AWS is a tough mistress. The runt of the pack, the 1700Mhz bands is seldom used and often derided as the lesser of the GSM frequencies. Indeed, because the band does not use a low frequency partner to its high counterpart like its competitors (850/900Mhz) it is difficult to gain reception inside buildings or through thick walls. For many years, as T-Mobile expanded its AWS service in the US, customers often said, “Sure, it uses a SIM card, but why isn’t the reception as good as that of AT&T?” Difficult to explain to the layman, the average geek just shrugged it off as, “They are improving their network; it will improve one day.”

Today, however, we have a very different landscape. T-Mobile, running on the AWS band, is robust throughout America, and has even upgraded the majority of its towers to HSPA+ speeds of 21Mbps. If this isn’t making any sense to you, and you are just looking for a low-cost alternative to the entrenched status quo of AT&T in the US and Rogers in Canada, fear not. This review is about to get a lot less intimidating.

Just know two things: in Canada, WIND Mobile and Mobilicity (and in Quebec, Videotron) use the same 1700Mhz bands as T-Mobile in the United States. The main difference between the Canadian upstarts and its US counterpart is that WIND and Mobilicity are entering a market that hates competition; in fact, Rogers, Telus and Bell go out of their way whenever they can to stifle any and all of it. Since the emergence of smartphones in the mid-decade, revenues of the Big Three have increased exponentially, as customers are willing to pay a fortune to get their fix. Three-year contracts being the norm, and an average monthly phone bill in the $60 range, Canadians consider themselves “F-ed in the A,” to put it mildly.

Link for Mobile Viewing

So in 2008, when WIND Mobile and Mobilicity bought a bunch of the newly-released 1700Mhz spectrum, they prepared to enter a market whose idea of change was launching “discount” carriers as subsidiaries of their more mature owners (Fido, Solo and Koodo) without actually offering plans at a large discount. The two upstarts brought something extraordinary to the table: the idea of unlimited usage and no contracts for a flat monthly fee. You pay for the handset up front, and cancel whenever you want. The end.

Today, WIND Mobile has expanded into five cities: Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary (and not Halifax like I mention in the video review). They offer cheap devices and expensive devices, and their plans are reasonably priced and highly competitive. The Motorola XT720, released in late September, is a variant of the Milestone family of Android devices, which originally began its life on Verizon as the Droid. The XT720 has the same 854×480 screen as the Droid/Milestone, and 512MB RAM running on Android 2.1.

It has a strange shape, though not altogether unattractive. Its face is incredibly reflective, awkwardly so at times, especially if you’d rather not see your ugly mug staring back at you at all times of the day. If you’re a vain SOB, this could be the perfect phone for you. Like the Nexus One, the touch-screen is not all that sensitive, and at times did not register my touches. It only has two touch points on the screen, so multi-touch is limited.

The camera takes very nice pictures, especially with the 8MP Xenon flash. Indoors, however, the flash is too bright and often causes over-exposure. In low-light conditions, the camera takes decent photos with limited noise, and is one of the better cameras I’ve used on a phone, especially on Android. Unfortunately the limited CPU speed does cause the shutter to lag occasionally, so unless you have the camera app pre-loaded, you risk losing the moment to stuttering. This only happened a couple times, though.

For $450, the device is good value, especially considering how much money you will save per year on your phone bill with WIND. The cheapest plans start at $15 for voice and $10 for data, so for $25/month you get a decent number of minutes, SMS and enough data to load up the Globe & Mail webpage every once in a while. For $75 you get unlimited talk, text and data, and WIND is always throwing promotions at you, so checking in with them could save you even more.

In terms of reception, WIND is currently working hard to expand their network throughout the major Canadian cities. I have used it only in Toronto and Ottawa, but in both cities was pleasantly surprised, if not shocked, at how good the indoor reception was. Whether in Markham, which is close to the northern-most border of the service area, or Oakville to the west, to downtown Toronto, I rarely found myself with less than 2 bars of service, and a Speedtest showed a consistnet 1.8Mpbs Downstream and 1Mpbs Upstream.

Check out the Motorola XT720 for WIND Mobile.

—

Phone specs:

Technical Specifications

Frequencies / Bands: WCDMA 1700/2100 GSM: 850/900/1800/1900

Display Resolution: 480 x 854 WVGA TFT

Screen Size: 3.7”

Bluetooth Enabled: Yes

Wi-Fi Enabled: Yes

Internal Memory: 512MB

External Memory: microSD™ slot for external memory up to 32 GB

Size / Dimensions: 116 mm x 60.0 mm x 10.9 mm

Weight: 160 g

Battery Life: 1390mAh
Talk time: Up to 270 min in WIND HOME Zone
Standby time: Up to 320 hours in WIND HOME Zone

Operating System: Android Éclair 2.1

Keyboard: Full touch screen with virtual QWERTY keyboard

GPS: A-GPS and GPS

Camera: 8MP Auto-focus, flash, face detection, image stabilization