade) will pay their remaining subsidy and then be eligible for an upgrade. Clients that upgraded or activated before February 10 will be based on the old (current) early upgrade fee model. ...

DEVELOPING STORY:

No names yet, but news broke internally, Tony Lacavera is out. Not bad for my estimates from last year (18 days off). We'll see more details hit probably soon with who is replacing him. It's someone from Orascom from what I heard.

ORASCOM has bought out all remaining assets from Globalive, leaving Globalive with a 0.7% stake in the company. Which it pretty much only put in about that much from the start, if even that.

EDIT: Further information is that any affiliation of Globalive and WIND are to be withdrawn as well. Leaving Tony with Globalive as his own asset, but otherwise nothing of value to Orascom and WIND. ...

Just got word that Rogers will be getting more colours for the Nokia Lumia 920. Right now it's only available in black but 'in the coming weeks' it will also come in red, white and yellow.

*update - I made incorrect statements about some 920 colours being painted* ALL colours of the 920 are made unpainted. When you drop a black 920 and it chips the material underneath the surface is the same colour so it wears better.

You can order the new colours for the Lumia 920 via Roger's Reservation System. Rogers is also doing a contest for the new colours on their blogs Redboard and Fil Rouge

Personally, the yellow is pretty sharp and I lusted over it the moment when I first saw it back in Sept. Anyone want to trade my black for a yellow one? ...

*Edit* it's blue. The price is $279.99 on a 30 day or $79.99 on a no term contract.

The entry-level HTC Windows Phone 8s is now available from Virgin Mobile Canada.

It runs Windows Phone 8 and looks similar to the 8x but the 8s has a smaller 4", 800x480 Super LCD display, dual-core 1Ghz Snapdragon S4 (2 x 1.5ghz on the 8x), 512MB of RAM (1GB on the 8x), 5MP camera that shoots 720p video (8MP and 1080P w/8x) and 4GB of storage that can be expanded with MicroSD cards (vs 8 or 16GB non-expandable).

While the processor is 'only' clocked at 1Ghz it's important to remember than the 8s' display contains about 2.5x less pixels than the 8x. While it means the 8s display will look a little more coarse compared to the 8x it also means that 8s' graphics processor doesn't need to work as hard. This means that the 8s could be faster than the 8x at running 3D games.

Anyways, it's a nice looking phone. Anyone interested in one? ...

Looks like the iPhone is coming to T-Mobile next year.

Are they going to call it the iTouch 4G? j/k

Discuss. ...

Verizon and HTC just announced the DROID DNA. The DNA has a 5" 1920x1080 display with a pixel density of 440 PPI. The retina display on the iPhone and other high definition phone displays hovers around 320PPI.

It will have Qualcomm's Quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor with support for LTE. Other specs include a 8MP camera with a f/2.0 lens and a front-facing f/2.1 camera - better take down all your embarrassing posters! The headphone jack has a 2.55volt amplifier, I have no idea what kind of power other phones give you. It also comes with Android 4.1 Jellybean.

I'm extremely disappointed that the DNA appears to only have 16GB of NON EXPANDABLE storage. If this is the case the DNA will only have around 11GB of storage available. I'm also annoyed that it's only available with a 2020mAh battery. Quad-core + a 5" display with a 2020mAh battery is a recipe for disaster.

What is it with HTC and small amounts of non-expandable storage? Is it some scheme from carriers to put HTC out of business?

...

Looks like a blacklist for stolen phones is finally coming to Canada. Carriers have until November next year to implement it though most should have it done before then.

I wonder what effect this will have on the number of mobile phones on Craigslist. I also wonder how many thieves will start altering IMEI's to get around this.

If your phone is stolen and you recover are their ways the owner can get the phone removed from the blacklist?

Anyone here ever have their phone stolen? ...

Just got the release. Both AT&T and T-Mobile are allowing their users to roam on each other's networks in areas that have been hit by Hurricane Sandy.

Good job T-Mobile and AT&T!
...

The Sony Xperia T AKA "The James Bond phone" will be coming to Bell on November 14th. Bell has exclusive marketing rights to say that the Xperia T is the James Bond phone. Since the Xperia T will be exclusive on other carriers, it could be that Bell is the only one who is allowed to use Daniel Craig, I mean James Bond in their Xperia T marketing.

The Xperia T is similar to the Xperia ION I reviewed a while back but the T has a faster Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor whereas the ION's is an older and slower S3. My guess is the S3 wasn't fast enough for 007.

Who's pumped to go see the new Bond film? Will the "James Bond" branding prompt you to throw your GS3's and One X's in the garbage for an Xperia T? ...