That practice is being offset by the sheer number and variety of Android devices, consumers are buying the more ‘open’ handsets and thus signaling the demand for them.
I imagine the quantity is small but there is some percentage of buyers, such as myself, that make sure there is an root exploit available before I buy a phone.
I know it's not fashionable nowadays, but I, for my part stick to Nokia phones.
"Rootability" is not an accident there, but part of the design.
This, of course is unless your (subsidized) phone is locked down to hell and then some. This is much less a problem in Europe, since you can always buy the unlocked phone and as a matter of fact, with the exception of pre-paid phones, even subsidized phones are not SIM-locked (you sign a contract anyway) and I never had one loaded with un- removable crap-ware.
Absolutely. I wanted to buy an EVO 4G and because root was easily available, I had no trouble paying the ETF and switching to Sprint. If I had to use the phone as I bought it from them, I would not be a customer.
One would imagine buyers get influenced by reviews and those tend to favor the more consumer friendly choices. Also there was an incident with Vodafone where people complained about their bloatware on twitter and they soon pushed an update to remove it.
To be fair, they never released a CDMA Nexus. I could've personally moved half a dozen if they had. Instead, Motorola sold 3 Droid 1s and 3 locked-BL Droids.
compare the nexus one with the closed version from htc... the nexus lost to any of them. to the point of google dropping sales.
a company, that can dump money on every kind of crap, discontinued sales of something. how much worse do you want it to get until you accept it was a joke for sales?
..funny thing is that people are paying now in ebay MORE than the original price to have the device.
Most people just walk into a store and get a phone that they think is cool. The Nexus One was not available anywhere except Google's website.
When I went in to the T-Mobile store, I came out with a G1 because the T-Mobile lady was explaining all of the hoops one must jump through to use a Nexus One. They don't carry them so you have to order online and wait 4-7 days for the phone to arrive (my old phone was broken, so this alone made it not an option for me), you can't use T-Mobile's normal plans on them, I wouldn't have been able to buy with subsidy because my previous contract had one month left and therefore manager override was necessary to grant the discount on the phone, and I didn't have $500-$600 cash sitting around to spend on a phone, and so on.
If the N1 got the same kind of carrier marketing and buy-in that the other phones got, I'm sure it would have done well. Carriers, however, did not want to provide that marketing or support because doing so would minimize their death grip on the end-user and count as a success for something not loaded with carrier crapware, which they don't want either.
The carriers know, of course, that nobody really _likes_ having a permanent, unremovable Blockbuster app on their phone. But since people will tolerate it, and the carrier gets a lot of money from Blockbuster (or NASCAR or whatever) for doing that, they want to keep phones that are free from this crapware as far away as possible; if they didn't, people would prefer phones that are without crapware, and this would impede the carrier's ability to sell contracts to include crapware.
FYI the t-mobile people told me that too, but I went ahead and ordered it and it was just fine. Of course this was right before they retired the online sales... I got it for $199 + a regular contract...
Maybe it was so they could get their commission. I once had a roommate who sold phones. He used to talk about the tricks he'd use to get more commission out of a sale.
People always say this, but in the United States, T-Mobile is the only carrier that even has any alternate options. Everyone else doesn't discount your rate; you pay the same whether you buy a phone outright or buy on subsidy. Buying outright simply prevents a two-year contract (where the early termination fee is usually cheaper than the sticker price for the phone). There's no reason not to buy without subsidy unless you use T-Mobile.
T-Mobile offers a couple of different options, one of which is a $10-$20 discount on the monthly plan for non-contract phones, or a zero-interest amortized 24-month payment plan that allows you to still get the subsidy and the discounted plan. To me, not having to drop $500 to get a phone when I don't have $500 is worth $10-$20/mo (which, over two years, depending on the phone you get and the price you pay with contract, is usually pretty close to the sticker price for the phone anyway, maybe +$100-$200 than buying outright, a reasonable finance charge), and I didn't know about the payment plan when I signed up, though it's generally been agreed that that turns out to be the best option.
It was perhaps a little ambitious for Google to expect to sell more Nexus Ones (with easy sign-up/subsidy by T-Mobile) versus Verizon selling Droids (with easy sign-up/subsidy by Verizon). It's a great device and I love mine, but that doesn't mean Google is equipped to be able to sell it.
Actually, paying more on eBay for a device that is scarce is just called economics. Though, it would be surprising to learn that the price was much higher than the original unlocked price + $30 - since you can still purchase one if you have registered yourself as a developer with an Android Market account.
