

IPhone at $200 - ideas101
http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/05/23/att-shows-thinking-on-new-iphone-subsidy/

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pmjordan
Well, you'll be paying the ~$1000 "real" price back in overpriced contracts
with obscene minimum runtimes. (unlocked versions are available for
~€700-€1000 in Germany, France, so the real price is probably closer to
$600-800, as Europe routinely gets screwed over on import prices anyway)

I'll stick with my cheap-ish phone that is actually mine, and a nice and
flexible pay-as-you-go tariff. The way mobile phone contracts are going these
days (in Europe) you're almost guaranteed a bad deal with a contract.

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Tichy
Come on, it's not that hard:

real_price = buying_price+contract_runtime_in_months*monthly_fee

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attack
AKA, the world's highest interest loan.

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maximilian
$200 would probably make a customer out of me. I'm still considering jumping
on the Spring SERO bandwagon, because $30/month would save enough money to buy
stuff I want.

I thought about getting a smartphone with sprint for a subsidized price, but
the phones are all totally lame. Nobody but apple figured out how to make a
useful "smart" phone. The phone companies have gotten plain-jane phones down
pretty well, but they never figured out how to scale up the features. Apple
sorta went backwards. They scaled down a computer to make it a cell phone.
(its not the best analogy)

I think i'll just get a sprint sero simple phone and save up some bucks and
get a climbing rope.

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njetx
Yeah VentureBeat reported that a couple of days ago. We're taking bets on it:
[http://www.hubdub.com/m7672/What_Price_Will_The_3G_iPhone_Se...](http://www.hubdub.com/m7672/What_Price_Will_The_3G_iPhone_Sell_At)

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lpgauth
Well I paid $400 and I don't regret it... I did unlock it as Canada has the
worst cellphone market in the world. If the second gen is unlockable then 200$
is a bargain.

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josefresco
You can get smartphones free now with 2 year deals, the iphone will be free on
sites like wirefly/letstalk next year.

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redorb
this is a move that might help a little against the android devices coming
out...its a late move though as i think att should have been subsidizing the
"carrier" locked phone anyway.

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wmf
Supposedly AT&T is already kicking back money to Apple every month, but I
guess now the iPhone will be double-subsidized.

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ideas101
i think the whole lock thing is weired - cell phone should be available as any
other consumer items at walmart, circuit city etc. You just go to these
stores, pickup the phone and hook it up with any service provider of your
choice, same as what we do with our TV, Internet etc.

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mdasen
That would be great! Are you willing to pay an extra $150-300 for your cell
phone?

The problem is that it would cost more. In fact, you can already just buy a
phone (unlocked) at many online places. The reason it isn't popular is because
it costs significantly more - to the extent that even most geeks go with the
cheap, locked stuff.

Now, would it make the monthly plans cheaper? Probably, but not by as much as
the additional money you'd spend on the phone. Why? Adding a customer, even if
they bring their own equipment, costs money. Billing needs to be set up, often
it takes time from a rep, new customers have a ton more questions, etc.

So, if you'd be willing to pay an extra $50-100 (and convince 60% of other
people that's a better way too), then the industry might change. Until then,
we're stuck, but we have cheaper prices.

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dejb
So I guess this argument would extend to other industries as well. You could
buy a cheaper computer that was locked in to a particular ISP or a car that
was locked into a particular fuel supply. Or perhaps a TV that only connected
to a particular cable supplier. All these year of inefficiently allowing
consumers to freely match their products and suppliers! What have we been
thinking.

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noor420
200$ will come with a 3 year contract.

Still not a bad deal for people who are stuck with contracts anyways with
blackberry or windows mobile.

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attack
Yes, this is probably meant to be a better fit for the spending structures of
corporate customers.

