Comments on: Pre Pricing and Release Date Announced
Saturday, June 6th is the confirmed nationwide release date, so Palm and Sprint are definitely looking to steal some of Apple's WWDC thunder. The Palm Pre will cost $199.99 with a with a two-year service agreement and after a $100 mail-in rebate.
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I'M WAITING...
There is much I like about the Pre, but frankly I plan on waiting to buy one...
Waiting until they realize everyone doesn't like the concept of the "Cloud" and incorporate an easy sync to a new Palm Desktop or at least Outlook.
Waiting until they add a SD card of some type. my phone is my MP3 player after all. Plus I like to keep a backup on my card with me at all times.
Waiting till an unlocked phone can be purchased that will work on the Verizon network. Sprint is awful in my region.
RE: bring it on:)
So BB will probably do one of 3 things:
1. Offer the pre at $199.99 out the door w/ an instant rebate
2. Offer the Pre at $299.99 without any kind of additional discount
3. Offer the Pre at $299.99 bundled with a BT headset or the Touchstone or something similar to sweeten the offer.
I also wouldn't be surprised if Palm & Sprint act a bit greedy and keep the number of Pre available to places like BB, Radio Shack, Amazon, Letstalk.com and indirect stores etc. to extremely small quantities in order to drive people into Sprint corporate stores or sprint.com.
Just charting the history of Palm-branded devices, BB has definitely been the *best* place (from a convenience standpoint and a no MIR hassle standpoint) to buy a new device on a subsidized 2yr contract. They were offering $40-$50 Centros out the door back when Sprint & Verzon were still pushing them for $100-$200 with MIR silliness. And BB remains the only place where you can get a subsidized AT&T Treo Pro right now.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->?
RE: bring it on:)
CADJedi wrote:
There is much I like about the Pre, but frankly I plan on waiting to buy one...Waiting until they realize everyone doesn't like the concept of the "Cloud" and incorporate an easy sync to a new Palm Desktop or at least Outlook.
[...]
Same here. Beside the fact that I'm in Europe and want/need at least GSM (or rather UMTS), I have a hard time imagining they'll succeed over here without such a directsync solution (i.e. without an intermediary like Google or setting up an Exchange server).
aren't mail-in rebates passe?
RE: aren't mail-in rebates passe?
So you can go to BB and hope to snag a Pre from their (likely) very limited stock of Pre for $199 + tax out the door. Or you can go to Sprint, probably stand a better chance of getting a Pre, but have to pay $299 + tax out the door and cross your fingers for a mail-in rebate that may likely never materialize.
I know I got shafted on probably 2 of my last 5 VZW mail-in rebates, with even worse experiences on stuff bought from TigerDirect & Newegg etc. I NEVER take the presence of a MIR into account when purchasing a product. I figure out what my "out the door" price is and assume that a rebate will never arrive. So if it does, it's just icing on the cake.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->?
RE: aren't mail-in rebates passe?
And for the record, I totally called the fact that the Pre was going to be introduced immediately before the iPhone 3.0. They wanted to maximize the time they had to work on it, yet still release it before the next generation iPhone had a chance to make a splash.
-Bosco
m105 -> NX70v -> NX80v -> iPhone -> iPhone 3G
RE: aren't mail-in rebates passe?
Studies have shown rebate redemptions range from an crazy low 0f 5% to a high of 80%, with tech products falling into the 50-70% range depending on how they are executed. This would fit Abosco's note of helping initial profit per unit. The effect also contributes to the next point-
Depending on how rebates are timed, the company may not have to account for them until the next quarter after redemption- allowing initial sales/income figures to look substantial better.
MIR's have the appearance of not undercutting full retail prices of parallel product lines (although given Sprint's dizzying rebates on so many of their smart phones, it's hard to figure out the placement and strategy there)
Warranties and insurance costs are calculated and priced based on "full" retail replacement cost, creating less-than-obvious profit center despite a lower up-front cost for the consumer.
Plain-old customer appeal in trying to get folks to take a chance on a new product with a perception of and incentive of "temporary" value.
Right on to Palm for delivering per expectation, assuming quantities are ready to back it up. It will also be fun to see what Apple counters with on the 3.0 hardware and final software refresh.
End of Contract with Sprint- to become a "Pre-vert" or go Android?
RE: aren't mail-in rebates passe?
-Bosco
m105 -> NX70v -> NX80v -> iPhone -> iPhone 3G
RE: aren't mail-in rebates passe?
ozz
RE: aren't mail-in rebates passe?
abosco wrote:
So you're saying this MIR is another smoke-and-mirrors accounting trick to try to make Palm look like it's on less shaky footing? I could see that. Thanks for the input.
Your usually astute reasoning is subtly flawed on this point, it's Sprint offering the rebate, not Palm.
Although the point is likely made moot due their intertwined fates on the success or failure of the Pre. Sprint a bit less so, but perhaps not for long given their customer attrition.
I don't think there's any debate that Palm is on "shaky footing" (barring an acquisition) with anything outside a wildly successful launch exceeding everyone's expectations. Your past points on Apple's foothold are undoubtedly valid.
I think it incredibly unlikely that much, if any, of a percentage of Apple iPhone/Touch owners will be swayed into jumping ship to Spint, Palm or Pre, but I'm also not sure given the overall market of smart-phones and/or the long-commoditized PDA market (referencing the potential license of WebOS), they have to do so to become a viable company again.
I'm one of the first to kvetch about their past mistakes in support, hardware and the failure to evolve their software in a realistically timely fashion to stay competitive, but that bias doesn't go so far to be bent towards a desire to for their failure, or even to count them out of carving a dedicated niche in the overall user base to sustain them a while longer.
End of Contract with Sprint- to become a "Pre-vert" or go Android?
plans
RE: plans
RE: plans
Sprint will simply tag all of the Pre MEIDs in their system and now allow them to be activated under a SERO plan.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->?
RE: Wonderful news...
Verizon, are you listening?
The Blackberry Storm is not going to hold its own against this unit.
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bring it on:)
gonna hit up best buy in manhattan early on saturday:)
wonder if they'll make it so you don't have to mail in the rebate to get the extra hundred off?
hope so