No more unlimited data/ full price phones

[Lilypu]

I have posted about Verizon doing away with unlimited data . Now I would like to bring up the issue ( my only option) of paying full price for a smart phone. It seems the only way that I will be able to keep my unlimited data is to pay full price for a phone, that being said I would like to know who exactly really feels that these phones are worth $600.00 + dollars. It has been my experience that these phones are really only worth the discounted prices and sometimes not even that. It is all over the web how regularly these phones malfunction or do not function at all. If I pay full retail  (fromVerizon) and it malfunctions I will be given a refurbished phone to replace it? If I purchase one from Ebay or another source like Craigslist I have no warranty unless I can prove it was purchased brand new out of the box and then have to go directly through the manufacturer. This all STINKS big time. Thanks again Verizon Wireless.

For those "loyal" "customers" (wink wink) who feel the overwhelming urge to comment and tell me to get over it , I say" I am over it! Just waiting until December when my contracts are up!" So don't bother commenting and telling me how great Verizon is and how stupid I am, I have already been told this again and again by "loyal" "customers"  I GET IT!

[Ann154]

From what I understand, purchasing a phone at the full retail price is the normal in Europe. Then the customer chooses which carrier to have their service through. It is possible that the USA could start moving towards that same model for cell phones.

[AZSALUKI]

Ann154 wrote:

From what I understand, purchasing a phone at the full retail price is the normal in Europe. Then the customer chooses which carrier to have their service through. It is possible that the USA could start moving towards that same model for cell phones.

that's what i'd like to see, but from what i understand, it just won't happen here due to the different radio frequencies. it makes things much more competitive over there so data is much cheaper as well.

[commonsense101]

The manufacture who set the price of the phones and the people who buy them at that price feel they are worth that much..

look at what your phone can do, you really think thats a $50 dollar device?

Just a conservative estimate, i use my phone for 2 hours a day, every single day of my life. This thing gets put in more places, and used in more conditions than anything else i own... to me $600 is a small price to pay over a year. (i useally get a new phone every year.)

I bought the htc thunderbolt on contract for 250 or something like that, i sold it a year later for $170 bucks and bought a rezound on ebay for $300. Then I sold that for $200 last week..There are plenty of options out there. But say you pay $700 for a samsung3, use it for a year sell it for $300 you really only paid $400 for it..thats not a lot if you look at what the phones do these days

[AZSALUKI]

yeah....it's computer, that you can carry in your pocket. if you take the same specs on a pc and place them on a laptop, guess which one will cost much more? we pay big money for convenience.

[Lilypu]

I haven't paid $50.00....

[21stNow]

AZSALUKI wrote:

yeah....it's computer, that you can carry in your pocket. if you take the same specs on a pc and place them on a laptop, guess which one will cost much more? we pay big money for convenience.

True, we pay big money for convenience but outside of us paying it, is it really worth it?  The iPod Touch and iPhone price difference is what makes me wonder about this.  The iPod Touch 32GB 4th generation is $300 retail (you can find it lower than this).  The iPhone 4 32GB was $749 full retail when it was current.  Is the cellular radio really worth $449?  I would say $100 definitely, $200 maybe.  But since I buy some phones at full retail, I guess that makes me a hypocrite.

[AZSALUKI]

21stNow wrote:

True, we pay big money for convenience but outside of us paying it, is it really worth it?  The iPod Touch and iPhone price difference is what makes me wonder about this.  The iPod Touch 32GB 4th generation is $300 retail (you can find it lower than this).  The iPhone 4 32GB was $749 full retail when it was current.  Is the cellular radio really worth $449?  I would say $100 definitely, $200 maybe.  But since I buy some phones at full retail, I guess that makes me a hypocrite.

i'd go back to my original point. we pay big money for convenience. sure, they appear to do mostly the same stuff (aside from actually calling on it), but it's all about being able to use it anywhere, and you just can't do that without a radio, so i would argue that the radio is the major feature of any smartphone over a tablet, ipod, etc. do we NEED an iphone over an ipod? probably no for most of us, but we like convenience and pay top dollar for it. i really don't need 2 smartphones, a zune, zen, myfi xm unit, asus tablet, 2 laptops, a pc, and a kindle touch in my household, but i was willing to pay for all of it....lol.

it's like with ipads. the wifi version does the exact same thing as the normal version, but we will pay $30/month just so we can use it in a car instead of only at home. that's $720 over a couple of years in additional cost, just to use the exact same device outside of available wifi networks.

[21stNow]

You bring up the second point that I forgot to mention in my post.  It is understood that a customer will pay a monthly fee for any device that has a cellular radio in it.  To add that (which the manufacturer doesn't have anything to do with) to an additional, substantial cost for a cellular radio is extreme.  The iPad example is a good one.  The cellular version only costs $80 more than the Wi-fi version.  I'm coming to the conclusion that yes, I'm getting ripped off for my phones!

[commonsense101]

You missed the entire point, but it doesn't surprise me