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Google's Nexus One, a Steal At $49 Unlocked?
gjt writes "I initially posted a piece ragging on the Nexus One. But then a commenter pointed out a problem with my initial logic, and after doing some math I concluded that the $529 unlocked/unsubsidized Google Nexus One gPhone is much cheaper than it appears to be. In fact it's only $49 over two years — and that's unlocked! Google likes to say that the Nexus One represents 'Our new approach to buying a mobile phone.' But it actually seems as though T-Mobile deserves most of the credit by providing a $20/month discount to customers who purchase an unsubsidized phone, a fact that didn't seem to get much attention when T-Mobile created the plan last October."
So, the real cost of an unlimited everything plan is $99.99/mo for subsidized phone buyers. Compare that to the $79.99/mo plan for unsubsidized buyers and that’s a $20/mo savings. Over two years, that’s a whopping $480 savings.
So, $529 – $480 yields a final purchase price of just $49!
Except that the phone is still $529! You're just buying the most expensive package available and think you're saving money, which makes no sense.
Everything in Europe has been traditionally unlocked and unsubsidized phones. You buy the phone and then you get a subscription from your favorite operator. They have added the subsidized option but almost no one buys his/her phone like that. It's just stupid, which the article writer seems to have "discovered" here.
$49 as in "$529 + $1680 is only $2160 +$49."
That's not quite $49, and not even getting into the issue of NPV (net present value).
Dear poster,
Your math is unlike my math. I have concluded that your math sounds like something a statistician would produce to justify something completely ass backwards.
Sincerely,
John Q Public
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
For a long time, I didn't even understand why /. is so hung up about phone plans. "Why don't you just buy a prepay one?"
I'm pretty sure it has a lot to do with the fact that Slashdot is hosted and operated in the United States for the primary benefit of readers in the United States. The handsets sold in big-box stores in the United States for use with prepaid plans in the United States are still locked to one provider, and they're feature phones rather than smartphones. Feature phones tend to have fewer apps because 1. there isn't a lot of CPU power, and 2. BREW is even more restrictive than Apple's App Store.
What was that about not being evil again?
On the other hand one can buy the phone and the same two year cost will be about the same. This would be the reasonable thing to do as you would not incur the wrath of the Google termination fee.
I don't even know why anyone would by a Nexus 1, since one can get a no contract phone from T-Mobile for much less and have the same fee.
I wonder if Google is setting such high prices to keep the cell companies happy, or if they are actually so inefficient that they can't market the phone for less.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Google getting desperate and subtly spamming slashdot now? Hey, perhaps people just don't want a phone made by the "maybeyou shouldn't be doing it in the first place" guys?
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
google's release of the Nexus One is more of a raising the bar for other android hardware makers and in turn they didn't expect to sell tons of units or set the world on fire. rather, they are making other android handset makers step up their game to compete. plus, they can also test their device on a smaller carrier prior to unleashing it into the large boys like verizon and at&t.
just my .02 like always (cuz you know with the interwebz, we all have our .02, hehe).
oh yea, the fewer people that have the Nexus One, the better for me. makes me feel special. j/k.. i think we'll see the nexus one take off when it hits a bigger carrier like verizon later this spring.
I think you've got the plans backwards. Tmobile is discounting the unsubsidized plans $20 (basically, you are making up the subsidy in $20 increments over the life of the contract).
$179 + $99.99 * 24 = $179 + 2399.76 = $2578.76 Subsidized
$529 + $79.99 * 24 = $529 + $1919.76 = $2448.76 Unsubsidized
Difference is $130 in favor of the unsubsidized.
The Nexus One (like all Android phones) is data-hungry. It wants a 3G signal to perform well. EDGE sucks so bad you woild give the phone back.
Since there may not be ANY phone sold in the US that does 3G on both AT&T and T-Mobile, your choice of Android phone pretty much determines which carrier you use - you don't want to buy a Nexus One for use on AT&T, since it will be a slow data phone. Ditto for buying an iPhone 3G or 3GS to use on T-Mobile. It will be slow and disappointing.
Locking GSM data-intensive phones in the US is pointless, and a complete lie. If you want a 3G phone, your carrier determines which phone you buy. For now, anyways.
Now, when there is a 3G 'smartphone', Android or not, that can handle both A&T and T-Mobile 3G, then locking becomes important again. But for now, Android GSM phones need not be locked, and smart people at the carriers know this. They just go along as they always have, cause it makes sense to most of us.
On the CDMA side, it's more interesting.
In Europe, it seems GSM is pretty compatible. And locking is not a viable business model there.
So if you buy a locked Android phone, you know at least one party doesn't get it.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Not possible. T-Mobile is a cellphone company and therefor irredeemably evil. They cannot possibly deserve any credit for anything. I'm sure someone will explain how it is all really a plot to deprive you of your inalienable human right to unlimited free downloads and uncapped infinite bandwidth.
The RIAA is behind it. Mark my words.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Aren't you guys tired of reading all the time the same big-brother phone-add "news" on slashdot? Since when this site started covering a 4 months old price as a news? What exactly do we learn here? Are moderators sold to google? Aren't the adds on google itself enough? If this was mobile phone dot com why not, but I (and I believe, the vast majority of readers here) are reading to learn about new stuffs in the IT world.
I'm getting sick of so much promotion for a device that doesn't deserves it and that is taking so much space and time on the web.
Geez, when you add it all up, doesn't it seem like a lot of money to you just for an opportunity to use the phone?
So subsidizing is basically T-mobile giving you a $350 loan where you pay back $20 per month for 24 months.
If I'm not wrong the interest rate on this loan is 32.4% ?
Shouldn't we calculate the price in the same way as iPhone prices are usually calculated?
According to the FTA, he is paying $529 for the phone, plus $80 per month for an unlimited plan = $1920 over two years, total = $2449. That is the cost of the phone.
Aren't you guys tired of reading all the time the same big-brother phone-ad "news" on slashdot?
I'm not.
I'm in fact really happy that there were good discussions about the Nokia N900 phone---otherwise I wouldn't have known about the existence of a smartphone which (supposedly) delivers exactly what I want: a pocket computer I can tinker with.
Being told that the thing I've been wanting for ten years finally exists is something I'm actually happy about. Was Nokia involved behind the scenes? Were they trying to push their product? Why would I care---I want the product at the price it's offered at.
Just like the other day where I was shopping for a scarf. The sales clerk notified me they had socks for sale. I tried a pair on, liked it, found the price reasonable, and I needed more socks, so I bought some. Yes, he applied a sales technique on me, and it worked. So what? His pitch didn't artificially inflate my need for socks, it told me "you can get what you want, and here's how: [...]".
And a while back I was looking for some stickers for my Rubik's cube. One of Google's advertisers had exactly what I wanted, at a price I liked.
Advertisements aren't that bad. It's just that 99% give all the good ones a bad name ;-)
That is to say: yeah, I see a lot of ads I'd rather be without. But every once in a while, someone seeks me out wanting to sell me something, and it just so happens that I, before engaging with them, have a desire to buy what I then discover they sell.
If I like the transaction, why shouldn't I like being brought in contact with the other side of it?
And hey, if you don't like the headlines, you don't have to read the summary. And if you don't like the summary, you don't have to read the discussion. And you never have to read the article (see, I'm not new here).
This is bullshit. Not only do consumers prefer to pay later, fucking accountants prefer to pay later. Corporations prefer to pay later.
Apple tried this with the iPhone, too. The original iPhone was unsubsidized. People HATED it.
The subsidy is great because it makes it possible to buy an iPhone for $99 instead of a crappy feature phone. The extra $20 per month on the contract is offset by the fact that you're using a smartphone, it pays for itself. You make more sales or get a better job or save time or money compared to when you didn't have a smartphone.
STOP APOLOGIZING FOR ANDROID. It sucks and it won't get better until the people who use it demand that it get better. Google bought Android in 2005. Where are the results? iPad is going to ship with a $15 data plan and Skype calls, that is what was promised from the Google Phone. And iPad with 3G and 16GB is only $50 more than Nexus One.
"Not only do consumers prefer to pay later"
Says who? I always pay now instead of later so that I can avoid any debts that I may not be able to pay off. Paying later is what got us into the whole economical crisis in the first place.
Good Grid! Does this guy actually think I am going to try to follow this spaghetti of weird math? "If you think about it, subtracting THIS amount if you get THAT option is almost like you could think of it as though you were saving THIS much beyond the discount with THIS OTHER option..."
Give me an effin' break!
Here is a hint for the author of TFA: when comparing costs, you don't need to subract ANYTHING. All you do is add.
Show me a simple chart:
Phone A with plan A costs THIS MUCH over two years. (Upfront cost + monthly charge over 2 years = total. No need to get any fancier.)
Phone B with plan A costs THIS MUCH over two years.
Phone A with plan B costs THIS MUCH over two years.
Phone B with plan B costs THIS MUCH over two years.
And so on. That's all it takes. I don't need to subract anything from anything and I don't need to "think of it as though" I were saving anything. I can just look at the damned chart and see what everything costs.
Jesus. Is this guy some kind of professional writer? Can I have his job?
This article is symptomatic of the mobile phone business greed.
The pricing plans are so convoluted, someone claiming to be an expert cannot even get the math right.
So you really have a choice.
I understand it this way: If you buy too cheap, you may have to buy the same thing of kind again in the future when it breaks, or turns out to be not good enough for your needs.
For instance, my recent experiences with that:
1. I bought a high end point and shoot camera before going on vacation. Took me about 2 days to realize that it still wasn't good enough, and that I couldn't make it better by putting another lens on it, because they're not interchangeable. Now I have a DSLR and am much happier with the results. It's a midrange sort so it could be better still, but with a DSLR I have enough flexibility that I almost never happen to be in a situation that a better camera would make something significantly better. That was a waste of money on the P&S.
2. Some time ago I bought a fairly high end phone... with a T9 keyboard. It was capable of fairly decent web browsing, and could run applications, but was utter horror to type anything with. I'd have been much better off with something with a real keyboard. I could have got that for $50 more. In hindsight that was a waste. Now I have a N900 and couldn't be happier.
3. I tried VIA's MiniITX boards as a way of having a "cheap server". Turned out to be anything but, because it was horribly unreliable, so after months of fighting with it, it now sits in the closet.
So, overall, buying too cheap often turns out expensive, when the cheap product isn't good enough and has to be replaced. Then you end up buying two things instead of one.
You're suggesting that women seek money from a relationship. Actually, women seek security* in a relationship.
* Security is a fancy word for "money."
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
Thankfully sensible people *do* exist.
Nexus One vs iPhone, Droid & Palm Pre
This is important: Don't forget that along with that $20/month extra that you pay with a subsidized version, you also have to pay roughly $4 more in taxes and fees. Most Americans won't have to do anything like that with the Nexus One itself.
Do the Math: $529 retail price - (24 months * (20 dollars/mmonth + $4 taxes&feees/month))
The end result is that the unlocked Nexus One is a steal at -47 USD!
BTW, you can do something similar with AT&T smartphones. I bought an unlocked Nokia 5800 XpressMusic for $270 (you can get it for a lot less often now.) I only have to pay $15/month (before taxes and fees) on a data plan, rather than $30 like all phones purchased from AT&T require (presumably when the phone is purchased at a subsidized price.)
So the result is that instead of paying roughly $100 for my phone, I pay $270 retail price - (24 months * (15 dollars/month + $3 taxes&fees/month)). This equals -162 USD!