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Why are phones expenive?

mechanisma22

Nov 9, 2006, 5:14 AM
So MetroPCS doesn't have a contract so they don't pay for you're phone. Is the price of their phones the manufacturer's price? Is spending $300 on a RAZR worth it? I see alot of people with cool phones mainly because they could afford them with a contract, then I have to wait for it to be released as a Metropcs phone and then its really expensive. And will MetroPCS ever have smartphones?
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renardlee

Nov 10, 2006, 2:05 AM
The benefit of MetroPCS is that there is no contract and you control whether u want to send a payment or not on your own terms and there are no late fees because you are not paying a bill. That puts metroPCS at a loss because if metropcs doesnt offer a contract like most carriers do, they cant subsidize phones and offer them at discounted prices. SO that means that you pay the original manufacturer's price for the phone and metropcs doesnt subsidize the cost of the phone by lockin u in a 1-2 year contract. So you and metroPCS benefits. Its your choice whether you want to pay the discounted price of a new phone and stay with a carrier for 2 years unless you pay the termination fee or pay the phone full price and cancel whatever time you want....
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cibrlx01

Nov 28, 2006, 2:20 PM
they are greedy, i have had customers that dont want to pay more for phone, but dont want a contract either...
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renardlee

Nov 28, 2006, 9:47 PM
most customers want a "free" phone but they dont realize that everything cost money and nothing is free, and you cant have ur cake and eat it too
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MetroTet

Jan 26, 2007, 3:44 PM
yes you can, with metro 😁
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renardlee

Jan 26, 2007, 11:06 PM
u got me on that, im just sick of hearing people complain about paying "too much" for a phone, we are too used to companies subsidizing our phones for us, i like the metro approach. i'd rather pay full price for my phone, because its mines, and ill appreciate it better and less inclined to lose it or break it
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PhoneHero

Jan 27, 2007, 6:43 PM
here's the thing with cdma, lets say this...

you bought a Razr for $300, keep metro for a couple of months, cancel it....now what? you spent $300 for the phone thats not ganna work with Verizon or Sprint. plus you still have to consider limited coverage, and roaming charges. that fact that you don't have to pay a cancellation fee is nice but you still payed alot for the phone thats going to be useless.
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MetroTet

Jan 30, 2007, 12:00 PM
thats why you get it unlocked... on top of that. people pay to much for phones anyways, it cost moto anywhere from 25 to 50 USD to make one razr, it's all mark up, you just have to pay more with metro for the benefits of there services...
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PhoneHero

Feb 1, 2007, 3:56 PM
okay lets say you unlock it...and then what? Verizon won't take it, Alltell probably won't.

The only one that might take it is Sprint. it won't work with boost prepaid so looks like you might be stuck with a crappy sprint prepaid. You can get post-paid and probably get the same phone but cheaper, but it kind of defeats the purpose of getting metro.

Pay more for the phone, pay roaming, pay to unlock. Unless you use an insane amount of minutes, are a text freak, and only stay in that 1 block with coverage and no roaming then
metro is just not a money saver.
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WarriorProphet

Feb 4, 2007, 2:50 AM
Whiney americans. In europe we've been spending $200 - $800 on phones for years. Our companies provide only the SIM card and service. True, MetroPCS doesn't have SIM cards, allowing you to take an unlocked phone anywhere in the world. If you want to gripe about that go ahead, but the concept of paying a resonable price for the phone you want is nothing new, you've just been pampered by bloated companies who spend too much time on proprietary features instead of embracing often better and cheaper global standards.

And MetroPCS is not cheaper. No it really isn't. My mom can live off a $20 virgin mobile card for 2 months, for her metroPCS is triple the money she needs to spend. But for the person who is spending $200 on virgin mobile metroPC...
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TVP125

Feb 5, 2007, 10:48 PM
so true... 🙂
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renardlee

Mar 14, 2007, 1:53 AM
i hate the way american tel-co companies subsidize cell phones and lock you in a contract, thats why metro imo is a good service, they went against the grain as far as other carriers, but i think metro would have an edge is they decided to use sim cards, that woudl put them at a very high advantage against the other cdma carriers, people can switch between metro phones with ease like gsm but something tells me qualcomm wouldnt let them do it, but what what do you expect from a closed model technology like cdma versus an open model technology like gsm
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renardlee

Mar 14, 2007, 1:48 AM
first of all you cant use a cdma phone with boost prepaid, boost uses sprint's IDEN network. and cdma has a closed business model im sorry it is very impractical to "unlock" a cdma phone and "expect" it to work on another cdma carrier's network, thats how cdma works, it could be easier to transfer cdma phones between different carriers if they use sims(which cdma supports but no one uses), you are a definently a gsm person, like i am, but you critize metro, its not for you, there is no reason to continue to complain about it for no reason especially if you're not a customer.
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valkan101

Mar 13, 2007, 7:50 PM
256 for the razor, and you can get the same features with the slvr for 50 bucks less. (Except for the 1.3 megapixel camara)

And it can be used on another network if you unlock it.

But that's not the point.

Lets say for a minute that you do start to hate metro? The fact that they charge you travel minutes really gets on your nerves, so you stop paying your bill and go to sprint.

Right away you'll get a great phone for a low low price. Like the Razor that you love so much for..say 40 dollars? That's after the standard 150 dollar rebate that all customer's get, plus several service credits and a mail in rebate. Great right?


Now here's were it get's interesting. You decide that you don't talk that much so you ge...
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renardlee

Mar 14, 2007, 1:44 AM
that would be the customer's fault for buying 300 dollars for a phone and a few months cancel it (and for what reason?, you failed to list that), thats unwise
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Genesyxx

Jan 26, 2007, 2:23 PM
Couldn't agree with you more. Some of the phones for Metro are cheaper than the major networks with their discounts.
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renardlee

Jan 26, 2007, 11:08 PM
i wish we were like europe, where pple pay for the phone full price and choose when to pay for service or not withought being locked in.
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DTreatment

Mar 28, 2007, 1:52 PM
I understand the frustration about the prices that we see on phones from MetroPCS. But as an employee for a reseller, I look at it this way. You want a phone that isn't going to shut off because you used too many minutes (pre-paid users know this one). So your only choice is that you have to go post-paid. Now, you want a Razr, you have a few choices. But Sprint wants a 150 deposit, VZW wants a 400 deposit, T-Mobile asks for 500 down and Cingular wants 750, all because when you were 18, you got yourself a new credit card, ran up the bill and weren't able to pay it off.

So that Free - 100 dollar Razr that you were looking at is now 150 - 850 dollars. Big jump. Remember, the MetroPCS Razr is only 250.

You sign up, and three mont...
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