This cellphone is loaded to the hilt with features: GPS, 400×240 WQVGA display, 2 mega-pixel camera, MiniSD slot, 2Mbps net connection, radio receiver and on and on and on…

Why doesn’t North America have phones like these? Why are our networks so damn slow to adopt new technologies?

Come to think of it…

• Land-mass; Canada and the United States are much, much larger than most european and asian countries. The costs and risks of rolling out new technologies across each country are enormous.
• State-owned networks; I believe many of the european and asian states still have state-owned and operated networks. The costs of upgrading networks are most likely subsidized by the government.
• FCC radio spectrum auctions; Can you believe the US gov’t raised $14 BILLION dollars by licensing radio air space? T-Mobile alone spent over $4 billion. That’s quite a bit of money to shell out before spending a single penny on rolling out technology to actually take advantage of the license.

So that explains the networks, but what about the phones themselves? Why are we pre-occupied with form over function phones like the RAZR or PEBL from Motorola? I’d like to get my paws on something that has a nice mix of looks and features without having to sell one of my kidneys in order to get it.

Rant’s over and I still want a fancy pants cell phone. I even have my next phone picked out, a coming-soon-to-Europe-but-maybe-never-to-Canada BenQ-Siemens SL91.

My eyes must have been really big last week at the Apple Store in San Francisco. I’m at the store to meet up with my cousin for dinner, and the next thing you know, I’m leaving with a brand-spanking new 2nd-gen iPod Nano. Naturally it’s the black 8Gb version.

On the flight home I’m worrying about how I’ll explain this new purchase to the woman. What if she doesn’t like it? I could always sell it. Maybe even at a profit since the 2G Nanos aren’t available at retail in Canada yet. What if she does? Maybe we can sell our other iPod, a 20Gb 4G click-wheel.

The worrying was all for naught. I show her the new Nano and she goes:

“I didn’t even know there’s a new iPod.”

“Is it mine?”

“We’ll need to get a case before it gets scratched.”

We head to Future Shop to see if they have any cases that will fit the new Nano. After having not much luck asking the friendly but clueless sales person, the my girl says:

“I don’t want a plastic case because it’ll scratch the iPod. Why don’t we check the Coach and Gucci stores? Maybe they have cases for the iPod.”

Ah-ha! Not only does she now have a shiny new gizmo, she wants to bling it out as well! So we head over to the Coach store, and yes, they have a bunch of cases for the Nanos. She picks their signature casing, natch. I’m glad we didn’t have to venture into the LV or Gucci stores across the street. Who knows how much their cases would have set us back.

Any hoo… Ars Technica has a great review of the new Nanos with lots of the requisite photos. They submit a 2Gb Nano to a guantlet of torture tests, trying to scratch the screen and casing, dropping it and even putting the Nano through the wash.

One more thing… that Coach case doesn’t actually protect the screen from scratches, as there’s no film or anything in the opening for the screen. We ended up getting the Logiix Protector Nano. The kit includes a couple of protective films, a microfibre cloth to clean the iPod and a soft card to “squeegee” out the bubbles when you place the protector on the screen. The protective film is cut perfectly to the size of the screen and it dropped right in to the screen frame. When I showed the iPod to a co-worker, he didn’t even notice there was a protector applied to the Nano.