14 DAY TRIAL // Canadian mobile phone carrier Rogers has operated yet another price cut to the recently released HTC Dream and Magic, the only Android-based handsets in the country. After having the phones available for $99.99 at the beginning of July, a decrease from the $149.99 price tag the devices came to its airwaves with, now the operator went even lower, and Canadian users can acquire one of these for only $79.99 on a three-year contract agreement.
As many of you might already know, Rogers is the first wireless operator in Canada to launch mobile phones powered by Google's Android operating system. The new price tag is already effective, and, to be honest, it doesn't sound bad at all when applied to these two Android pieces. It is a common fact that the HTC Dream was the first mobile phone to come to the market with Android, with the HTC Magic next in line. And while the former went live in the fourth quarter of 2008, the latter is only three months old.
According to Engadget, the new price drop might mean only one thing, namely that the carrier is getting ready to release the third Android-powered handset the Taiwan-based HTC Corporation released on the market, the HTC Hero. While this remains only in the rumor side for the time being, there are great chances that this is the reason why the HTC Dream and Magic can be purchased for only $79.99 at the moment in Canada.
On the other hand, we should also consider the fact that the two phones face a strong competition on the Canadian market from local devices, meaning RIM's BlackBerries, and from foreign ones, namely the recently launched iPhone 3GS (also available with Rogers). From this point of view, Roger's move would show that it is trying to make the Android phones as attractive as possible to Canadians, yet this is only a supposition. Time will definitely tell whether Hero is also heading towards Rogers' customers or not.