Last week, rumors pointed to Rogers releasing a new Android device by Samsung called the Galaxy Spica. The device is very similar to Bell’s already released Samsung Galaxy.

Today Rogers has posted the Galaxy Spica for sale. With a 3-year $45 voice/data plan agreement, the device is available for $79.99. The other available price points are as follows:

• 3-year voice agreement: $299.99
• 2-year agreement: $349.99
• 1-year agreement: $399.99
• Outright: $449.99

The Galaxy Spica specs are as follows:

• Android OS 1.5
• 320 x 480 3.2-inch Touchscreen
• display
• 3.2 megapixel camera with video
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• WiFi, GPS
• Speakerphone
• Up to 32GB of storage with microSD

Also, Rogers is shipping the Galaxy Spica with a 2GB microSD memory card. The memory card is available in the box when the device is purchased at any of the price points listed previously.

[Rogers]

With Motorola announcing that they are releasing three Android-powered devices with MOTOBLUR to the Canadian market, it was up to the wireless carriers to decide who gets which one.

Motorola has stated that the three new devices, the Backflip, Dext and Quench, will debut during the “first half of 2010″.

Today Bell has made an announcement that of the three new Motorola devices, they will be exclusively carrying the Dext (Telus got the Backflip yesterday). The announcement did not however indicate pricing or an official release date.

Some of the Motorola Dext tech specs include:

• Android OS 1.5 with MOTOBLUR
• 3.1-inch display (resolution of 320 x 480)
• Full Qwerty keyboard
• 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and video
• 3.5mm headset jack
• WiFi
• 32GB storage with MicroSD card
• aGPS with Google Maps

This now leaves the Quench to be picked up by Rogers.

[Bell]

With Motorola announcing that they are releasing three Android-powered devices with MOTOBLUR to the Canadian market, it was up to the wireless carriers to decide who gets which one.

Motorola has stated that the three new devices, the Backflip, Dext and Quench, will debut during the “first half of 2010″.

Today Telus has made an announcement that of the three new Motorola devices, they will be exclusively carrying the Backflip. The announcement does not indicate pricing or an official release date.

Some of the Backflip tech specs include:

• Android OS 1.5 with MOTOBLUR
• 3.1-inch HVGA display (resolution of 320 x 480)
• 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and video
• Music player
• 3.5mm headset jack
• WiFi
• Full HTML Browser
• aGPS with Google Maps
• Google Latitude

This now leaves the either the Motorola Dext and Quench to be picked up by either Bell or Rogers.

[Telus]

Motorola confirmed this week in a press release that Canada, and specifically all three of the national wireless carriers, will be receiving all three of the Motorola MOTOBLUR devices in the first half of 2010.

Motorola Canada today announced that MOTOBLUR^TM, its revolutionary social service for Android-powered devices, is coming to Canada with all three national wireless carriers in the first half of 2010.

Earlier this week, Rogers sent out a brief statement indicating its intentions to release the Motorola MOTOBLUR line of devices along with the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 later this year. As of Motorola’s press release, it would seem that all of the national wireless carriers, which includes Rogers, Telus, and Bell, will be receiving the MOTOBLUR line of Android-powered devices.

Canadian MOTOBLUR Line Up

The following devices featuring MOTOBLUR will be available in Canada:

MOTOROLA BACKFLIP™ — Backflip’s unique reverse flip design makes it easy to enjoy videos, music and photos, while its QWERTY keyboard allows you to blast through e-mails, texts, news feeds, social network messages and more. Navigate quickly and easily through menus and features with the new and unique BACKTRACK™ feature. BACKTRACK is a touch panel located on the opposite side of the device, offering you a new way to scroll through the web, texts, e-mails and news feeds without obscuring the home screen.

MOTOROLA DEXT™ — Flick through your latest updates and fire back a response on DEXT’s slide-out QWERTY keyboard – no apps to open and no menus to dig through, just instant social gratification. Snap photos with DEXT’s 5 megapixel camera with autofocus; upload photos simply to your favorite photo sharing or social sites; and make and take clear calls even in noisy environments with dual microphones and noise cancellation technology.

MOTOROLA QUENCH™ — This sleek, customizable touch tablet fits nicely in a palm or pocket. QUENCH’s easy-to-use touch pad and enhanced browser bring to life content rich web sites (busy banners, full videos) that many of today’s phones can’t handle.  And with pinch and zoom capabilities, it’s easy to enlarge and enjoy all this great content.

The three device names are the Backflip, the Dext, and the Quench and at this time, no pricing or official release dates have been announced beyond the “first half of 2010″ time frame.

[Motorola]

Google has announced a new feature to search your Android-powered phones running 2.0 in the US. It’s called Gesture Search and it lets you quickly find anything on your Android device by drawing letters on the screen.

Here’s a description from Google:

Say you want to call your friend Anne. Just open Gesture Search and draw letter “A”, and Gesture Search returns a list of items that have words starting with “A”. If your handwriting isn’t all that neat, that’s okay. If the “A” you draw looks a bit like an “H”, as seen in the bottom left corner of the screenshot, “H” results will be brought up as well.

If needed, you can also erase a query by crossing it horizontally: left to right erases the entire query, and right to left removes the last letter or space in the query. Now you can either scroll down the list to find Anne or write more letters to refine the search.

Additionally, Gesture Search improves search quality by learning from your search history, so Anne’s contact info will jump to the top of the list the next time you write “A”.

Gesture Search is available in Android Market in the US. There is no word as to its availability in Canada yet. Definitely another innovative idea from Google. The sad part is not everybody is on 2.0, so this cannot reach the masses just quite yet.

[Google Mobile Blog]

Earlier this week, rumors pointed to Rogers Wireless soon releasing a Samsung Galaxy variant called the “Galaxy Spica”.

Early pricing rumors pegged the device somewhere from $49.99 to $99.99, which would be inline with the Bell Samsung Galaxy, currently available for $49.95 on a 3-year agreement, released late last year.

Today, new pricing information puts the Samsung Galaxy Spica at $79.99 on a 3-year agreement and $449.00 outright.

Some of the Galaxy Spica specs are as follows:

• Android OS 1.5
• 320 x 480 3.2-inch Touchscreen
• display
• 3.2 megapixel camera with video
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• WiFi, GPS
• Up to 32GB of storage with microSD

[MobileSyrup]

WIND mobile, the latest carrier to begin wireless service in Canada, has a lot of good rate plans but not a lot of device choices. While WIND is always looking to give customers more choice, customers may be getting one more choice, an HTC Magic+.

According to a current WIND subscriber, upon logging into his account, he found an image of a new wireless device. That image was an HTC Magic+.

Rogers customers are all too familiar with the Magic+, especially with the device having just been rebranded, updated with the SenseUI, and 911 issues patched.

If this ends up coming true, would anyone consider WIND over Rogers for wireless service?

[MobileSyrup]

We are all too familiar with the social media team at Rogers. Sometimes they post a lot of good information and provide some useful answers, but a lot of the time they dance around the question.

Well, in a bold move, Rogers has launched a new social media venue called the “Rogers Redboard“. Keith McArthur, Senior Director of Social Media at Rogers (and a member of the Rogers social media team), says the Rogers Redboard is “a place where we can talk about our vision, explain our services and policies and geek out about the latest new technology.”

So now we can head over to the Redboard and “geek out” about the “latest new technology” like Android OS 1.5 and 911 calling fiascoes!

McArthur further states in his first post that “this won’t work if it’s a monologue. RedBoard is a metaphor for whiteboards used for collaboration. We want to hear from you – the good feedback and the bad.”

So there you have it. If you have problems, want to vent, or provide some kind of praise, check out the Rogers Redboard.

Want to win a free Motorola Milestone? Get on Twitter and follow @TELUS!

Telus is holding a Twitter based contest in which they are giving away three new Motorola Milestone devices with a car mount accessory. The contest runs from March 1 to March 5 and then again from March 8 to March 12, 2010.

To enter, get on Twitter, follow @TELUS, and re-tweet one of their daily contest messages.

See here for more contest information from Telus.