If you're ready, willing, and able to sign up for a new three-year agreement on Rogers, HTC's two inaugural Android sets just got a good deal cheaper for you. Originally priced at $199.99 on contract, both phones are now down to $99.99, which by our very rough calculations is about half off -- a stellar deal, we think, considering you're getting 7.2Mbps HSDPA, capacitive touch, 3.2 megapixel autofocus cameras with video capture, and HTC-customized Android ROMs. Maybe Rogers is discounting so quickly because they figure the phones aren't quite as appealing in light of the recent Hero announcement -- or, more intriguingly, maybe they're prepping for an actual Hero launch of their own now that we know there's an 850 / 1900 3G version in the mix.

[Via Boy Genius Report]

Read - Dream (Black)
Read - Dream (White)
Read - Magic

In North America, Rogers has a reputation for getting the most cool GSM handsets the quickest (that's not the only reputation it has, but we won't go there right this second) -- but this is one case where T-Mobile USA beat 'em to the punch by a mile. The Canadian carrier is adding the Nokia 7510 to its TalkSpot-compatible lineup, meaning you'll be able to offload calls to WiFi when you're within range of a hotspot and transfer seamlessly to and from GSM. There's no 3G, but the colorful flip does come with changeable faceplates, a concealed secondary display, 2 megapixel camera with flash, and microSD expansion. Look for it for CAD $49.99 (about $43) on a three-year deal.

[Via Unwired View]

Better late than never, right? Some sixteen excruciating months after its announcement, Sony Ericsson's WinMo superphone -- the mighty XPERIA X1 -- has finally come to Rogers as expected. Considering that the X1 is still very much one of the world's premier smartphones (on paper, anyhow), the on-contract promotional price of CAD $249.99 after discounts seems reasonable enough -- of course, whether you feel the same way after three years of mobile marriage is another story altogether. Staying within the Sony Ericsson realm, the C510 has also launched, an attractive candybar with 7.2Mbps / 2Mbps HSPA and a 3.2 megapixel cam; it's all yours for CAD $79.99 on contract.

[Via Howard Chui]

Read - X1
Read - C510

Hey, AT&T, Rogers stole your extended subsidy idea, so why not return the favor and copy some of this when you roll out iPhone tethering later this year? Canada's GSM giant is charging precisely nil for the pleasure of connecting your iPhone to a computer and using it as a modem, instead merely deducting bytes from your data bucket just as though you were consuming them on the iPhone itself -- as long as you have at least 1GB of data in your plan, otherwise tethering's not available. That works especially well in concert with those who have Rogers' sweet 6GB-for-$30 data add-on, but otherwise, many users (especially those with meager 1GB accounts) will have to be careful not to overrun their monthly limits. At any rate, the takeaway here is that if AT&T comes out with a $50-plus tethering add-on with a 5GB bucket at this point, there'll be riots, bloodied bodies, overturned cars, the whole nine yards.

[Thanks, Rod]

Update: Michael Bettiol points out that Rogers is ominously saying this pricing structure is good through December 31st, so it's anyone's guess what happens after that. Odds are Rogers is giving itself an out in case data usage is totally off the chain.

Rogers must know a good thing when it sees it, because it's essentially copied AT&T's modified plans for providing deeper subsidies to more customers looking to upgrade to an iPhone 3G S in the next few weeks. The details are just a little bit different though: with Rogers, the new deal is that anyone who bought an iPhone 3G between July 11 and September 30 of 2008 -- and has averaged CAD $100 or more a month on their bill -- will be able to nab the 16GB or 32GB for $199 and $299, respectively, on a three-year contract. Buyers between July 11 and December 31 of last year or who didn't manage to average $100 a month will get the less heavily-discounted prices of $449 and $549, while any customer will be able to waltz in and spend $699 or $799, a princely sum indeed.

We figure that the Sony Ericsson X1 is destined for Rogers any day now -- just around the same time that we suspect the X2 will be announced, ironically -- and now we're starting to get an idea on pricing. A tipster writes in to tell us that this CAD $499.99 you're seeing here is for an upgrade customer with no data plan, which would be crazy high for a new lad coming in off the street and signing up for a three-year deal, we hope, but it gives us a good picture of what current customers might have to gear up for. Excessive, perhaps -- but then again, some of us will go to the ends of the Earth for WVGA.

[Thanks, cell143]

It'd take a really acutely developed talent for shutting oneself off from news to not know how much the iPhone 3G S is going to run on AT&T -- $199 and $299 for the 16GB and 32GB models on contract, just in case you've forgotten -- but what about some of the other countries that are destined to be launching the new model alongside the US on the same day? Up north, we've been told by a company spokesman that Apple partner Rogers will be pricing them at CAD $199 and $299 on three-year contracts, which works out to about $177 and $266; the old 3G, meanwhile, will be sold for (you guessed it) CAD $99. Tethering will be available and there will be no-contract pricing, but details haven't yet been announced there. Meanwhile, O2 over in the UK has dropped details on its site that put both the 3G S 16GB and 32GB as cheap as free if you sign up for a rich-enough two-year deal. Must be nice, eh?

[Thanks to everyone who sent these in]

A dude with access to the ROM Rogers is using on its just-launched Dream and Magic Android sets has posted a truly epic, comprehensive set screenshots on Flickr, showing off some of the features unique to these particular versions of the phones. Examples include a highly-customized HTC virtual keyboard with XT9 support reminiscent of its modern WinMo keyboards, Exchange support, integrated Quickoffice, and an all-important PDF reader. It's a nice little journey into the heart of Canada's first Android sets -- unless you're jealous, in which case it's an emotionally draining nightmare.

[Via Android and Me]

We'd say that Best Buy's phone pricing is never a set-in-stone indication of the price you'll pay direct from the carrier, but it's probably pretty safe to assume from these tags that everyone -- Rogers, Best Buy, Future Shop, you name it -- will be charging within a few bucks of CAD $149.99 ($135) for your choice of the Dream or Magic when the Android sets launch on June 2. That's not too terribly bruising on the pocketbook, but that's going to be on a three-year contract with a minimum $45 voice / data plan; if you step down to a two-year deal, you jump all the way up to a whopping $449.99, and a contract-free purchase is going to set you back $599.99. Tell you what, Rogers: give us both the black and the white Dream for $450 on a two-year and you've got yourselves a deal. Sound good?

Remember how we found out that there's a difference between the Google-branded Android firmware and its HTC-modified equivalent, and the latter isn't allowed to feature the silkscreened Google logo? The HTC version is way cooler on account of its Exchange ActiveSync support and the much-improved camera app; the only downside is that you can't flaunt that logo on the case, which -- let's be honest -- is totally meaningless to an end user (unless you're some raving Google fanboy / fangirl, and in that case, no amount of awesome customization is going to sway you). Anyhow, it's up to individual carriers to decide which versions of the devices they wish to launch, and Rogers customers will be excited to know that they're getting the logo-free HTC builds. That makes Canadian Dreams and Magics a whole hell of a lot more useful to business users than the G1s down in the States, and going forward, this is an issue T-Mobile probably wants to think about -- as long as the base Android code doesn't license ActiveSync, anyway.

Gallery: Rogers' HTC Dream and Magic aren't "Google phones," have Exchange support

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It's not on Rogers' site yet, but Sony Ericsson's Canadian site proudly proclaims the C905 as "Now available" -- and MobileSyrup backs up the claim with reports coming in from stores that the device is in stock and ready to go. For interested parties, this probably comes as no surprise seeing how the device has been well-pimped by Rogers itself in UR Magazine, bringing an 8.1 megapixel camera with xenon flash (always a plus), HSDPA, and GPS; a 2GB Memory Stick M2 comes as a pack-in, but odds are you'll want to upgrade closer to the device's max of 8GB if you intend to use that cam on a regular basis. There's a promo running that lets you nab it for CAD $249.99 (about $223) when purchased with a qualifying data plan, otherwise you'll be paying anywhere between CAD $299.99 up to $474.99 on a three-year contract to contract-free, respectively. Not the cheapest phone in the world, but if it can take the place of a basic point-and-shoot, you can look at it as a money-saving opportunity by combining two devices into one. Yeah, that's it.

[Via MobileSyrup]

Rogers is launching both the HTC Dream and the HTC Magic in June of this year, snapping a "cold spell" of Android-lessness up north. The phones will Rogers exclusives in Canada, and it's one of the first spots we've heard of -- other than the fairly inevitable T-Mobile USA -- to be getting the elusive HTC Magic outside of Vodafone. Otherwise details are scarce, but Rogers promises more information soon, and has an online countdown for "the revolution" on June 2nd. How polite.