Bell and Virgin Mobile Canada launching Galaxy Nexus on December 7 in Toronto, a day early

If you’re in Toronto, Canada and were hoping to pick up the brand Galaxy Nexus running on Google’s latest version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, you won’t have to wait until December 8. Starting tomorrow at 1PM, Bell and Virgin will be selling the Samsung Galaxy Nexus at their store in Yong-Dundas.
In addition to Bell and Virgin offering the phone a little early, the Best Buy store in Bay and Dundas will also be selling the Bell and Virgin Galaxy Nexus one day early. The phone is going to sell for $159.95 CAD when you sign a 3-year contract.
If you’re not in the Toronto area, unfortunately, you will have to wait just a little longer to get your brand-new Galaxy Nexus, 1 day to be exact.
Unfortunately, the rest of us in the U.S. still haven’t received an official launch date for the phone. We’re still hoping that Verizon will launch it on December 8.
Via Mobile Syrup, Bell (Twitter)

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Galaxy Nexus Launch Dates: Nov 17th (O2 UK), Early December (Virgin Mobile / Bell)

It often seems our readers want to know one thing: when will the Samsung Galaxy Nexus launch? The sky is falling! Who cares, when does the Galaxy Nexus launch? That guy has a machine gun and is about to kill us! Okay, I’ll start running once you tell me when the Galaxy Nexus launches!
We already knew that O2 in the UK would be launching the Galaxy Nexus on November 17th, but retailers throwing their own dates into the mix sparked confusion. O2 killed that confusion over the weekend by publishing a picture of the Galaxy Nexus on G+ and then answering a launch date question with, well:


Meanwhile, Virgin Mobile (Canada) has announced to it’s customers – and everyone else’s customers craving Ice Cream Sandwich – that they’ll be able to obtain the Holy Grail get the Galaxy Nexus in early December. They’ve even got a signup page on their website:

Here is the quote directly from Virgin Mobile:

"The new Galaxy Nexus™ will be available from Virgin Mobile when it arrives in Canada in early December. Plus, only Virgin Mobile Members can get this smartphone with a no-term contract on the Virgin Mobile SuperTab™. Whether it’s with talk and text plans or the hottest data plans, Galaxy Nexus™ can be hooked up to Virgin Mobile’s full range of plans - just pick the Virgin Mobile SuperTab™ amount and plan that’s perfect for you!
"Samsung’s ongoing collaboration with Google has resulted in a next generation smartphone that has both superior functionality and a stunning user-experience," said Paul Brannen, Vice President, Mobile Communications at Samsung Electronics Canada. "The large, responsive HD SuperAMOLED screen offers users full 720p video playback on the device, and accommodates the new Android 4.0 user interface that is based on soft keys."

UPDATE: Bell didn’t want to miss out on the action and has offered their promise and sign-up page too.

Don’t you wish American carriers were as forthcoming? Looking back on the Nexus One disaster that promised the device would be “Coming Soon” to Verizon but saw it get lost in the wilderness and left to perish, I won’t be satisfied until I hear a date cemented into a press release.
Lastly, a Notion Ink support thread indicates that Android 4.0 Source Code, aka Ice Cream Sandwich, will be published on November 17th. This makes sense since it would coincide with the date of the first ICS device launches.
It’s already November 14th… the Galaxy Nexus is almost here.

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Virgin Mobile won’t start throttling customers until 2012

While Virgin Mobile is technically unlimited (and aren’t they proud of it) their parent company had intended to begin throttling its data-hungry users some time in October. Today the company issued a statement saying that while they still intend to slow down the connection of their most active customers, the change won’t happen until an unspecified date in 2012.The information was released as Virgin Mobile confirmed that it’s offering the LG Optimus Slider and HTC Wildfire.

Previously, the company stated that their customers would begin to see intentionally reduced speeds after they used 2.5GB of data. They didn’t say when they would actually put the policy in place, just that they would let customers know. Accrding to Virgin Mobile, that’s less than 3% of their customer base – which is probably small comfort to the people who fall into the category. I suppose they intend to let their customers know that while yes, they’re going to be getting a restricted level of service while paying the same amount, they’re in a very small group of likewise restricted customers. It’s exclusive.

With more and more United States carriers switching to a capped data system, throttling seems to be the method of choice for those situations where unlimited plans are an inconvenient necessity (for the carriers, at least). T-Mobile still offers unlimited plans, but already has a 2GB limit before customers are throttled. Those legacy customers on AT&T who still have unlimited terms in their contracts will be throttled beginning October 1st if they’re in the top 5% of data users, no matter how much data they’re actually using.
So gather ye tethering apps while ye may, Virgin Mobile power users. You’ve been granted a reprieve for another few months at the very least.

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Virgin Mobile takes on T-Mobile with another Ad Campaign [Video]

I don’t know about you reader but I personally like the T-Mobile Carly commercials as of late. A nice replacement for Catherine Zeta Jones if you ask me. Over at Virgin Mobile they feel differently about those commercials and that magenta colored dress and have a few of their own ad campaigns to prove it. Recently we’ve seen a few attacks come out of Virgin Mobile aimed directly at T-Mobile and their pricing.

Virgin Mobile most recently used the advertisement to promote their unlimited web, data, messaging, and email plan at $35 a month while poking fun at everyone else in the biz but mainly T-Mobile while daring them to offer the same prices. I’ll post both videos below for your viewing pleasure but first we’ll do the newest one. This last video from Virgin is basically more of the same, not as hilarious as the last one but still manages to make T-Mobile look pretty dumb in the process. Showing that their expensive unlimited data plans are no good, and over on Virgin Mobile users can live like celebrities because of all the savings.



While this most recent video is still pretty awesome and funny it doesn’t quite do it for me like the last one did. Calling T-Mobile and their set “cheap” is pretty funny though, causing “Carly” to come out and say that T-Mobile isn’t cheap at all. Here is the other video as promised, I wont explain it and rather just let you watch and enjoy it for yourself.



Mimicking the white background and Magenta dress commercials from T-Mobile clearly shows Virgin is going for the throat with these ad campaigns. If AT&T and T-Mo do end up merging this could give Virgin Mobile a nice and comfy seat at #4 for top carrier here in the US. What do you guys think? Clever ad campaign or just a cheap shot? 
[via YouTube]

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