Amazon Offers Sizable Pre, Pixi Discounts

amazon palm pre pixi Amazon.com has just lowered its price on webOS phones this week. Bargain hunters can now find the Palm Pre and the less than a week old Palm Pixi smartphones on deep discount from the etailer. Both deals require customers sign up for a new Sprint service plan through the site.

The Pre is currently going for $79.99 with a two year service agreement, while the Pixi is being promoted with a $24.99 price point representing a near 75% discount. Both offers also include free activation, which is usually at least another $25 clams. The current MSRP asking prices from Sprint remain unchanged at $149 and $99.

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The plummeting prices continue...well...their plummet

SeldomVisitor @ 11/19/2009 6:43:36 AM # Q
Now the Pre is $79 at Amazon.

BTW - Amazon has dropped the activation fee, too.

It's not at ALL clear to me why someone would buy a castrated Pixi rather than the Pre since both require the same carrier plan and the price difference is, relatively speaking, noise level.

Of course, there are other Sprint phones out there that might be "equally" more desirable...

RE: The plummeting prices continue...well...their plummet
hkklife @ 11/19/2009 11:27:22 AM # Q
Advantages of Pixi:

-Better/more comfortable keyboard
-"Candybar" formfactor--no slider to break/wobble
-Thinner/lighter and POSSIBLY slightly better battery life than Pre due to slower CPU and smaller, lower res. screen

That's IT. Otherwise, the Pre blows the Pixi away. If Palm could address the performance woes (unlikely), then the Pixi would be an attractive "free" or "30" phone. Otherwise, I see it as a short-lived stopgap device.

I still maintain that the Treo Pro was a superb piece of hardware kit (decent keyboard, nice battery capacity, microSD slot etc). Palm really needs to rework that design a bit to accomodate a 320x480 screen and introduce a proper next-gen Treo.
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: The plummeting prices continue...well...their plummet
DarthRepublican @ 11/19/2009 11:35:20 AM # Q
SeldomVisitor wrote:
Now the Pre is $79 at Amazon.

BTW - Amazon has dropped the activation fee, too.

It's not at ALL clear to me why someone would buy a castrated Pixi rather than the Pre since both require the same carrier plan and the price difference is, relatively speaking, noise level.

Thinner form factor, no slider/keyboard always visible, don't need wifi, like the artsy back covers, are teenage girls who actually like the "Pixi" name....
Palm Apologist
Shouting down the PIC Faithful Since 2009
Screw convergence
Palm III->Visor Deluxe->Visor Platinum->Visor Prism->Tungsten E->Palm LifeDrive->Palm TX->Palm Pre
Visor Pro+VisorPhone->Treo 180g->Treo 270->Treo 600->Treo 680->T-Mobile G1->Palm Pre
http://mind-grapes.blogspot.com/

RE: The plummeting prices continue...well...their plummet
SeldomVisitor @ 11/19/2009 12:10:42 PM # Q
> ...are teenage girls who actually like the "Pixi" name....

I'll have to ask my preteen what she thinks of the Pixi - we were sitting together watching some DUHmb Nickelodeon show last night when - tada! - the Pixi ad showed up.

RE: The plummeting prices continue...well...their plummet
abosco @ 11/19/2009 12:42:03 PM # M Q
It's 2009. You don't use Wifi?
RE: The plummeting prices continue...well...their plummet
SeldomVisitor @ 11/19/2009 12:44:22 PM # Q
> ...I'll have to ask my preteen what she thinks of the Pixi...

The Kidlet just came home from school and I put up the Youtube Pixi ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIxk14xysFg

let her watch it, and asked what she thought.

She said (semi-paraphrase - but totally unprompted):

== "The background was kinda confusing but they did show you what the
== phone could do"

I asked:

== "Oh? What could the phone do?"

and she replied:

== "I can't really remember".

and I asked:

== "Would you buy the phone?"

and she replied:

== "No, because even though it showed what the phone could do, it went by
== so fast that you can't remember anything; you would have to look online"


RE: The plummeting prices continue...well...their plummet
LiveFaith @ 11/19/2009 7:51:03 PM # Q
Forget all these pixi sized screens already. It's simple. Take the HTC HD2 and slap WebOS v2.0 (the one with serious PIM apps) and put a Moto like capacitive touchscreen stylus onboard and you have Mobile Nirvana!
Pat Horne
RE: The plummeting prices continue...well...their plummet
nastebu @ 11/19/2009 10:26:17 PM # Q
Question: do these discounts come out of Palm's pocket, or Sprint's? In other words, if the handset is subsidized, does Palm get the same subsidy whether or not the handset is sold at full price or not?

It seems like a bad idea to cut the price so low on the Pre that people will start seeing Pres as a cut-rate brand. I'm surprised that Palm isn't following the Apple model on this--keep the price points the same and add incremental bumps in features to justify the price. In Apple's case it means their stuff is often priced above market, but you really can't wait for a big sale because you know that none is coming.

RE: The plummeting prices continue...well...their plummet
jca666us @ 11/20/2009 2:52:48 AM # Q
Perhaps Palm can't afford to keep the price points the same because they aren't selling as well as they had hoped.

Have they even sold 1 million webos devices yet?

There was so much speculation that Palm was going to sell 2 million webos devices by the end of 2009...tick tock.

RE: The plummeting prices continue...well...their plummet
SeldomVisitor @ 11/20/2009 3:50:10 AM # Q
We do not know if the subsidies are subsidized by Palm (got that wording?). That is, we DO know that Palm has, in the past, shared in price reduction cost - possibly to the point where "share" is "100%". We do NOT know at what point in a device's lifetime that has taken place. Palm tells us this, BTW, in all their quarterly and annual reports.

Palm sold a boatload of Pres and Pixis to Sprint. =I= can guess that those FIRST sales made Palm a boatload of unsubsidized bucks. We do NOT know, however, if Palm will be able to sell Pres and Pixis both to Sprint again (followon sales) and to other carriers at the same price - I personally would doubt that they can.

Are the CURRENT discounts partially subsidized by Palm? Hmmm...maybe. But they EASILY could be partially subsidized by Sprint (since Sprint is the distributor - remember, all these venues got their devices from Sprint, not Palm (thus they're already counted as sell-through before they sell them to the end-consumer! Different thread...)).

When Palm discusses "gross margins" for this quarter or maybe next we'll get a small inkling about where those subsidies are coming from. A quarter or two ago (on the launch of the Pre) Palm actually had gross margins that were about half what they wanted (16% rather than 30% - if an unexpected purchase of already-discounted devices (800s?) had not taken place). Palm's device mix at the time was legacy phones like Centro and the first batch of Pres. That gross margin screamed out "subsidies from Palm! Or dramatic price drops (same thing)!".


RE: The plummeting prices continue...well...their plummet
sbono13 @ 11/20/2009 10:08:33 AM # Q
Amazon's deep discounts on Sprint phones are not Palm specific. Pixi and Pre are being offered at discounts of $75 and $70 off Sprint's price, respectively, but Samsung Moment is $100 off. Either Amazon has concluded that they want to move more Sprint phones on their own, or they have been offered an increased commission from Sprint.

Reply to this comment
RE: Droid
SeldomVisitor @ 11/20/2009 2:56:25 PM # Q
The problem with the Me-Too Media is they all repeat someone else's story ("Me-Too Media"...got it?) without doing any journalistic work themselves.

All the "N thousand Droids Sold!" are pretty much single-sourced, then repeated far and wide...any N.

For that matter, all "N Thousand Xs Sold!" for all N and all X are single-sourced as well.

BTW - the Droid has been price-reduced to $120
SeldomVisitor @ 11/20/2009 4:04:37 PM # Q
Dropped to $150 at Amazon, $120 at Dell.

Let's see ANY phone manufacturer introduce new devices above $150 ever again.

Price wars are fun.

But...oooooooohhhhh...those MARGINS!

Reply to this comment

Palm has ceded the enterprise market

Gekko @ 11/21/2009 12:58:45 AM # Q

i was just thinking - Palm has ceded the enterprise market. there's no way any company IT department is ever going to choose Pre or Pixi or webOS for an enterprise roll out - big or small. the hardware is too cheap and fragile and gimmicky along with a buggy gimmicky non-supported OS. imagine the support costs and nightmares. long gone are the days when a company would buy thousands of Treos for their employees. how does this affect sales? how important was it for the success of the Treo?

agreed?

RE: Palm has ceded the enterprise market
linds @ 11/21/2009 1:49:59 AM # Q
Hmm, I tend to agree with you. I wonder if they will keep the Treo Pro/windows mobile around for their corporate accounts or what is left of them.

It is really hard to see palm sticking around for much longer when you look at the competition. So sad to think about what they could have been.

I for one am with Alltel, now verizon which is currently offering zero phones from Palm. That is zero with a big 0. Not even the lowly centro or the Treo Pro is offered. How could Palm let that happen. I guess for that matter no one but Sprint is offering any of their phones.

RE: Palm has ceded the enterprise market
nastebu @ 11/21/2009 2:26:08 AM # Q
In fairness, noone but Sprint is offering Palm phones because of a deal Palm made, not because there's no intrinsic interest in Palm's phones. If the Pre were available to Verizon today, it seems they would take it.

Still, the problem seems real to me. The competition is getting stronger quite rapidly, and Palm doesn't appear to have anything new to offer until late next year, right? This seems a very bad time to be on the sidelines.

RE: Palm has ceded the enterprise market
Gekko @ 11/21/2009 2:31:53 AM # Q

iPhone Enterprise Outlook Rocks RIM
on 02 November 2009, 12:17
by Red Herring Staff

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion's ownership of the enterprise market has just been challenged.

Deutsche Bank on Monday released a report saying that Apple's iPhone is gaining acceptance among IT departments and is on track to make gains in enterprise usage, likely at the expense of RIM's popular smart phone.

"We expect it (iPhone) to gain considerable share in the enterprise over the next several years, possibly driving upside to our unit estimates," Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore wrote in a report.

Those gains would likely put a dent in sales of of RIM- and Windows-based phones in corporations. RIM, the report said, has over 60 percent of the enterprise market for smart phones while Microsoft has over 20 percent.

Shares of RIM plummeted $4.24, or 7 percent, at $54.50 in afternoon trading.

Deutsche Bank said it expects to see about 2 million iPhones in the enterprise market for 2009, taking roughly 7 percent of the corporate smart phone market. The analyst firm says that's up from 2 percent of the market in 2008 for Apple. What's driving the increase, in part, is the belief that it is not true that physical keyboards are a necessity in corporate use.

Also, the analyst report said Apple's enormous gains in the apps market show the "accelerating utility of the platform." Microsoft and RIM, on the other hand, are "years behind Apple" and are losing out in developer support and application development.

Deutsche Bank, which makes a market in Apple securities, reiterated its "buy" rating and $250 price target on Apple. Apple shares edged upward $0.71 to $189.21 in late trading.

http://www.redherring.com/Home/26217

RE: Palm has ceded the enterprise market
ewl @ 11/21/2009 5:29:48 AM # Q
I think IT depts are no longer controlling the phone devices as stringently as before. They would rather not deal with support at all. Many companies are giving an monthly stipend and allowing their employees to make their own choice.
My hospital has a Blackberry enterprise server and were supporting executives and some physicians. They were pretty militant about Windows and BBs before. Now our CIO has a iphone. I see most of the new smart phones having adequate security and outlook compatibility to be acceptable. I personally don't want IT to have the ability to control or wipe my phone remotely. My work phone was a blackberry and it was a pain to deal with IT. I understand the Pre has a remote wipe and adequate security. Android seems to have some Outlook compatibility which is what most business users need.
RE: Palm has ceded the enterprise market
Tim Carroll @ 11/21/2009 1:47:17 PM # Q
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/06/ars-reviews-the-palm-pre-part-1-the-blackberry-killer.ars/2

Essentially, says that Pre has the best messaging system currently available (IMO, true), and that the currently bare-bones implementation of Palm Profiles will make for an excellent IT management tool.

webOS is first-gen, and the Pre and the Pixi are first-gen hardware. They were never gonna be perfect right outta the gate. Nothing is.

RE: Palm has ceded the enterprise market
Gekko @ 11/21/2009 3:35:31 PM # Q

article from June? don't hold your breath. i have yet to even see even one Pre in the wild yet.
RE: Palm has ceded the enterprise market
nastebu @ 11/22/2009 1:43:48 AM # Q
I have to agree that the Ars article seems dated now. It's based on the possibly correct presupposition that the Pre has the best messaging system currently available, and the demonstrably wrong assumption that the Pre had momentum in the market.

The best software won't help if the crowd is moving in the other direction.

RE: Palm has ceded the enterprise market
CFreymarc @ 11/22/2009 7:01:52 PM # Q
IMO, Palm rolled the dice leaving their first love from the artist colony to chase the sophisticated city girls, got left at the curb and unable to get into the night clubs of the city.

Dropping the Palm OS 5 API with only a legacy simulator support created a huge Exodus of Palm developers moving to other platforms. They could have easily released a transition path of glue API to make Palm OS 5 app work "WebOS-like" with a native compiler if someone cared about the established developer base. Instead some went iPhone, some Blackberry, some Android and others back to their freaky, bare-metal, embedded systems world.

Palm was hoping that the "traditional web developers" could make up for this abandonment and neglect so they could hit the big time. In short, these "city folk" web developers were not tolerant to Palm's hand-held / mobile quirks and the dance card was empty.

I'm sure the download counts on the Palm developer web site says more than anything else. I doubt that data will ever see the light of day.

RE: Palm has ceded the enterprise market
LiveFaith @ 11/22/2009 10:35:55 PM # Q
Make sure and read the next to last sentence in the redherring article BEFORE reading the rest.

I do agree that the enterprise market has been abandoned. That's why I'm now looking at another platform. High powered feature phones do not interest me, especially with cheap hardware.
Pat Horne

Reply to this comment

Pre/Pixi Discounts

Amroth @ 11/21/2009 10:43:20 AM # M Q
I agree w/ the person who thinks the Treo line should be revamped 'a-la' WebOS. Also, who cares about dropping prices, it just means Verizon is getting a 16g Pre in January, right?
Reply to this comment

I fondled the Pixi

mikecane @ 11/21/2009 1:32:08 PM # Q
Well, it's slower than the Pre.

Also smaller.

Keys too small and glossy for me to use comfortably or accurately.

Live connection, so I called up Twitter with the web broswer, signed in (not an easy task since my password is long and has letters AND numbers!), typed a tweet...

http://twitter.com/mikecane/statuses/5919748496

... hit Update -- and then had the frikkin Twitter page give me an error msg I could not get out of!! Nor could I sign off Twitter! So I made sure to clear the damned browser history, cache, cookies, before I left the phone.

I played with the camera and some other things.

If this was as recent as two years ago, I'd have been very impressed. Sad to say, I was not.

While webOS is more polished than Android, Palm going with drop-down menus just feels so damned NINETEEN-EIGHTIES that I can't frikkin stand it.

I think my farewell to Palm is coming.

A shame for them. If they had gone with a mini web tablet -- like an Archos 5 Internet Tablet -- I think they would have cleaned up. Right now, they are fending off iPhone and Android in the phone space -- and will probably get slaughtered. Eve n a web tablet *now* would be too late for them.

RE: I fondled the Pixi
Gekko @ 11/21/2009 3:32:31 PM # Q

>... hit Update -- and then had the frikkin Twitter page give me an error msg I could not get out of!! Nor could I sign off Twitter! So I made sure to clear the damned browser history, cache, cookies, before I left the phone.

ha! you really think you can wipe webOS clear of your tracks?

http://forums.precentral.net/palm-pre/186212-cautionary-tale-when-returning-pre.html

RE: I fondled the Pixi
mikecane @ 11/21/2009 4:10:42 PM # Q
Well, the damned thing WORKS when you do it on an iPhone/iPod Touch: Delete History, Cache, Cookies.

Sheesh.

Glad I logged into only *one* thing.

RE: I fondled the Pixi
Gekko @ 11/21/2009 4:21:43 PM # Q

well at least your twitter impostor(s) will sound more sane and less offensive than your own ramblings.
RE: I fondled the Pixi
mikecane @ 11/22/2009 8:13:55 AM # Q
Been spying on me again? Like I'd waste my time doing the reverse.

You are sooooo sad.

RE: I fondled the Pixi
Gekko @ 11/22/2009 9:07:10 AM # Q

don't flatter yourself. i just followed your posted link.

your rants about microwave pizza, bad tv shows, and America's impending doom doesn't interest me.

RE: I fondled the Pixi
SeldomVisitor @ 11/22/2009 10:08:59 AM # Q
What is the utility of Twitter?

RE: I fondled the Pixi
CFreymarc @ 11/22/2009 7:04:05 PM # Q
Mike, you write this like it is one of the few sexual encounters you have had in years.
RE: I fondled the Pixi
gmayhak @ 11/22/2009 7:13:42 PM # Q
Mike, just spend a few bucks and get a cheap iPod Touch on ebay. Then go to iTunes and install a bunch of the free apps in whatever categories interest you.
I think it's really sad that so many Palm loyalists are missing out on the technology Apple has delivered. The old Palm is gone, RIP.

Gary
Tech Center Labs

RE: I fondled the Pixi
abosco @ 11/22/2009 8:42:12 PM # M Q
What is the utility of Twitter?

People in the media love it because it fits their style. Sensationalized headline, no content, no research, and nobody actually listening. Thus, it sounds like everybody is using it. But nobody actually is.

RE: I fondled the Pixi
SeldomVisitor @ 11/23/2009 6:08:26 AM # Q
Ah...I understand...thanks, abosco.
RE: I fondled the Pixi
hkklife @ 11/23/2009 9:14:48 AM # Q
Gary, you need to realize Mike has been threatening to do SOMETHING for years now but failed to do so. We've been urging him to pick up a cheap Palm TX, a cheap Nokia N810, a cheap Centro, or a cheap iPod Touch off E-Bay for years now. It's unlikely he'll comply but it's great fun to keep encouraging him.

On a related note, I'm quite disappointed with Android 2.0. While I'm far from a fanboy and I certainly wish the hardware was a bit more compelling, I appreciate more and more what stunning work Apple did to revolutionize the mobile device sector with the initial iPhone in '07. Android makes WebOS look positively mature and polished in comparison!

Also, after playing with a Zune HD and being very pleasantly surprised, I am still going to go out on a limb and predict that Microsoft is still better-positioned for the future than most people currently think they are. I wouldn't be too terribly surprised to see them from out of nowhere sometime in late 2010/early 2011 with WM 7 and be the sleeper hit of the year. It'll probably be too little, way too late, but at least the Zune HD & Windows 7 show that M$ can still produce SOMETHING decent that's not Xbox-related!


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: I fondled the Pixi
Gekko @ 11/23/2009 11:13:29 AM # Q

hkk -

1. are you keeping the Droid?
2. will you buy an iPhone in June 2010 if it comes to VZW?


RE: I fondled the Pixi
mikecane @ 11/23/2009 2:06:40 PM # Q
>>>We've been urging him to pick up a cheap Palm TX, a cheap Nokia N810, a cheap Centro, or a cheap iPod Touch off E-Bay for years now. It's unlikely he'll comply but it's great fun to keep encouraging him.

You people are INSATIABLE!!! I bought a used LifeDrive off eBay that I had brought back to life (heh) via CF storage.

That was like ... um, 3-4 years ago?

So what's the rush?

RE: I fondled the Pixi
Tim Carroll @ 11/23/2009 3:41:18 PM # Q
abosco wrote:
What is the utility of Twitter?


People in the media love it because it fits their style. Sensationalized headline, no content, no research, and nobody actually listening. Thus, it sounds like everybody is using it. But nobody actually is.

Heh. Too true.

I did find one new use for it recently, though - virtual TV-watching buddies. There's a political panel show I like to zone out on Sunday mornings( Insiders - http://tinyurl.com/c9o73m). Did a Twitter hashtag search, and lo and behold, came across a sizeable group of fellow politco-nerds hurling virtual abuse at the panellists. The show's much more fun now I've got others to watch it with...

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