How much do smartphones decline in price during their run? I’m very impressed with the Samsung i9000, and I was wondering how much I could expect the price to go down as its specs wane and newer ones keep coming out? It’s currently retailing somewhere around 22,900TWD (or has anyone seen a better price?).
I’m hoping that the iPhone 4 and Windows 7 phones, when they do come to Taiwan, will bring the price of the Samsung down. How much have phones like the HTC Legend and Hero and the Motorola Milestone come down in price since they were first released?
The Legend and Desire has barely moved, although some shops are selling the Desire according to someone in the Android thread for NT$17,900. The Legend has come down about NT$1,000 and the here is now going for about NT$12,500 (down from NT$15,900 launch price). The Motorola Milestone has dropped to under NT$16,000 and started out at about NT$18,900. The only handset to drop significantly in price is the Acer Liquid which can be had for under NT$12,000. So the Samsung might come down to the NT$20,000 range if you’re lucky, but not much less for now.
That’s a fair question. Spec-wise, most of the smartphones currently available do what I want. I could easily go and buy whatever is out there that is near the end of its run, and try to get the lowest possible price I can. Unlike most people, I don’t get caught up in this latest-and-greatest obsession with technology. The only reason I want the Samsung i9000 over, say, the HTC Legend or Motorola Milestone is because of the Super AMOLED screen. That screen is the deal-maker for me. I want to wait for iPhone 4 to come, maybe even Gingerbread and the dual-core smartphones–not because I want the latest technology those phones have to offer, but because they will drive down the price of the phone I want. I’m only really interested in Super AMOLED or its equivalent.
So, to answer your question: highly unlikely, especially if they cost even more.
If you read a lot of text, particularly if you plan on reading e-books on your phone, you might want to reconsider AMOLED. Current AMOLED tech uses a non-standard subpixel arrangement that can make the edges of text look stippled.
I think everyone’s tolerance for this effect varies. I might actually get myself another Nexus One when HTC switches over to S-LCD just for the better reading experience.
I can vouch the tolerance is different. Usually weird visual stuff messes with me (headaches at 3d movies) but I can’t tell difference between screens.