[/caption]All I have to say about this is: "ABOUT FUCKING TIME!"
Palm & Sprint both released their own Press Releases announcing the pricing of the phone as well as the release date which is expected to be available June 6th.
New customers (those that are not with Sprint) will be able to obtain the phone for $199 with a 2 year contract. Suggested retail price of the phone will be $549.99.
For those who are curious as to how the breakdown works see below:
- You got $150 taken off that price with a 2 year contract
- An instant rebate of $100
- A mail-in rebate of $100
Making the price of the phone $199 when all is said and done.
Those with Sprint already (like myself) will have to wait at least 1 year through their contract before they can see any rebates or discounts. In my case, I'd have to wait until August 1st 2009 if I were to get the Pre ad a discounted price. This of course would also mean that I would have to extend my contract for another 2 years.
I'm kinda torn here. Right now I'm currently paying roughly $80/month for my current plan, which is the lowest plan you can get with the Palm Pre.
My plan consists of the following:
- 450 Anytime Minutes
- Unlimited data including text, pics, etc..
- Free nights/weekends
- Other common included features, (voicemail, caller ID, etc)
That is $69.99 for the plan alone. I also have phone insurance which adds an additional $7/month seeing as smartphones (like the one I have now) are pretty expensive. You throw in federal & state taxes on top of that and the total comes out to about $80/month.
I didn't realize how much money I'm spending for my phone. I ran the numbers $80/month x 24 (months) which gave me 1,920. This shocked me as I thought that the total number was going to be lower so I ran the numbers again to double check and apparently that's what I'm paying for 2 years of phone service. That's alot of money.
The thing that kinda tears me is I really don't want to extend my contract a second time as I just renewed it again last August when I got my Blackberry. As much as I like my Blackberry, there's a few things about it that prevent me from using the phone as much as I would like to use it (namely the shitty browser), which is why I want to get the Pre ASAP.
I think in the long run it'd be cheaper to just pay full price for the Palm Pre and let my contract run its course. The way I see it, it's $80/month x 12 which comes out to $960 + $549 (for the Palm Pre) = $1509. That why Sprint won't have me by the balls for another 2 years.
Initially I had contemplated just paying the ETF (Early Termination Fee) and just signing up as a new customer, but that would put my existing phone number into a 6 month hold where it couldn't be migrated or used (even by me on a new account) and I really don't want to deal with that mess.
