Rogers to sell HTC Dream, Magic for $199.99 on contract
By Donald Melanson 
posted May 22nd 2009 12:41PM
posted May 22nd 2009 12:41PM
Canadians have had to wait quite a while to get their first official taste of Android, and even longer to know how much it'd cost, but it looks like that last detail has now finally been cleared up. According to The Boy Genius Report, Rogers will be asking the ever popular $199.99 for both the HTC Dream and HTC Magic on a three-year contract when they launch on June 2nd, or a hefty $649.99 off-contract. As Boy Genius points out, that's actually $100 more than the previously rumored off-contract price, which briefly spurred talk of a too-good-to-be-true $149.99 on-contract price.
3 years!!!!
ahahaha, you Canadians are crazy
USA! USA!
you Americans are crazy...2 year contracts!!
12 Months and 18 months in the UK :)
Either way, I believe we're all being ripped off with these contracts over 12 months. What with phone manufacturers now charging more than the price of a good PC for their latest handset (which they don't often support for longer than 1 year on the software front, and then they just release an updated hardware version 12 months later) , where will it all end before people say enough is enough?
I don't accept the argument that smartphones are expensive to make....they're not.
Mainstream handsets at £1,000? 5 Year contracts? At this rate that'll only be a few years away!
Canda .... USA .... UK .... Youl all creazy
Here in Bahrain we don't have contracts at all (all phones are unloked)
@Ahmed
That's because you're all stinking rich! :)
Not only is the contract 3 years, but data plans are also stupidly expensive :'(
Anyone not on contract already in Canada would be a fool to sign one now. We're 12 months away from having a new competitor in the market, and whether or not they steal every dissatisfied customer out there (aka every Canadian wireless customer), they'll definitely help ramp up competition.
Don't get this...Global Wireless is coming to canada!!
Yea the price of handsets is mostly artificial, it's illogical really, why do they want to severely limit the number of people who have them, aren't they are hurting their own profits?
Too expensive... especially when factoring in a 3 year Robbers contract
At least it's not another post about an iProduct or CrackBerry (seemingly the only two phones on the planet)
You forgot the Pre an that list
Don't sign 3 year contract, 3 years is like a lease on a car. Phones become obsolete faster than ever before. And I don't know anyone who had a phone last for 3 years. And it's 3 years with Rogers, the most evil GSM monopoly in the world.
More evil than Verizon?
Verizon is not GSM.....yet
No but they will be, as soon as Skynet comes online, which is sooner than most think.
I currently 6 months in my 3 year contract I just signed with Rogers... There's no option. Either get a contract, or pay a rediculous price for a phone. It's crazy. I really can't wait until Bell goes GSM, then, I'll probably consider Bell. For now though, 2.5 years left...
I had my Motorola L6 exactly 3 years now. I was excited when Rogers announced Android phones, but now with those prices I am really not sure if I should wait for Global Wireless. Rogers should change their slogan from "Revolution is coming" to "Rip-off is coming again, have your money ready". And why the same price for Magic and Dream. They should make Magic at least $149.99. Robbers is one of the big reasons why I want to move to USA. ;-)
Aye, what happened to Nilay Patel's report on the confusion about the Pre launch? :P It was here on Engadget a minute ago. He pulled it out? Eh?
wrong info i would guess.
Wow and I thought 22 months in the US was bad.
WTF where you get 22 months from I never knew they had contracts for a year and 10 months
AT&T and Verizon (not sure about the others) in the US allow you to get a discount after 22 months of a 24 month contract. It is an incentive to stay with your current wireless company since porting your number is easy now.
Wow... That is steep. Here in the UK we got it free on a £30/month contract (incl. unlimited data)!!! Why such a difference?
Because A) there are really only 3 mobile phone companies B) we have half the population of England (okay a bit more than half) coupled with C) we have a gazillion times the land mass of England (38x accoridng to WolframAlfa).
because the govt here allows our carriers a virtual monopoly, which means we all get to take it up the ass.
I understand it's a Google phone but that is a pretty boring pic to put on a phone.
$650 off contract, and still locked to Rogers? Why would ANYONE do that when you can get the Dev Phone legally from Google, unlocked for ~$450? I understand they would have to drive few miles down south to save on that atrocious $100 international shipping cost, but even after that, it's still cheaper by $100 to buy it straight from Google.
Presumably this one will support the 850MHz 3G band whereas the ADP1 will not. That would be a deciding factor for me, since I'm in no rush to spend obscene money on a phone that will only do EDGE. I haven't heard any confirmation of that though, so I guess we'll see when it comes out.
So... why would canadians spend about $576.79 US dollars on a phone that you can buy unlocked directly from Google for $399.00?
because Rogers assumes us Canadians are morons, oops, I mean Luddites and don't have or know how to check the internet for a price comparison. Why else do we bend over for 3 year contracts?
last i checked google was charging $300 shipping to canada.
This pricing makes very little sense, i hope everyone just buys a dev phone...
Last time I checked Rogers had the same 3G bands as AT&T in the US, so what does that mean for 3G on the Dream?
I like the iPhone font countdown.
3yr contract blows unless they offer free upgrades, i.e. when the magic, bigfoot, and galaxy come out...
or a $50 600min, unlimited data and SMS plan.
http://www.rogers.com/web/content/wireless-products/iphone_voice_data_packages
well, yeah, basic plan is 250 minutes and 1gb for $60 and (count 'em) 75 sent sms, add $6.95 monthly "system access fee" (aka dealer profit) does NOT include call display; or 400/2gb for $75. yeesh. Plus Rogers will begin to charge for incoming sms this summer.
Gee, I wonder why I bought a touch?
I think you guys got it wrong, 3 years means were stuck with Rogers for three years. The contract can be altered or changed by the user anytime.
I had a blackberry 8900 with a blackberry plan, 3 months in, I switched to an iPhone with a different data plan.
Plus rogers being the only gsm provider, I'm not going to be switching providers anytime soon, so I ain't complaining about 3 years.
Telus and Bell are hoping to have their GSM/HSPA network up and running in some markets in time for the Vancouver Olympics. That's next year, so yes, a three year contract would be a bit much at this point.
sorry ravnos, but hoping they 'might' have a network running sometime in a year, maybe longer seems stupid.
who wants to use a shit phone for 1.5 years because you're hopeful?
yes, that's how horrible the service is here in canada
It's not "might", it's what's scheduled to happen in 2010, possibly even late 2009 in Vancouver and Toronto. And there's nothing saying you have to use a "shit phone" in the meantime. Since Bell and Telus will be using the same frequency bands as Rogers, if you buy an unlocked GSM/HSPA phone you'll be able to use it with all three networks once the change comes.
Didn't we already have this story a couples weeks back?
I think contracts should be max 6 months, like in Denmark
robbers!
But once you get the contract, what's the lowest rate per month you can pay? Because I usually get phones unlocked so I can use pay as you go. Anyone know?
Rogers sucks, no one should sign a contract with any Canadian cell carrier before the end of next year when real competition comes online.
Not only is the phone overly expensive, the plans are expensive and rogers only has 2 towers in this whole province (NL).
The only thing I hate about being Canadian, is getting continually shafted by the tech world.
This is so sad. I'm a Canadian in the US, and I must say, it's SO SAD how late the G1 is showing up in Canada.
I bought my G1 on a contract - 40$ a month, two years ,and the phone itself for 1$(basically, they would give it for free but they can't,so when you sign a contract,you still have to pay 1$ for the phone). So what's too good to be true about 150$ price?? I live in Poland if you want to know.
Is it just me, or are the buttons on that G1 different than the normal model?
How does one go about buying a dev phone straight from Google/HTC?
Rogers is the only network that has GSM atm here in Toronto and most of Canada. All other major competitors still run off CDMA which means they are making a killing in the market. It doesn't surprise me at all that they would be charging this much, but what does really bug me is that I already have a DEV G1 phone and after speaking with my company's Rogers Rep. they will NOT be able to use this device with true 3G speeds. Currently they are in the works for this model to work with 3G so my best guess is that they will upgrade their networks to use the same band that T-Mobile has with these phones to get them to work at the real 3G speeds... so for all you excited people out there in Canada.. be aware that you wont get 3G speeds with this phone as of yet..
Hi,
Finally its the first post I read about problem with 3g and the dev phone bought directly from Google.
Since I have my phone I was unable to use the '3g' network. I'm always going thru EDGE or GPRS..... even in areas that has 3g available. I've compared with a friend of mine that has the iphone (not unlocked) ans he could easily connect to the 3g???? Is he using the 3g or its, again, a custom rogers iphone that mimics the 3g but using edge in the background¿????
Anyways I would really like to know if you have more details on that?
Keep me posted please.
Thanks.