When I bought my G1, I was still at the tail end of an AT&T contract. It was not the cutting edge in terms of hardware even at the time of its launch and the price dropped scant months after I had purchased it. Despite these shortcomings I still love the damn thing to death, and I have never regret owning it, even when superior hardware launched. If you offered to give me a brand new DROID in exchange for this guy, i’d have to politely decline.
I guess what i’m trying to say is, if you do your research and buy a device that satisfies your requirements, you should be able to get plenty of long-lasting value out of it even when the inevitable minor refresh cycles come around.
I think the Passion is also called the Dragon or the Bravo depending on what country its sold in. In fact a lot of these phones have more than one name.
Good call jashsu! The Acer Liquid is rumored to be available in Taiwan, and Acer is rumored to put Android 2.0 on it some time in 2010. It has a powerful CPU. Only question in my mind is where to buy it in Taiwan today, and how good the camera is. Gonna look for some review sites.
Well upon closer inspection of the booth babes in those shots, FarEasTone is the carrier partner for this launch. So I guess hit up a FET retail store.
Rumor has it Google will announce an unlocked high powered device based on the Snapdragon chip called “Nexus One” sometime in early Jan. Possibly even before CES. Of course without hard details it would be difficult to say whether you could acquire one in Taiwan or not. The question of pricing is completely in the air too. Lot of speculation swirling around that which no one without inside knowledge can answer conclusively at this point. If you want to read on details about Nexus One, just open Engadget or Google News.
Rumor has it Google will announce an unlocked high powered device based on the Snapdragon chip called “Nexus One” sometime in early Jan. Possibly even before CES. Of course without hard details it would be difficult to say whether you could acquire one in Taiwan or not. The question of pricing is completely in the air too. Lot of speculation swirling around that which no one without inside knowledge can answer conclusively at this point. If you want to read on details about Nexus One, just open Engadget or Google News.
From FarEasTone:
Acer Liquid: 16890[/quote]
Yeah, I’ve read about the Nexus One. But I wonder if it’s really gonna be sold to us mortals. But a faster CPU is nice, as long as it doesn’t kill the battery time.
But 20900 for a Hero? Feels very much to me, it’s even higher than the standard price in Sweden where we have 25% sales tax on everything…
[quote=“zacha”]Yeah, I’ve read about the Nexus One. But I wonder if it’s really gonna be sold to us mortals. But a faster CPU is nice, as long as it doesn’t kill the battery time.
But 20900 for a Hero? Feels very much to me, it’s even higher than the standard price in Sweden where we have 25% sales tax on everything…[/quote]
Yeah USD$600 for a phone is kind of a hard pill to swallow and I wouldn’t recommend it either. If you were already planning on going with a dataplan, see if the contract terms and length can be acceptable to you. That way you can get a subsidy and reduce the cost of the device. Possibly to free.
Even if you do not spring for a Nexus One (or HTC Bravo/Dragon/whatever the HTC version will be called), you still might want to consider holding off until some more of the HTC refresh lineup appears. They will all use MSM7227 (an upgrade from the existing MSM7201 used in Hero, Magic, Dream, etc)
[quote=“jashsu”][quote=“zacha”]Yeah, I’ve read about the Nexus One. But I wonder if it’s really gonna be sold to us mortals. But a faster CPU is nice, as long as it doesn’t kill the battery time.
But 20900 for a Hero? Feels very much to me, it’s even higher than the standard price in Sweden where we have 25% sales tax on everything…[/quote]
Yeah USD$600 for a phone is kind of a hard pill to swallow and I wouldn’t recommend it either. If you were already planning on going with a dataplan, see if the contract terms and length can be acceptable to you. That way you can get a subsidy and reduce the cost of the device. Possibly to free.
Even if you do not spring for a Nexus One (or HTC Bravo/Dragon/whatever the HTC version will be called), you still might want to consider holding off until some more of the HTC refresh lineup appears. They will all use MSM7227 (an upgrade from the existing MSM7201 used in Hero, Magic, Dream, etc)[/quote]
It’s not the 600 USD I have a problem with but the fact that the Taiwan made HTC (or at least constructed) are as expensive here than in Sweden. And the Swedish price includes 25% sales tax i.e. the price for the actual phone is ~500 USD in Sweden, at the standard retailers (i.e. not the cheapest places either).
Odd enough the Sony Ericsson phones (who are at least designed in Sweden) are most often significantly cheaper (~80%, as in sweden without the sales tax) here on Taiwan.
I guess it’s an upside down world with mobile phones =P
Oh, and about signing a contract at the same time… I’m only staying here until summer…
But as the prices on android phones are the same here as in Sweden I’ll probably wait and see, for now.
Ended up with the Samsung Galaxy. Just couldn’t justify the current cost of the Acer Liquid.
Only downside is the Galaxy is on 1.5 right now. I have not seen any Samsung promise for 1.6 or 2.0. But this phone can be free depending on your plan, its light and slim, and the screen is fantastic.
Oh, and about signing a contract at the same time… I’m only staying here until summer…
[/quote]Then it would be even cheaper if you just skipped on the contract… Not saying you should do that… Just saying…
There are rumours that Samsung might, maybe just release 2.0 for the Galaxy during some time next year, but they’re altogether going to skip 1.6. Or they might just leave it as it is…
I thought the whole point of Android was the ease of upgrade, but I guess I must’ve missed something here…
The Android Open Source Project makes it easy for carriers & manufacturers to upgrade, but whether or not they do is really up to them. If users want a seamless upgrade experience, they should try to stick to the Android devices sold by carriers & manufacturers that are closely aligned with Google. This is needlessly confusing, which is one of the reasons Google is planning on marketing and selling its own phone (Nexus One). In that situation, Google alone would be responsible for providing timely updates.
I do think it’s a shame that some manufacturers seem to be less timely with updates. That’s really one of the double edged swords of the open source aspect of Android. First, manufacturers are free to use the code however they like (within the limitations of the licenses), and if that means producing a product that rarely or never gets updates, they can do that. Secondly, manufacturers that Google chooses to work closely with can get a significant head start with an update (like how Motorola was first out of the gate with 2.0). When you have an open source project developed in the cathedral style, it’s really a project that starts off closed source in every release until the feature freeze and the internal branch is propagated to the open source tree.
Oh, and about signing a contract at the same time… I’m only staying here until summer…
[/quote]Then it would be even cheaper if you just skipped on the contract… Not saying you should do that… Just saying…[/quote]
Adding one more data point to the statistics of foreigners skipping town on their cell contract is only going to give telecoms more of an excuse to raise rates and deposits for foreigners.
Oh, and about signing a contract at the same time… I’m only staying here until summer…
[/quote]Then it would be even cheaper if you just skipped on the contract… Not saying you should do that… Just saying…[/quote]
Adding one more data point to the statistics of foreigners skipping town on their cell contract is only going to give telecoms more of an excuse to raise rates and deposits for foreigners.[/quote]
They don’t have set rates that apply only to foreigners, and the required deposit is the fee for skipping on the contract. You’re free to skip the contract if you pay the fee.
