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Posts Tagged ‘Subsidy’

Editorial: the American phone subsidy model is a RAZR way of thinking in an iPhone world

The concept is simple enough — pay more, get more. So it has gone (historically, anyway) with phone subsidies in this part of the world, a system that has served us admirably for well over a decade. It made sense, and although it was never spelled out at the customer service counter quite as clearly as any of us would’ve liked, it was fairly straightforward to understand: you bought a phone on a multi-dimensional sliding scale of attractiveness, functionality, and novelty. By and large, there was a pricing scale that matched up with it one-to-one. You understood that if you wanted a color external display, a megapixel camera, or MP3 playback, you’d pay a few more dollars, and you also understood that you could knock a couple hundred dollars off of that number by signing up to a two-year contract. In exchange for a guaranteed revenue stream, your carrier’s willing to throw you a few bucks off a handset — a square deal, all things considered. So why’s the FCC in a tizzy, and how can we make it better?

Continue reading Editorial: the American phone subsidy model is a RAZR way of thinking in an iPhone world

Editorial: the American phone subsidy model is a RAZR way of thinking in an iPhone world originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Leaked Google documents spill pricing and unlocking details of Nexus One, the Google phone

Google’s Nexus One phone will evidently have a couple of interesting features, according to new documents leaked to the Gizmodo blog.

Google plans to sell the Google-designed, Android-based phone by itself. The unlocked and unsubsidized phone will sell for $530. Meanwhile, T-Mobile plans to sell a subsidized version for $180 with a two-year service contract. The phone service with 500 minutes of airtime per month, text messaging, and data is $79.99.

Those who use Family plans, Flexpay, SmartAccess and KidConnect subscriptions must buy the phone unlocked in order to use those plans still. You can have up to five Nexus One phones per Google account. Google plans to sell the phone at Google.com/phone.

If you cancel the plan before 120 days, you have to pay the subsidy difference, or $350. For some reason, Google made sure in its terms of service agreements that buyers knew that the maker of the phone was HTC, not Google itself. TechCrunch also noted in a post that Google may be planning an automated backup service for the Nexus One phones.

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Qualcomm hopes Snapdragon smartbooks take bite out of Atom

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor is finally coming to little laptops. The chip company has confirmed that its speedy ARM offering has been adopted by Lenovo for a new product with a netbook form-factor. The device will be available from AT&T, presumably offered with some kind of contract subsidy.

Despite being named after a flower, the Snapdragon has serious bite. Its Cortex-A8 core packs 1GHz of processing power, delivering an impressive balance of performance and energy efficiency. The chip is already being used in a handful of ultra high-end smartphones, including the HTC HD2 and Sony Ericsson’s upcoming Xperia X10 Android handset. The company hopes to bring it to more mainstream phones and other devices in the future.

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Verizon prepping HP Mini 311, Mini 110 for launch

Wait, hold up — before you sprint down to your Verizon store (sprint… Verizon… never mind) to pick up that catchily-named Gateway LT2016u that just launched, you might want to mull over the next batch of netbooks primed to hit the carrier’s outlets in the coming days. Subsidized netbooks still haven’t proven themselves as viable products — at least, so long as they’re not subsidized down to $0 — but Verizon’s ready to keep on trying with the launch of a global 3G-equipped HP Mini 311 on October 22. Sickeningly, they want a full $249.99 on contract after $100 mail-in rebate — but in exchange, you’ll be getting ION, Windows 7, 1366 x 768 resolution on a 11.6-inch display, and a 1.6GHz Atom N270. Moving on, the carrier’s current Mini 1151 will ride off into the sunset and be replaced by a Windows XP-equipped Mini 110 featuring a 160GB hard drive and 1GB of RAM; it’ll launch once 1151 stock is depleted for $199.99 after rebate with a new two-year deal. Follow the break for details and specs on the 110 (spoiler: it’s like pretty much every other 110, but with more voodoo subsidy math).

Continue reading Verizon prepping HP Mini 311, Mini 110 for launch

Filed under: Laptops, Wireless

Verizon prepping HP Mini 311, Mini 110 for launch originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung Galaxy i7500 pops up unlocked on Newegg

Sorry, subsidy fans, Samsung’s Galaxy i7500 still isn’t be offered by any carriers, but if you’re jonesing, a listing for the Android-enhanced handset has made its way unlocked onto Newegg’s website. It’s got quad-band GSM and tri-band UMTS, it theoretically should work on T-Mobile’s 3G network, one of the few we can recall — either way you’ll still have GSM support for T-Mo and AT&T. Entry fee will be a Lincoln coin under $590; mum’s the word on ship date, but now that the groundwork’s been laid out, at least we know it’s an inevitability.

[Thanks, Dayson]

Samsung Galaxy i7500 pops up unlocked on Newegg originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia N900 running Maemo 5 officially €500 in October (update: Video!)

In backwards order, Nokia has finally launched the N900 after we’ve already seen a review and countless leaks. Nevertheless, it’s good to have the new Maemo 5 Internet Tablet out in the open and official-like. The specs include a 3.5-inch 800×480 pixel (resistive) touchscreen, sliding QWERTY, 32GB of on-board storage expandable to 48GB via microSD, GPS/A-GPS, FM transmitter, TV-out, Bluetooth 2.1, WiFi, 1320mAh battery, and 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and dual-LED flash. Better yet, this monster MID brings the power of the ARM Cortex-A8, up to 1GB of application memory, and OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics acceleration to make quick work of polygons and what Nokia promises will be a “PC-like experience on a handset-sized device.” It also brings a Mozilla-based Maemo browser with Adobe Flash 9.4 support. As expected, it’ll be on display at Nokia World next week before this quad-band GSM/EDGE, 900/1700/2100MHz UMTS/HSPA handset heads to select markets in October for €500 (pre tax and pre carrier subsidy). And by the looks of that 1700MHz band, this baby’s heading to T-Mobile USA.

Update: Videos added after the break.

Continue reading Nokia N900 running Maemo 5 officially €500 in October (update: Video!)

Nokia N900 running Maemo 5 officially €500 in October (update: Video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fuzzy math: Palm Pre to run about $470 full retail?

Sprint is kicking off an exciting little contest that’ll ultimately award two lucky winners with their very own Pres, Touchstones, and one year of Simply Everything service — pretty awesome stuff. Both Sprint and Palm have been famously tight-lipped about pricing for the Pre thus far, but using a few basic calculations derived from the game’s legalese, an eagle-eyed tipster pointed out that it seems that we can probably get within a few bucks of the full retail price. Here’s the deal: we know that Simply Everything runs $99 a month. After federal taxes, FCC surcharges, and some fudge factor for local taxes, you’re looking at, say, $105 to $110 a month. We can say with some confidence now that the Touchstone itself will run $69.99 at retail — and that leaves the Pre itself. Sprint’s rules say that the prize package’s approximate retail value is $1,800, so if you subtract $105 for the plan (since Sprint can’t be factoring in local taxes here) and $70 for the Touchstone, that basically leaves you with a nice, round $469.99. That sounds like a big number at first, but first off, very few folks will be paying $470 for a Pre — they’ll either be upgrading or adding new lines at a significant subsidy — and to put the number in perspective, AT&T charges $549.99 full retail for the BlackBerry Bold. We’re basically just thinking out loud here, but $470 seems like it’d give Sprint plenty of wiggle room to blow this thing out on contract, doesn’t it? Check out shots of Sprint’s mind-blowing contest for the ages after the break.

[Thanks, Jonathan]

Continue reading Fuzzy math: Palm Pre to run about $470 full retail?

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Fuzzy math: Palm Pre to run about $470 full retail? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 May 2009 18:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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