The long wait is finally over. The Nokia Lumia 900 is now available for order at Rogers.
Only the black one is currently available
Prices are as follows:
$99.99 - 3 year contract $424.99 - 2 year $474.99 - 1 year $524.99 - no term
There is also a "deal" where Rogers will give you a XBOX360 (4GB) with the Kinect Sensor valued at $299.99 if you activate 2 smartphones on any couples and family plans (*UPDATE* might want to check out the fine prints as per Lotos' comments below. Thanks Lotos!)
*UPDATE* - Nokia/Rogers is now going to give you $100 bill credit should you buy the Lumia 900 (on contract likely) This is due to a radio bug that is affecting some initial Lumia 900 handsets (patch is rolling out Apr 16 at least in the US). So if you get the Lumia 900 now (unsure when this offer ends), you can get it for free (likely on a 3 yr term).. now if they only release the Cyan version
If you were looking for Lumia 710, Lumia 800 on the Bestbuy website, chances, you have to search for it and sometimes searching for Lumia 710 gets you no result.
Well, looks like that's changing. The screen capture here is part of the welcome page at Bestbuy.ca and lo-and-behold, the awesomeness of the Nokia Lumia 900.
Nice to finally see the Lumia 900 finally getting some love from Bestbuy.ca
The product page at the time of this post contains no information on the release date but it appears to be very imminent (consider that the Lumia 710 is still no where to be found on Bestbuy.ca). The Lumia is getting some search love but only the black one is available from Bestbuy.ca
As previously posted, Rogers is getting ready to unleash the Lumia 900 sometime in April.
Over at WPCentral, they have a screenshot of the possible pricing for this.
Now sure how accurate it is as it could be just a price placeholder. The posted "price" is at $499.99 (could be the outright price, no idea).
What's more interesting is that one of lines in the screen shoot reads "Class 4 Rogers/Fido" - I don't work in mobile phones retail stores so it might just read "Rogers/Fido" for all Rogers based phones but to me it looked interesting (especially since I am still on Fido)
So head on over to WPCentral if you are interested.
Given this information, are you going to wait? Or are you picking up the Lumia 800?
As some of you might know, MWC happens every year around this time where pretty much all the big mobile phones vendors (except Apple) gets together in Barcelona and have a great nerd off.
This year, I was looking forward to it as I personally am looking to replace my HTC Surround (still like it a lot) with likely a Nokia Lumia 800 or 900.
Nokia
We already know when the 800 is launching in Canada. We found out that Rogers is going to release the 900 sometime *soon* in CES 2012 in January but there was no date, nothing.
Well, looks like we can now narrow it down the a month. April is the month and over at the Rogers website you can also sign up for launch information.
The promotional blurp also states "When you pre-order a Lumia 900, Nokia and Rogers have a surprise for you. Hint: there's a hero rising out of the darkness" Likely this thing (the video is a Video of the Lumia 800 but you get the idea).
It's either this or Christian Bale deliveries your phone to you personally and then follow by punching you in the face. (The second option does sound interesting for some reason)
Lumia 610
Also new and it is unlikely to see here in Canada is the Lumia 610
This is significant as this is the first "Tango" phone which runs on lower spec hardware which means that it is going to be unleash in emerging markets
The Tango spec supports 800Mhz CPU + 256MB RAM in case you are interested
Given the low low price of the 710 right now, I don't think we'll be seeing this phone in Canada anytime soon
HTC
- HTC has announced that the HTC Titan II will be expanding to markets outside the United States. This LTE device will likely finally see the light in Canada sometime. No timeframe is given
- HTC has also announced that they will make a bigger splash in the WP handset when Windows Phone "Apollo" is released (Windows Phone 8.0)
Samsung
- I personally think Samsung is gone off the bonkers lately with the releases of the Samsung Note (Android in case you are wondering) - 5.3 inches!!!!
- no news on Samsung WP75 coming to Canada.
Looks like the official Nokia assault on Canada is on and the rebirth of Windows Phone 7 in Canada has started.
For those of you who are curious as to whether or not you can buy this outright and take it to WIND or Mobilicity? According the the specs on the Rogers website, looks like it is running the UMTS bands only (850/1900/2100) so according to these specs, the answer is a BIG NO.
I will however continue searching on the Intertubes (or if you guys happen to know someone that tried and succeeded/failed) as to whether or not Rogers is just hiding the the 1700 band.
Before you all go crazy and claim that it runs on T-mobile so it must, let me remind you of the Dell Venue Pro where the model number is exactly the same but they actually do sell different phones on different network. Confusing as heck but that's they way things are I guess.
Another juicy rumour running around is that Rogers will likely pick up the Lumia 900 as well (which would explain why they are leaving the Lumia 800 to Telus. If this is the case, it will be interesting to see what Bell is going to do with the WP7 platform.. HTC Titan II?... Have they just given up?
*UPDATE* - was talking to the Costco reps yesterday and they claim they should be getting stock sometime this week. From what I can tell is that they are very willing to sell them off contract so if you are having problems with at the Rogers stores selling you one outright
Do keep in mind that one of our readers have pointed out that this is a different version they are selling at Rogers than the one for TMobile. So you are out of luck if you want to unlock it and use it on WIND/Mobilicity
If you do want to take it to Bell or Telus, a reminder that it does use microSIM so you will need to order a new microSIM card as well from your carrier of choice
From the good folks at MobileSyrup, they have uncovered what could the most awesome pricing for the Nokia Lumia 710 that is about to be released in February on Rogers.
Outright price is $254.99. Your read it, I read it, it's just a crazy price for a gen 2 WP7 device that's packed with Nokia Drive as well as other Nokia exclusive software that's coming down the pipeline.
$49.99 for on a 3 year plan but I can imagine that will get quickly dropped to $0 for a 3 year plan.
Looks like either Nokia and/or Microsoft are heavily subsidizing the Lumia devices (at least the 710 at this point if this memo is true - so far, MobileSyrup's track record as far as since I have followed them are pretty damn accurate). That would put some interesting price pressure on Telus who have not release pricing information on the Lumia 800.
On a side note, AT&T will be releasing the Lumia 900 with a 2 year contract price for, get this $99 around mid March. That's also a crazy pricing for the awesome Lumia 900 that on one in Canada has picked up (my bet is on Bell - my dream is for WIND as it looks to be a Pentaband phone).
