Help Quick Question before signing 3 years

[Potatochip]

Hey, so i have a few questions before i sign onto a 3 year with Rogers, the questions i have are is the magic 3g or 3.5g?? On the rogers site it is advertised as 3.5g but in store they told me it was 3g. The next question i have is the hero interface is it avaiable through HTC as a real update or only mods, i have been looking through the forums and saw that it was supposed to be updated in october as an update but want to be sure before i sign with rogers. Lastly cupcake and donut?? What exactly are they?

Thanks and my apologies if these questions are stupid/answered 1000's of times (i couldnt find any answered directly!)

Also am i going to have an out of date phone picking up the magic (i dont want a hero because they look so ugly it hurts my eyes!)

 

[bgoody]

Hi. Rogers says we are supposed to have 3.5g with speeds "up to 7.5" but it's bullshit. I rarely go even a little above 2 and most times it's 1. I have the test results to prove it. Tried it all over town (Montreal). It's not the phone it's Rogers. They probably have 2 or 3 towers upgraded and nobody seems to know where they are.

The phone comes with Android 1.5 and there is NO indication they will upgrade it.

Go with TELUS, they have the Droid which is at 2.0 now. I can't vouch for their system however but I do know they are sharing it with Bell. Whether that's a plus or minus your guess is good as mine.

Don't get me entirely wrong, the Magic is an awesome phone...it's just not supported by Rogers.

 

[vikingisson]

I've seen 5M measured with Speedtest (a free app). That was in Oakville On. And that's plenty fast enough for anything I care to do with a phone. At home or work I go WiFI on the phone and do the heavy stuff with a PC. That advertised 7.2 is the max the hardware can push so when I get 5M real world speed I'm nearly maxed out.

 

[Potatochip]

hmm, i spoke with a rogers rep and he said its doable, is the 1.6 update on the HTC website the offical hero software update?

 

[vikingisson]

Is what doable? Getting 3.5G speeds on the Magic? yes. But now you say Hero and 1.6 upgrade. That's another story but for now you can get what they advertise on the Magic as it is with v1.5. Rogers is still the same old evil corp they have always been but Android has made it a little less smelly. In fact I stayed away from cell phones all together for the last 7 years until Android narrowed the gap just enough.

 

[Potatochip]

I just got out of my contract with telus for free because of the changes they made but also cant sign with them for 6 months as a penalty for not taking their abuse, and i dont want to sign with bell so rogers is the way for me, do any of you guys think the magic is going to be horribly out of date in 2 months or anything?

Thanks

 

[vikingisson]

hey, everything is out of date the day after. It's up to you and how much of the propaganda you want to believe. I'm sure there will be faster phones that can cook bacon for you but if you define what you want it to do and then be happy with the device that does it you'll be fine. I like mine.

As an extreme example, I've gone the last several years on a Nokia N800 which doesn't do cell at all. It predates the iPhone and I still use it. The SIP phone app is simplistic compared to the Magic and any normal cell phone but has done the job well and saved me enough money to now finally get back into the cell phone jungle. It sucks being tied to Canadian providers but this is now almost tolerable. I won't regret having it just because something newer comes along.

 

[bgoody]

I've seen 5M measured with Speedtest (a free app). That was in Oakville On. And that's plenty fast enough for anything I care to do with a phone. At home or work I go WiFI on the phone and do the heavy stuff with a PC. That advertised 7.2 is the max the hardware can push so when I get 5M real world speed I'm nearly maxed out.

Speedtest is the app I use here in Montreal. NEVER gone above 2. I guess they started upgrading the towers in Ontario.

2 is passable BTW but most of the time it is around 1 which is twiddle your thumbs while you wait for it to connect/download.

 

[JackTheMan18]

1. I have a magic from Rogers - you might want to consider buying an unlocked version on ebay, and going with fido which is cheaper
2. one day an update from rogers will come for the magic (which is already out for hk, brazil, etc.) which will upgrade your phone to have the htc sense - same as on the hero
3. one day rogers will allow an update to 1.6 and maybe even 2.0 of android. maybe. this is still unclear.
rogers doesn't seem to know what they are doing, or even what their intentions are. if they knew where they were going, they would at least let us all know.
4. you can circumvent all of the rogers inaction by doing it yourself; however this requires work, research, and analysis. rooting your phone is not for the faint at heart. check out saphire under www. xda-developers.net; you will find that it is possible to upgrade your phone yourself - at the risk of it becoming a brick.

 

[MoreYummy]

Rogers is slower in many area than telus/bell's new HSPA network.

And usually rogers is late in updating its phone's software.

 

[vikingisson]

I wouldn't expect the Canuck cell network to be fast everywhere or even able to get consistent speeds. But it is nearly usable now and is one reason why I didn't have a cell phone until two weeks ago. It has been a dysfunctional and over priced system for years so I did without and survived just fine with VoIP/WiFI.

When I measured 5M/750k on 3.5G I was in an upscale area. At home on the 'po side of town I max out at 1.5M/650K and can sometimes hit 2M. Not surprising. But even that is fast enough for what I use it for and the tethering saved my job until I got my new line. So at home I use WiFI and don't worry about it.

 

[Koiboyjapan`]

I have 9.2/3.1 Mb/s on my wireless..

With 3.1/0.9 Mb/s on my Network connection...

Live in the countryside in Japan, tested network with only two bars showing on my antenna thingy...

 

[MoreYummy]

Where is "countryside" exactly?

What is your plan?

 

[Koiboyjapan`]

Where is "countryside" exactly?

What is your plan?

In a small town in western Honshu about 150 kms from Hiroshima, in Shimane Prefecture.

What do you want to know about my plan????

 

[vikingisson]

What do you want to know about my plan????

Can I move there? A small town far from the city getting much better internet speeds than us over here. I dream of upstream speeds like that. Can't imagine what the speeds are from a pc.

 

[Koiboyjapan`]

Pretty insane, I can tell you...I regularly have +20 Mb/s Down from Speedtest.net

 

[MoreYummy]

Maybe I can move to your area and get those insane speed...

 

[mjschmidt]

@Potatochip: Just to clarify for you re Rogers Android phones. At the moment all of us on Rogers Android phones are stuck on Android 1.5. that's the version of the operating system, kind of like having Windows XP.

A newer version of the OS came out at the beginning of October, and US customers already have it. Rogers didn't even seem to know about the availability of 1.6 until we starting complaining to them about not having it. At the moment we are getting conflicting info from them. Different reps have told us that they are testing it now, and some have told us they will be getting it to test from HTC (for the Dream and Magic) in late Dec. Whether or not they get the update from LG for the eve remains to be seen.

If a Rogers rep tells you you can get it from the HTC site, they are either lying, or badly misinformed. When you buy a Rogers Android phone, it comes with an Android OS that has been modified by Rogers to include some of their icons and branding, and who knows what else they've done to it, that's why you have to wait for the official "Rogers" update.

If they tell you you can download it right now from the Rogers tech support page, again they are most likely very badly misinformed. The file currently available on the Rogers tech support web site is a minor bug fix/security patch that was released back in Aug. It is NOT Android 1.6.

As for Telus, they are not getting the Droid with 2.0, they are getting the Motorola Milestone, which is the version of the Droid they will be selling in Canada. I haven't seen a release date for it yet, and whether or not it will come with 2.0 I couldn't say.

You can read more here: http://androidforums.com/rogers/10647-rogers-dream-1-6-update.html

 

[MoreYummy]

Droid and milestone are the same with different name?

 

[David Green]

I cannot believe what I have been reading about Rogers across the various threads. I'm from the UK and there are pros and cons with all the mobile phone companies over here. If one of them could get it all right then they would clean up. Conversely you would expect that if one of them got it all wrong then they would be out of business. Are Rogers the only people who do Android phones in Canada? If they aren't then obviously folk took out their contracts in good faith (having turned down alternative mobile companies) and may have a case for getting out without invoking a charge. How do they advertise themselves and what do they promise?

 

[rioja]

I cannot believe what I have been reading about Rogers across the various threads. I'm from the UK and there are pros and cons with all the mobile phone companies over here. If one of them could get it all right then they would clean up. Conversely you would expect that if one of them got it all wrong then they would be out of business. Are Rogers the only people who do Android phones in Canada? If they aren't then obviously folk took out their contracts in good faith (having turned down alternative mobile companies) and may have a case for getting out without invoking a charge. How do they advertise themselves and what do they promise?

In Canada we have 3 major carriers. Rogers, Bell & Telus. They all have a long history of providing poor service, disrespecting customers and ripping off Canadians. So there are no real alternatives.

It's not a matter of their advertising, or their phones, it's just that Canadians have no choice. Each carrier is as bad as the next.

We just got a fourth carrier, WIND mobile, that has much lower pricing and (so far) appears to respect their potential customers. Hopefully we get even more carriers... we need the competition!

 

[MoreYummy]

When SE x10 comes out, it is cool to change to wind.

 

[nateo200]

I have 9.2/3.1 Mb/s on my wireless..

With 3.1/0.9 Mb/s on my Network connection...

Live in the countryside in Japan, tested network with only two bars showing on my antenna thingy...

And this ladies and gental men is why japanese cell networks pwn all. Are you on DoCoMo or softbank? Dang they really know how. To keep a network going.

In Canada we have 3 major carriers. Rogers, Bell & Telus. They all have a long history of providing poor service, disrespecting customers and ripping off Canadians. So there are no real alternatives.

It's not a matter of their advertising, or their phones, it's just that Canadians have no choice. Each carrier is as bad as the next.

We just got a fourth carrier, WIND mobile, that has much lower pricing and (so far) appears to respect their potential customers. Hopefully we get even more carriers... we need the competition!

Its the same in American verizon, sprint and at&t. Sprints not to bad but I'm on verizon and while its nice to have 3G coverage in bum**** arkansaw they charge the shit out ofd you for everything. WHY do I have to pay 3 usd for visual voice mail? Bastards, I already pay $30 extra a month for data I should get visual vioce mail.

 

[vikingisson]

And this ladies and gental men is why japanese cell networks pwn all. Are you on DoCoMo or softbank? Dang they really know how. To keep a network going.

Its the same in American verizon, sprint and at&t. Sprints not to bad but I'm on verizon and while its nice to have 3G coverage in bum**** arkansaw they charge the shit out ofd you for everything. WHY do I have to pay 3 usd for visual voice mail? Bastards, I already pay $30 extra a month for data I should get visual vioce mail.

And these are the reasons why the best choice is to not sign that 3 year contract. Just say no. That way instead of complaining about the provider for 50 pages on the forum you move to another provider and when that one sucks eggs you move again. Suck it up and pay real money for the phone and not sign up for 3 years. It ain't a car, it's a phone.

 

[societymike]

In a small town in western Honshu about 150 kms from Hiroshima, in Shimane Prefecture.

What do you want to know about my plan????

Hey, I just picked up a HTC-03A from DoCoMo here in Tokyo.

How on earth do you check or set up voice mail?
Do you have to use DoCoMo's voicemail service?
The phone doesn't have a built in answering machine like all other japanese cell phones?
I really don't want to pay for an extra service when it should be ON the phone like an answering machine.

(i tried checking the voicemail settings on the phone but it doesn't work, anything I select says "voice mail denied", probably because the dumbass behind the counter didn't set up a voice mail account for me)