Telus Releases the HTC S720 Smartphone (CDMA Version of Vox)

[Mike Temporale]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.telusmobility.com/on/pcs/handset_htc_s720.shtml' target='_blank'>http://www.telusmobility.com/on/pcs/handset_htc_s720.shtml</a><br /><br /></div><i>"The HTC S720 re-invents the wireless smartphone by combining the features of a wireless PDA in a familiar 'phone-like' design, with Windows Mobile 6. Take your entire Outlook® contact list wherever you go, keep track of important events and tasks, access the internet anywhere with Internet Explorer Mobile® on the TELUS High Speed (EVDO) network. It's also easy to stay connected with email, SMS, and IM using the slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Available exclusively from TELUS, the HTC S720 is the first Windows Mobile 6 smartphone in Canada, and the only smartphone to offer a 12 key numeric dial-pad for single-handed use in addition to a slide-out QWERTY keyboard for easier messaging."</i> <br /><br /><img src="http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/images/Temporale-20070611-TelusHtcS720.jpg" alt="User submitted image" title="User submitted image"/><br /><br />Well now, lookie what we have here. Once again Telus is quick to release a new Windows Mobile device. This time, it's the CDMA version of the Vox. A 3 year contract is a lengthy period of time, but $150 is a pretty reasonable price. By all accounts, this is a great phone, I just wish Telus was a little nicer on the data rates. Why does Canada have to have such expensive data? :(

[Sven Johannsen]

Why does Canada have to have such expensive data? :(
Could be that the lines of magnetic force become more and more perpendicular to the earth the farther North you go. That serves to drive radio emmissions into the ground, rather than helping them propagate as the parrallel lines do as you move closer to the equator. Thus radio transmission at the higher latitudes is more of a challenge making it more expensive.

Or, there are just fewer people to amortize the cost of the equipment over.

Or, they charge more because they can. (There are still those out there that don't believe lower prices will result in more subscribers, yielding a net gain in revenue)

[subzerohf]

...Could be that the lines of magnetic force become more and more perpendicular to the earth the farther North you go. That serves to drive radio emmissions into the ground, rather than helping them propagate as the parrallel lines do as you move closer to the equator. Thus radio transmission at the higher latitudes is more of a challenge making it more expensive.
...

Or rather, the difficulty lies in generating enough radio emission to penetrate the outer shell of the igloos that we live under. :lol:

[Stinger]

Small market + lack of competition = a lot of ripped off consumers.

The fact that Bell and Rogers use different wireless technologies doesn't exactly encourage competition.

[extravagant]

It's funny how Telus says:

"Laptop Internet access through your smartphone - use the S720 as a wireless modem for your laptop via USB modem"

Then your phone bill comes up to a million dollars if you do that! And not to mention that it doesn't have WiFi

[MTM]

Have you guys checked out the chipset used in this thing? According to Telus's site it's the Qualcomm MSM7500 (http://www.cdmatech.com/products/msm7500_chipset_solution.jsp), which basically is the CDMA version of the MSM7200 (http://www.cdmatech.com/products/msm7200_chipset_solution.jsp) that is used by... HTC Kaiser (http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=specs&amp;id=733) :D

The question is what has happened to the WiFi and the GPS? Software or hardware disabled? If software disabled, this could possibly be a pretty powerful phone with a little tweaking :D

[karen]

Or, there are just fewer people to amortize the cost of the equipment over.



That would make some sense if Telus didn't also charge outrageous data rates for roaming in the US, where the huge population there has already subsidized the equipment there. A week trip to the US, checking e-mail headers only and reading a full emergency mail only twice day will lead to a $200 data roaming charge on my next bill. There's no laptop hooking up, no streaming TV shows, no editing a document and sending it, no looking up a good restaurante review -- nothing like that. Just a miserly read of who and what subject are in all my e-mails.



Or, they charge more because they can. (There are still those out there that don't believe lower prices will result in more subscribers, yielding a net gain in revenue)

Now yer talking. Recent news articles about how Canadians are getting ripped off drastically due to the increasing strength of our dollar has me fuming. The article list various items with their US dollar price, then the Canadian price expressed in US dollars as well.

For instance, a certain model of Lexus cost $61,000 USD, and in Canada, given the exchange, should cost about $66,000; but no, it still sells here for a whopping $87,000. Interviews with Lexus Canada read something along the lines of "we just set prices based on what Canadians are willing to pay". Which is pretty much true, I've seen it. I've imported a car to Canada before and it is no where near the hassle they write about in the paper. I'd not even worry about the hassle if I were going to save $20k on a purchase, even if I had to mod it for DRLs, as I did for my car. It cost only $150 to do that. Importing it took about 20 minutes at the border.

All fair, I suppose, but it is the next part that has me rolling my eyes. All the retailers interviewed give the same inane excuse, that vendors from which the buy the products set their MSRPs years in advance, so Canadians will have to wait a year or two to see the impact of the stronger dollar. Total BS. It's a wonder that our retail stores look worse than Soviet Union stores in the 70s - bare empty shelves, no merchandise, old products, no sales and no clearance pricing on a size 2 blouse with a matching size 24W pair of pants.

When are retailers in Canada going to grow a set and manage their own prices, rather than wait for some anonymous vendor a year down the line to change its MSRP? It's called accounting and there are numerous established methods for dealing with inventory at multiple costs. I wish someone in Canada actual had heard of it. LIFO, FIFO, etc.

I know by then the Canadian dollar will be trading lower and then retailers will maintain these higher prices claiming that they are about to go out of business due to the higher cost of vendor products.

{/rant off}

Karen