Are Pre price cuts a slight to early adopters? 49
Sun, 27 Sep 2009 8:44 am EDT 
It seems that every other day we turn around and find the Pre discounted again at another retailer. Many of us here at PreCentral, this blogger included, bought a Pre early on in the product’s life cycle when the price was $200. And if you’re like me, you got it at a Sprint store and had to fork over that extra $100 and remember to submit your rebate claim form, which was just finally paid back a few weeks ago. Now Sprint is charging $150 for the Pre (though that cursed mail-in-rebate is still there) and anybody with patience and good timing can wait and grab a Pre for $100 or less.
While Pre sales numbers appear to have exceeded the expectations of most analysts, we have to wonder why the price cuts have come so soon after launch. It is an undeniable fact of life that technology evolves rapidly and that Palm and Sprint need to price the Pre competitively against some strong competitors like the iPhone and BlackBerry phones. And while some of us may wish that we had waited to buy our Pre and save a Grant or two in the process, it’s not the worst smartphone price cut we’ve seen.
So there is a question we have to ask: do these price cuts and sales make you wish that you’d waited to buy your Pre, do you feel insulted, or is this simply a fact of life?
49 Comments
Early adopter excitement is priceless!
Thank you! Although I would have worded it differently:
(Ahem)
Early adopter excitement... it's faaaaaantastic! LOL
If I sat in line for two days for a 2G iPhone that I had to activate myself at hom, no apps and a punch in the nose of $600 I'd feel like an idiot.
But $200 for a cutting edge phone and paying a company that truly needs the cash, heck, put it in cereal boxes for free at this point, won't bother me.
+1 I was willing to pay $250 I purchased 2 for $199 noregrets. Price cuts are part of life if the cost was a concern I had the option to wait it out.
This is apple all over again... wait a sec....
The $80 price tag with walmart is quite frustrating. I understand tech moves fast, but seems quite crazy to drop this fast, this quickly. I would have figured $100 in 6 months.
Honestly, I would have waited longer if my family didn't need two more phones. My personal phone could have waited to about now. And I would have taken a smaller hit on the ETF's with verizon.
But what can I do? Only hope this pushes more adopters and gets WebOS rolling more. That's the end of the equation anyway to get some more useful apps. And to push palm to improve it hopefully. I just fear when WebOS 2.0 comes out, we will lose out on tweaks.
And where the hell does this put Pixi?
$79.99 at Wally World is a SALE, not a permanent price reduction.
I new as an early adopter it was likely to happen. No big deal. It is not the fist piece of hardware I bought early and could have saved money if I had waited and will not be the last one.
Does it suck... yea... but am I happy I got the phone when I did... Oh! Yea!
I can only hope this price cut creates further adoption and increase in the WebOS community. Which should lead to more developers which equal more apps.
Rules of the technological road... buy early... pay more...
Frankly a 50 dollar price cut is just not that big a deal. It happens. I definitely think 50 bucks was worth having the pre 24 moths earlier. What walmart does is walmarts business.
After living with the short comings of the Centro for almost two years(its funny b/c I loved my Centro before I got my Pre). I outright bought a Pre from sprint.
Sprint could have still been making money off of the Pre into the holiday season. now if the Pixie releases for $99 it will have to compete with the similarly priced pre, so of course Anyone that knows about the Tech Specs of the two WebOS devices will go for the "stronger/faster" of the two.
Good luck Sprint.
Those of us who've been around the block a few times know that this is the deal. You pay a premium for being the first on your block with X technology/product. Things drop in price, and while this might be a big drop in a short period of time, mobile phone pricing does not follow the standard curve of other technology pricing. Often you will see big rebates come randomly, and then eventually go away. So even if there's a phone that's a year old selling for $300, you could see the Pre selling for $100 because Sprint/Palm wants to push the numbers up even if it means losing a little money on the front end.
The initial buzz was enough to get a lot of us to buy one in those early days of June, but after a long summer with sales that were trickling off, this is obviously an effort to get product moving again before the holiday season starts up and we have the Pixi and other carriers introducing the Pre.
Do I wish that I could have saved $120? Of course, but over 3.5 months, that averages out to an extra $35/month. Would you pay that premium to have a really cool phone 3.5 months early? Some would, some wouldn't, but I also think those that don't understand this shouldn't complain too much because if they'd done their research they would have known that pricing for these things is unpredictable and they could easily have waited a few months and saved a chunk of money...
It was funny, the first four weeks that Pre was out, iphone owners were ripping it out of my hands to check it out. Now, if I'm on the train or an elevator and they're doing their usual routine busily jumping from app to app, if I draw out my Pre just to scan my email, they quickly pocket their iphone and avoid looking at me. The Pre also seemed to cure the iphone reception problems too. Funny how technology works.
I needed a new phone badly and couldn't have held out till now. If it had launched at $600 like the iPhone I simply would have gone for another smartphone, but it launched at half that and I knew it would still come down before xmas (though I didn't expect two-thirds to be knocked off so quickly.) I hope 99 bucks becomes a pretty standard price for it, because the Pixi will have to be cheaper still and that'll get more people on WebOS.
People need to quit their whining. Palm Pre was easily worth the $199 and had I even known that these price cuts would have occurred, I STILL would have gladly paid that price. It's worth it.
... I'm guessing all these price cuts are coming because a higher capacity Palm Pre is on the way. Heads up!
I think you are almost right.
I think they are cutting the prices because the Palm Pre is going to Verizon soon and they want to get as many customers locked in as possible before that. Right now they can get customers because they have the cool phone, after verizon has it they'll have to compete on plan price.
I think you're almost, almost right. At a lower price, better o/s, and less expensive service (at least from Sprint), its a good chance for Palm and Spint to cut into the market share of other devices and providers. Gotta get a base of happy customers to help sell Pre2 and get back to a history of loyal users. Bit of a challenge as Treo -> Pre was a disaster for Palm loyals. I hope they learned from the recent mis-step.
Absolutely no regrets. I bought 2 Pres on launch day and haven't looked back. I WELCOME the price cuts. Gives me even more ammo to convince my friends and family to get one. An increase is sales means a larger base of users to attract more Palm Pre application developers. If I owned Palm stock I'd be even happier.
Apple cut its price by $100 only 68 days after launch! Sure, it sparked some anger among its own early adopters, but Apple got tremendous publicity (remember, there is no such thing as bad publicity), Steve Jobs came out with a letter describing the rationale (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/openiphoneletter/), Apple gave $100 credit towards the Apple store (brilliant), and consumers started to binge on the iPhone like never before.
I was 3rd in line to get my Pre on launch day. Like many others, I am no longer using my original one. For various reasons (severe Oreo effect and then headset jack problems that stuck my phone in permanent headset mode) I am on my 3rd Pre. But I wouldn't trade this whole early adopter experience for the world, or even $100.
This is my first time as an early adopter and it's been awesome participating in the Homebrew community. From the early rooting days to the magic that Jason has provided for us with his numerous apps, it has been an extremely fun ride. My only regret is that I'm not a developer, but I sure as hell have enjoyed being a beta tester. Who cares that the price is dropping. Like others have said, that may foreshadow a new and improved Pre coming out already. Surely they won't leave the Pre cheaper than the Pixi.
No regrets here. I'd do it all over again and may have even paid $50 more. Hell, I've already spent that much donating to different devs for their hard work. Keep up the awesome progress guys and gals. I'm thoroughly anjoying this and literally look forwars to each new day's developments. (I didn't do that as much with my iPod touch.)
This article tries really hard to put a positive spin on the price cuts. But I don't think early sales were as strong as they should have been. Now we see what should be a flagship phone being offered for less than $100 mere months after intro. I don't think this bodes well for the image of the Pre, and what does it say about Pixi and upcoming products? Does Palm want to be a discount device maker? I sure hope not. But given the build quality of the phone, maybe they were shooting for the low end of the market all along.
But the 1st generation iPhone did the same thing only 68 days after its initial launch. Do you think Apple did it because sales were poor?
The iPhone was $80 after 68 days?
jarobusa is right -- it's not the same kind of thing. The price cuts on the Pre are driving it down into the low end of the market. Heck, it's now cheaper than the old, low-end iPhone 3G. On paper, the Pre should be competing with the more expensive 3GS model.
Remember, from what I read, this is not Palm's doing. This is the retailers. Palm isn't taking the hit for this,the retailers are at selling it so cheap.
Correct me if I am wrong...but that's what I have been reading.
It's the retailers in conjunction with the providers. Just depends on how the commission is structured with the provider. After the sale, the retailer is out of the game. So Sprint and perhaps Palm, are making it worthwhile to Walmart to offer so cheaply.
I bought the pre a week from launch day and paid the 299 and then rebate was cancelled out by my second pre lol. But i could care less because in the end all my friends envy my phone, and isn't that all we wanted. (that and the best phone on the market)
I think I shelled out $400 or so for my first Treo when it came out. I didn't see original price tag as probative. Technology is always dropping in price if we keep waiting we will never be happy. I am glad I got my Pre when I did and stopped looking at the price one it was in my hands.
Ya know, I love my phone and all...I really do, but I honestly do wish I would have waited to get it. I understand it's still an infant and Web OS is still new and there are many updates to look forward to in the future...but for now, this phone just is not as good as it could be, and with all the price cuts, if I could see in the future, I most definitely would have waited until Web OS was at least at version 1.5 or higher.
The battery life right now on this device doesn't even last a day on stand by...and I am NOT going to put the phone on airplane mode during the day.
I love the pre, I really do...but yeah, I would have waited to get it.
I'm a gadget lover, I know the price for being an early adopter thus these things don't faze me. The Pre is still just as awesome as it was the day I bought it, I"m happy.
That is the price to pay to be an early adapter...there is no one to blame but your self....everyone knew that it would drop in price and if your crying about go get an iphone and steve might have some sympathy for you after taking your money for a half ass, prisoner product like the iphone
I agree early adopters always pay higher. But $80 for a flag ship phone? If the Pre was selling there is no way they would reduce the price this much this soon. Just look at the Wii. It is finally getting a price reduction after how many years?
I think it shows the Pre was overpriced for a wide market. die hard techies and duped Palm loyalists (myself included) were willing to pay $200.
There really is no way to compare a cellphone market to anything else. phone's get subsidized by carriers and manufactures, then 3rd party dealers can do whatever they want with them. I can have a at&t store and sell iPhone 3GS for $5.00 but that doesn't mean the phone isn' selling well, i just want to make more money by having more people come deal with me. That's how it is with the mobile market
I want to emphasis again, from what I read and correct me if I am wrong, Palm is NOT the one slashing the price of the phone. the retailers are and the retailers are the ones that have to make up that cost.
Paying the estra $$ is the price of wanting latest baddest now so this is meh. What ticks early adopters is there becomes more product within an early period...
I just read all these comments and the smartest one is that the pre is going to keep getting cheaper because Verizon is most likely getting this phone in Jan 2010 so they are going to try and lock down as many customers as possible. In addition, there is also a higher capacity pre probably in the works.
We all know the price of being a early buyer.
True. But I could have bought a Touchstone with that extra $$! lol. Bah, my phone has been kick @$$ and I have put the smack down on quite of few of my iClone friends. (even converted a few to the Palm Side!)
I knew what the phone would cost, I knew that within 2-3 months the price would drop, and that within a year the price would be almost free. Of course, by then there would be another hot new device that made even greater use of WebOS, or some new hardware that will be the next must-have.
Waiting only means having mediocre products that actually have reduced lifespan due to the fact that there are probably a dozen new solutions in the works that will obsolete the current product. Many people wont understand this, but when new technologies and hardware are released, they often impact a users productivity, especially those of us who use their phones for work purposes. So if you wait to adopt a tool that could potentially increase your productivity, or reduce your time spent on tasks, all you're doing in the mean time is spending more to do the same tasks. I can say with confidence that my Pre has saved me more than $50 over the first 3 months and that I can attribute almost all of that savings to the ability to multi-task on this great device.
I have gladly paid the premium, and have thoroughly enjoyed the phone and being part of the early adopter experience.
Price cuts are a fact of life...but i do wish I had waited, just not because of the price cuts.
I have been trying to figure out where Palm's inventory levels on the pre are since their financials release last week. Depending upon which analyst you believe, inventories are either extremely high or extremely low. I would believe that given the plethora of price cuts we are seeing now that inventories are increasing. Of course, we are getting close to the holidays, so this is neither bad nor unexpected.
I would suspect that the wal-mart price is due to one of their internal analysts believing they have over-purchased on the pre, but it might also be because they are trying to create some of their own buzz on the phone leading up to the holiday season.
My Treo 700p was on its last legs, hard reboots every month. I was getting the Pre no matter what. I fully expect a higher capacity Pre is in the pipeline for 2010 and I will wait for that one to land and drop in price, then pass my current Pre to the wife and grab the upgrade: 16gb, WebOS 3.0 I'm waiting for you!
I don't care at all that they lower the price. I've had my Pre since June 6th and have been loving it from day one. If I didn't want to spend the original asking price, I wouldn't have bought it. In fact, I'm glad it's coming down in price cause now I can get my wife one when her contract is ready. I love the phone and think it was worth the $299 I paid for it, let alone the mail in rebate I got back.
It bugs me somewhat. But putting it in perspective, the total cost of ownership is far higher than the upfront cost so this makes little difference.
From a practical perspective, I've gotten a lot of use out of the Pre, despite the problems and frustrations. It frees me from being attached to my laptop which is a big deal. My previous G1 already enabled this to some extent, but it was slow enough that I still preferred doing stuff on my laptop. The utility of using the Pre for the last 3 months was worth more than $100.
The $50 price difference this soon is annoying, but not THAT big a deal. The low-prices that we're finding at places like Amazon and WalMart do get on my nerves, though. Yes, items go on sale, but this is really soon to be going this much on sale. Also, I wish Sprint had done away with the rebate thing. If Best Buy, Amazon, Walmart, et al. can do away with a stupid mail-in rebate, then so can Sprint.
And I hate it when people are like "well if you don't like it, don't buy it." That's an apathetic way of excusing things.
I did indeed buy it because I needed a new phone. My Treo had long since broken, and I was using a phone that I had had for years. I used it right up until it was barely working anymore. I didn't get the Pre during the first week either. I still see the Pre as a potential platform that is MUCH more powerful than the iPhone OS (except perhaps for video games - but I don't play video games, and I wanted a gaming device, I'd get one. I want an internet-based PDA phone). So really the price cuts irk me, but don't make me regret getting a Pre in the first place.
price cuts happen, yes, but the pre hasn't even been out for 5 months yet!! and there are places selling the pre for well under a hundred dollars?????? that is an insult to us who paid 200 on launch day my friend!!!
Yeah, and while they might not have gotten a lot, the early iPhone adopters at least got SOMETHING when Apple made the original price change much sooner than they ought to have.
I'm not a new sprint customer, so I don't apply for many of the rebates anyway.
Price cuts encourage market adoption, and that's what's going to guarantee that WebOS is still viable a couple years down the road.
The price cuts have come so soon after launch. It is an undeniable fact of life that technology evolves rapidly and that Palm and Sprint need to price the Pre competitively against some strong competitors like the iPhone and BlackBerry phones. Biographical thesis Chicago thesis Controversial thesis Controversy thesis Descriptive essay thesis
The price cuts are so good to see. The technology is growing so much so the prices have to too. This is the way it is.
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