The Xperia looks nice, but what I want to know is why carriers in the States charge so much for their phones or charge for them at all when they're locking you into two year contracts with data plans!
AT&T is a freaking fortune - $110/mo. for 900 anytime minutes and unlimited data & messaging, or $90/mo. for the same thing, but with only 450 anytime minutes (which is a complete joke). Plus another $10-15 in taxes on top of that. Who's going to pay $100-125/mo. for that? That pricing is extortionate! And they're still charging us $300 for an HTC Fuze? Then I hear oversees they charge the equivalent of around $20-40 USD for these phones when signing up for a plan. Why don't we do that here in the States? These stupid carriers need to get with it over here.
AT&T charges WAY TOO MUCH for phones and services. For what you're paying, we should be getting our phones for FREE.
I hate carriers here. None of them are good. The only one with decent pricing is T-Mobile (but their network stinks here), the rest have good network coverage, but are nothing more than loan sharks.
Then again, there's always paying $800 USD for an unlocked phone - which is also a joke.
If you think carriers in the States are bad, you should see how much Bell and Rodgers charge up in Canada...they charge as much or more than the carriers here, and IIRC, you can't even get unlimited data plans.
I just recently switched from At&t to Verizon, primarily for the free mobile-to-mobile minutes between Verizon users, as everyone I know is with Verizon, but outside of that, I really don't like them, as I don't care for CDMA phones, and Verizon locks their phones down pretty tight (resulting in me using pitpim to add even something as basic as ringtones to my LG Dare).
Even the Dare cost me a fair chunk of change for what it is. They've got everyone by the balls, either you pay a fortune for an unlocked phone, or you're locked into a plan.
The reason they charge so much is that for the same potential number of customers, they have to invest much more in their infrastructure. The UK is about the size of California. CA has a population of about 36M and UK of about 60M. If AT&T only had to build out towers in California and didn't have to allow for roaming (without a SIM change) outside of CA, they could probably charge a lot less, but when you have to allow roaming in a state the size of Nevada, with only about 3M people, the costs go up.
We all might be better off in the US (at least the more populous states) if the carriers offered state plans and we just bought short term SIMs for when we traveled to another state.
Sprint is slightly less expensive at $89.99 before taxes for unlimited data, messaging, and 900 anytime minutes. Their nights start at 7 so that helps a bit...but shit for $99 you get unlimited calling too, so that's a pretty easy upsell. It's still a lot of money per month, but at the very least it's reliable since the only way for your bill to fluctuate is if you use the music store or pay-for apps, cause you shouldn't be charged for anything else besides taxes. Sprint's changes are a step in the right direction (as far as simplifying things goes), but I know they and the rest of the carriers can, and will, do better as consumers are becoming more savvy and less tolerant of the old ways.
All in all, I agree with the lack of cool phones, but I think it's more complicated than simply the carriers wanting to charge more. I can't say I know anything about import laws, but I was under the impression finished goods imported are generally taxed more heavily than parts imported and then assembled in the states, but of course that's just a generalization that could be completely wrong.
Following the commercial success (and technical disappointment) of the original Wildfire -- which featured a miserly 528MHz CPU and QVGA display -- HTC has returned with the Wildfire S.
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The Xperia looks nice, but what I want to know is why carriers in the States charge so much for their phones or charge for them at all when they're locking you into two year contracts with data plans!
AT&T is a freaking fortune - $110/mo. for 900 anytime minutes and unlimited data & messaging, or $90/mo. for the same thing, but with only 450 anytime minutes (which is a complete joke). Plus another $10-15 in taxes on top of that. Who's going to pay $100-125/mo. for that? That pricing is extortionate! And they're still charging us $300 for an HTC Fuze? Then I hear oversees they charge the equivalent of around $20-40 USD for these phones when signing up for a plan. Why don't we do that here in the States? These stupid carriers need to get with it over here.
AT&T charges WAY TOO MUCH for phones and services. For what you're paying, we should be getting our phones for FREE.
I hate carriers here. None of them are good. The only one with decent pricing is T-Mobile (but their network stinks here), the rest have good network coverage, but are nothing more than loan sharks.
Then again, there's always paying $800 USD for an unlocked phone - which is also a joke.
If you think carriers in the States are bad, you should see how much Bell and Rodgers charge up in Canada...they charge as much or more than the carriers here, and IIRC, you can't even get unlimited data plans.
I just recently switched from At&t to Verizon, primarily for the free mobile-to-mobile minutes between Verizon users, as everyone I know is with Verizon, but outside of that, I really don't like them, as I don't care for CDMA phones, and Verizon locks their phones down pretty tight (resulting in me using pitpim to add even something as basic as ringtones to my LG Dare).
Even the Dare cost me a fair chunk of change for what it is. They've got everyone by the balls, either you pay a fortune for an unlocked phone, or you're locked into a plan.
The reason they charge so much is that for the same potential number of customers, they have to invest much more in their infrastructure. The UK is about the size of California. CA has a population of about 36M and UK of about 60M. If AT&T only had to build out towers in California and didn't have to allow for roaming (without a SIM change) outside of CA, they could probably charge a lot less, but when you have to allow roaming in a state the size of Nevada, with only about 3M people, the costs go up.
We all might be better off in the US (at least the more populous states) if the carriers offered state plans and we just bought short term SIMs for when we traveled to another state.
Some of us in Canada get better prices than you'd think.
450 anytime minutes
Unlimited Incoming
Unlimited Top 5
500 text messages / free incoming
Unlimited data ($15)
Caller ID
Voice Mail 5
$50!
Sprint is slightly less expensive at $89.99 before taxes for unlimited data, messaging, and 900 anytime minutes. Their nights start at 7 so that helps a bit...but shit for $99 you get unlimited calling too, so that's a pretty easy upsell. It's still a lot of money per month, but at the very least it's reliable since the only way for your bill to fluctuate is if you use the music store or pay-for apps, cause you shouldn't be charged for anything else besides taxes. Sprint's changes are a step in the right direction (as far as simplifying things goes), but I know they and the rest of the carriers can, and will, do better as consumers are becoming more savvy and less tolerant of the old ways.
All in all, I agree with the lack of cool phones, but I think it's more complicated than simply the carriers wanting to charge more. I can't say I know anything about import laws, but I was under the impression finished goods imported are generally taxed more heavily than parts imported and then assembled in the states, but of course that's just a generalization that could be completely wrong.
But SE did say that you would be paying a premium price for a premium phone.