calling all gadget addicts
 

Hi,
My brother is on holiday over here in the UK from Canada and has given me some frightning news. Unfortunatly for him, I do not always believe what he tells me as experience has proved he doesnt allways tell the truth.

He has informed me that Canada is at least 5 years behind the UK technology. I am a definite gadget freak and have just recieved my interview waiver for skilled worker PR (my brother is over in Canada currently on a work permit). He was admiring my pocket PC and the way it interacts with my cell phone via bluetooth. He was very impressed by my jabra bluetooth hands free and thought that the digital mp4 video/still camera with SD card was amazing. When he realised that my pocket PC took the compact flash card from my Nikon Digital Camera and the SD card from the Video camera he informed me that I would hate it in Canada as they have no such technology.

I have been on google.ca and searched for all sorts of goodies to see how things compare over there in the last year and think he is talking out of his ass. I have been on holiday to BC and Ontario and unless I was in a dream state I am convinced I saw such products in shops. I live in the Lincolnshire Villages and accept that these products are not readily available in huge quantities in the local shops but often shop on-line.

I would be grateful if anyone in Canada could confirm or dispell the information given to me by my brother. - Basically - Is it true that Canada is 5 years behind and bluetooth technology has not reached Canada yet. do you really survive without SD card technology? :confused:

Re: calling all gadget addicts
 

I think your brother is talking out of his ass as you say. Although this technology might not be widely available, I think this is due to the less frequent use of mobiles in general. Check out Ebay.ca as well. If you're that worried, take the stuff you have already with you... It will all work fine out there.

Re: calling all gadget addicts
 

I was planning on bringing it over - how else do I survive a 10 hour plane journey - lol.

The biggest issue I have is with the phone - I have heard on the forums here that SIM cards are not easy to get hold of as a lot of phones do not use them. I am currently with vodaphone over here and hoping to immigrate to BC Kamloops which I hear do not have good vodaphone coverage. My fall back option is simply to get a new mobile with bluetooth when I arrive. However I have noticed that you can buy a Sony Ericson T610 in Canada (the model I have). I am comming over in Feb for research reasons so will have a look around in stores while I am there.

Any particular reason why people do not use cell phonesfor the less frequent use of cell phones?

having internet access anywhere anytime - especially e-mail is very good.

well I am a confirmed gadget addict - lol

Re: calling all gadget addicts
 

If your a gadget freak then take a look at the Sony PSP out Dec.12th which should help pass the time on a plane journey.

http://www.playstation.jp/ch/cm/asx/...a_kyoshitu.asx

It also plays mp3's and movies.

Re: calling all gadget addicts
 

i also like my gadgets!

i think the big reason people dont use cell phones here as much is because its more expensive. you pay to make the call and also pay to receive calls. that would be my guess, as i hardly use the cell phone now that we had a land line installed (local calls are free on a landline).

ive been in a few shops since we arrived and they seem to be pretty gadgetted up, IMO. i was also able to buy a SIM Card on its own here.

Re: calling all gadget addicts
 

I'm a gadget addict too and have found lots of gadgets that *aren't* available in the UK, and lots that are available in the UK but not in Canada (e.g. Tivo :-(). .. I think it's true to say that a lot of gadgets are not available in stores but are available via mail order.

Regarding mobile phones, just got a Rogers Wireless SIM card for $25 and topped it up with pay as you go. I used http://www.mobilestuff4u.com/ to generate the right codes to unlock my UK nokia 6600 phone. It works fine... I understand you can upgrade to a monthly contract easily too..

Re: calling all gadget addicts
 

Thanks, great link, just unlocked my mobile...

Re: calling all gadget addicts
 

Cool! I tried quite a few before finding that one... I kept getting invalid code messages and was worried that I would get locked out. Enjoy your new unlocked freedom...

Re: calling all gadget addicts
 

I think part of the reason is just that north america in general was slow on the digital cell phone technology. If you think about it the UK is small so when the UK went from analog to digital it wasnt too hard, but look at the size of north america, to upgrade all those cells to full digital coverage is a much more expensive task so I think there was a tendancy to fall back on the old analog systems for a while. you still get dual mode phones for out of city areas that aren't digital yet. Also the US chose a different standard to GSM so there wasn't the same development in north american companies to the GSM type stuff that boomed in the UK.

It's not that bad now in the city though. You get GSM networks and phones with the fast data link and also the 1X networks. One of the more popular mobile units, the Blackberry, is a Canadian product from a Canadian company. It can be expensive but you can get a blackberry on rogers digital wireless network and get unlimited bandwidth for emails and web browsing etc. for like $60/month I think, maybe $90 for unlimited and cheaper for x amount of bandwidth. Most of the phones that are sold are now the camera phones or video phones with all the games and so forth. The Blackberry has bluetooth and so you have problem linking that up to the laptop for wireless access etc. I used to see plenty of people on the GO train with their laptops out hooked up to their blackberry or cell with the wireless hands free mic and ear piece in etc.

However it all depends what you need it for. I have a phone in my office and a phone in my house and there are pay phones everywhere which only cost 25c for a local call, not like the /minute rip off of a BT payphone in the UK. So I don't even notice that I don't have a cell phone here. Saves quite a bit of cash.

Drew

Re: calling all gadget addicts
 

Try:

www.futureshop.ca

To see if it's as good as it name suggests.

Re: calling all gadget addicts
 

They're not all that "futuristic" - they don't even carry any Apple products. :D

Re: calling all gadget addicts
 

I have some friends who emigrated here last February. They bought a huge Sony home theatre system. I believe they said they paid about $6,000 for it but they said it would cost five times that amount in England.

So I guess some things are more popular here because they are cheaper here, and while the technology is probably available here, as someone pointed out - when you get all your local landline calls for nothing I think people tend to use the land line more because a cell is more expensive. You can't get much cheaper than nothing!!

Re: calling all gadget addicts
 

Best Buy have Apple products. God bless em.

Have you seen the new Apple stor in Regents Street? It's almost enough to make me go back home.

I think another reason Canadians don't use mobiles so much is that they don't have sad, empty, little lives and actually spend their time more constructively than beep, beep, beeping away at their little antisocial toys.


I have 'issues' with mobile phone users.

Re: calling all gadget addicts
 

No I live in Canada, but have heard all about it from the "critics" that hang out on the forum who hate Apple products more than life itself. :D

Not tell me, another Mac lover in our midst? I love it.

Re: calling all gadget addicts
 

I'm not a gadget freak, but I do know that Canada is a leader in wireless technology. Research In Motion, is a Waterloo, Ontario company that invented the "Blackberry". So it's been in Canada since day one. It only was introduced into Europe recently. So ask your brother again (after he checks out the following website), who's 5 years behind?

http://www.rim.com/