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What's up with all the countries banning blackberries these days?

Today the ban starts in the middle-east, and now India and Indonesia are considering banning the device.

I wonder sometimes if all phones with any kind of messaging system should just be turned off now due to "security risks".

I would love to know the real underlying factors to these bans. I can speculate all day.

Anyways, now that my little rant is done - I'm looking at getting the HTC Desire when it finally comes to Telus. I have a Nokia E71 right mow, and although I love the phone, I find it really slow. the E72 is now available to me, but the better Nokia phones like the N97 is not coming to Telus. Does anyone have the Desire yet? What do you think of it?

Blackberries use very secure encryption for all their email (and maybe other things, I'm not sure). The governments which are banning Blackberries are uncomfortable not being able to intercept communications and they can't crack the encryption. Other smartphones aren't encrypted, or aren't encrypted so strongly.

lex-ington wrote:

I would love to know the real underlying factors to these bans. I can speculate all day.

It's pretty clear, at least for Saudi Arabia and the UAE. RIM doesn't have email servers in those countries, thus those countries cannot use their laws to pre-screen emails received by Blackberry users in those countries. They've decided that the propagation of "wrong" ideas without the ability to pre-censor the information is more of a risk than shutting down the Blackberry networks in their countries.

lex-ington wrote:

I'm looking at getting the HTC Desire when it finally comes to Telus.
...
Does anyone have the Desire yet? What do you think of it?

I have been waiting for Telus to get off their ass and release this phone as well.
Bell is releasing the only real Desire competitor, the Samsung Galaxy S tomorrow.
I am hoping this spurs Telus into action, I want to demo both before I make a decision.

The Desire is pretty much the Nexus One inside a different case so I have a good idea what it's like.

It's a great phone still but overall the Galaxy S series outclasses it in various areas. The Desire would have HTC's Sense though which is usually regarded better than Samsung's Touchwiz.

If I had a choice between the Desire and Galaxy S I'd probably go for the Galaxy S. The Nexus One has the perk of being heavily developed for (although the Galaxy S series looks like it is going to have lots of support too).

What would be the possibility of buying the Galaxy S and unlocking it to work on the Telus network? They share the same CDMA/HSPA network, so I think it should work - but I never unlocked a phone before. At least I have a sim card now.

Well it looks like I have some shopping to do this weekend!
Telus released the HTC Desire at .
Bell has the Samsung Galaxy S.

This is going to be a tough choice, the 3 year contract price is $150 for the Galaxy vs $80 for the Desire.

Why sign yourself into a three year contract?

I find that the options up here is limited to the point that signing into a 3-yr contract is not a big deal. One of them will kill you somehow. I'm with Telus cause Rogers screwed me over big time in the past ($2030 charge that they agreed was not mine but I had to pay anyways or go to collections, $390 extra charge on my cable bill for movies I never watched), and the only thing I'm willing to have with Bell is my internet. Other than that the options are very weak - Wind mobile has nothing compelling and the others are too small to mean anything.

To add what Lexington said, mobile in Canada is a bit sad. Bell and Telus are publicly competitors, but privately partnered to build their new HSPA network, so there is no differnce between them. So being tied to one of them for 3 years is not that big of deal.

On the shopping front, it was a bit of a let down. None of the stores I visited had a working HTC Desire, but I did see the Galaxy S, the screen truly is beautiful! They let me take outside where in the full sun, I could see the screen without much issue. But until I see both, I will wait...

ChronoReverse wrote:

The Desire is pretty much the Nexus One inside a different case so I have a good idea what it's like.

Not quite then, and even more so now. The Nexus One has the blinking clickable rollerball thing while the Desire has the optical trackpad which doubles as a button. People seem to be split about which one is better usability wise. And for the Telus Desire, the screen is going to be SLCD instead of AMOLED due to supply problems. No idea how that compares to good old AMOLED yet, but the Galaxy S is using Samsung's own super AMOLED so I would think the edge will go to the Galaxy S.

FireGryphon wrote:

Why sign yourself into a three year contract?

I could ask you people in the US the same thing about 2-year contracts - carrier subsidy. People in North America just don't get the true cost of a phone and are willing to get locked in to get their "free" or "cheap" phones.

lex-ington wrote:

What would be the possibility of buying the Galaxy S and unlocking it to work on the Telus network? They share the same CDMA/HSPA network, so I think it should work - but I never unlocked a phone before. At least I have a sim card now.

That, is the biggest question. I personally prefer the stock Android stuff or 3rd party non-carrier mods (I really like that Cyanogen one that my friend has on his Nexus One). Besides, who knows what the idiots at Telus will add to the phones to slow it down and/or burn battery faster. These Android phones are almost begging to be unlocked and modded (damn you AT&T). I would wait until the modding community has tested and documented a way to unlock/root the phones first before diving in.

As for the hardware itself, I have tried the Captivate (AT&T's Galaxy S) and it is pretty smooth. Though I think it is a touch slower than stock Android on the Nexus One. My friend also tried the Desire mod on his Nexus One and it is a bit slower too. So I am going to say Sense vs TouchWiz on their different CPUs is going to be a wash. Now, super AMOLED vs SLCD aside, the Galaxy S is huge with the 4" screen. For the few occasions I am actually agreeing with Jobs that it is getting a bit big for my own taste. To me it is becoming to turn into a "not a phone". The Desire/Nexus One's 3.7" is about the maximum I can tolerate at this point. However, you may have already gotten used to the big screens for your smartphones so this may not matter for you.

I ended up purchasing the Desire on Saturday for full price - it was the best of multiple bad situations.

Anyways, the phone is amazing. the HTC syncing program comes on the 8GB microSD card already inside the phone, so that was a nice touch. i would hav had to download it otherwise. Syncing was a snap too. At least the phone allowed me to trash that preloaded screen for social networking - I don't use that stuff anyways. I find that battery life for all these new gadgets suck when you start using it for what its iuntended for. I'm gonna leave the wifi off for a few days - see how long the battery lasts without it. $100 cheaper than the Galaxy S too.

lex-ington wrote:

I ended up purchasing the Desire on Saturday for full price - it was the best of multiple bad situations.

Anyways, the phone is amazing. the HTC syncing program comes on the 8GB microSD card already inside the phone, so that was a nice touch. i would hav had to download it otherwise. Syncing was a snap too. At least the phone allowed me to trash that preloaded screen for social networking - I don't use that stuff anyways. I find that battery life for all these new gadgets suck when you start using it for what its iuntended for. I'm gonna leave the wifi off for a few days - see how long the battery lasts without it. $100 cheaper than the Galaxy S too.

How much butchering did Telus do to the software? It would be nice if later you can grab a Galaxy S to compare the screens.

Wifi actually doesn't consume that much power compared to the screen. You'll find that the screen will be drawing like 75% of the power at least once you get it settled down.

Do you plan to use the GPS and compass? I've heard that the Galaxy S GPS and compass are somewhat messed up and rather inaccurate. Rather disappointing flaw really.

Not quite then, and even more so now. The Nexus One has the blinking clickable rollerball thing while the Desire has the optical trackpad which doubles as a button. People seem to be split about which one is better usability wise. And for the Telus Desire, the screen is going to be SLCD instead of AMOLED due to supply problems. No idea how that compares to good old AMOLED yet, but the Galaxy S is using Samsung's own super AMOLED so I would think the edge will go to the Galaxy S.

And thus the differences are fairly minor and somewhat cosmetic. In terms of experience, the speed, the touchscreen, the reception, the power consumption, these all will be very similar to the n1.



Incidentally, see if you have the SLCD screen. If you do, could you run a test for me? I'd like to see if they're still using the same digitizer as the original n1 and Desire. Get Multi-Touch Visualizer from the Market and see if you can get the touch points to cross (just move them around).

How do I find out if the screen is SLCD? I installed an application to show me what the hardware is, but it didn't tell me that part. the application is called "Quick System Info".

On a side note, I'll probably pick up the Blackberry Torch for my wife - she can't live without her BBM now. She currently has the Curve 8330 (the one with the trackball).

Easiest way is to open a screen that's mostly black (like Settings) and view it in absolute dark. The black portions should not be glowing (or very nearly so) if it's an AMOLED whereas for LCD's, the black will be somewhat glowing because of the backlight.

You could also see how the viewing angles are. AMOLEDs have the full 180 degree viewing angles whereas only IPS LCD screens have 178 degrees which the new screens are not. You should be able to notice the limits of the viewing angles if it's an LCD.

ChronoReverse wrote:

Not quite then, and even more so now. The Nexus One has the blinking clickable rollerball thing while the Desire has the optical trackpad which doubles as a button. People seem to be split about which one is better usability wise. And for the Telus Desire, the screen is going to be SLCD instead of AMOLED due to supply problems. No idea how that compares to good old AMOLED yet, but the Galaxy S is using Samsung's own super AMOLED so I would think the edge will go to the Galaxy S.

And thus the differences are fairly minor and somewhat cosmetic. In terms of experience, the speed, the touchscreen, the reception, the power consumption, these all will be very similar to the n1.

I disagree. The optical trackpad vs the ball will create a different experience if you are "mousing" with the cursor. Clicking should be about the same. I also like the mods that can change the ball's colours to denote different things. So this can be useful for different notification type.

lex-ington wrote:

How do I find out if the screen is SLCD?

If Engadget is to be belived, then Telus Desire == SLCD.