LWN.net Logo

The end of the road for the Nexus One

The end of the road for the Nexus One

Posted Jul 23, 2010 10:39 UTC (Fri) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106)
In reply to: The end of the road for the Nexus One by pphaneuf
Parent article: The end of the road for the Nexus One

If you're measuring popularity then perceived expense is more important than actual cost. Your average person is okay with a service contract and doesn't really consider it to be part of the cost of the phone. All they will see is $200 vs. $600.


(Log in to post comments)

The end of the road for the Nexus One

Posted Jul 23, 2010 15:15 UTC (Fri) by pphaneuf (guest, #23480) [Link]

Wasn't there "with contract" deals with T-Mobile for less than $200? I agree that the choice of carrier was minimal, though. In many European mobile shops, I remember seeing both the no-contract price, and the contract prices (for various number of years) on the labels, that would probably be best.

The end of the road for the Nexus One

Posted Jul 26, 2010 11:32 UTC (Mon) by wookey (subscriber, #5501) [Link]

I have never understood this. It's quite true, but I just don't understand why people don't include recurring/ongoing costs when they work out how much something costs overall. i.e. do $30 * 12(or24) months + $200 vs $600 and note that after say 18 months they'll be saving money. This applies to many areas of life (cars, phones, utility bills/energy efficiency etc). I don't mind if people still take the 'higher installments' route, perhaps because they don't have the cash upfront; it's the way that few people even bother to make the comparison that I find hard to understand.

Perhaps it's no wonder the western world collapsed under epic debt levels, given how even simple arithmetic seems to be beyond much of the populace.

The end of the road for the Nexus One

Posted Jul 26, 2010 11:39 UTC (Mon) by johill (subscriber, #25196) [Link]

Ah, but you're over-simplifying. If you just buy the phone, you can't actually use it to make calls yet. So in reality, while the arithmetic is simple, you still have to compare plans w/ and w/o phones, and not all plans are offered the same, etc.

The end of the road for the Nexus One

Posted Jul 26, 2010 21:18 UTC (Mon) by pphaneuf (guest, #23480) [Link]

I dropped 20€ in a Vodaphone store in Portugal for a pay-as-you-go card, and got my previous Android phone working just fine. Here in Canada (and in the US too, although for slightly cheaper), you absolutely have to have a plan, with some expensive extras for data, and if I wanted the cheaper plans, the subsidy wasn't as good (I paid $250 for my iPhone 3G instead of the advertised $200).

There's a bit more to analyze, yes, and I understand it might be an acceptable compromise. For me, since I enjoy travelling, having an unlocked phone has a significant extra value, and as a hacker, having a phone I can play with is also an extra value. Both of these might not apply, or only partially, if you do not travel as much, or are not a hacker.

Copyright © 2013, Eklektix, Inc.
Comments and public postings are copyrighted by their creators.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds