That means here in the US, AT&T Wireless, Cingular, and T-Mobile can each offer the phone (but they configure it in an appalling lockdown mode that restricts it to a single service). Here's where pricing really got interesting. T-Mobile charged $250, but with a $100 rebate. AT&T did even better. You could get the phone, after rebate, for just $50. Cingular's price was $350.
But to get that great phone, you had to sign a one- or two-year service contract. The phone is selling at what I call a subsidized price. It's similar to those "free PCs" of a few years ago (remember PeoplePC?), where the machine was free, but you had to commit to three years of dial-up internet service at an inflated rate. Those PCs weren't free at all—in fact, given that you could get free Internet service if you put up with a few ads, free PCs were actually quite expensive. Even Gateway got into the misleading game, to its detriment.
The impenetrable pricing scheme is not isolated to the 3650. Consider the Handspring Treo 270, one of the more popular PDA/phone combinations, and well regarded by PC Magazine. The Cingular and T-Mobile versions are $499, but with a one-year service agreement. Currently, for what is essentially the same phone, you can get a $100 rebate at T-Mobile, but not at Cingular. Sprint now offers a $200 rebate on the $499 Treo 300, which differs from the T-Mobile and Cingular version only in its support of CDMA instead of GSM. But on our PriceGrabber shopping service, I discovered the 300 was $, and an unfettered version of the 270 would set you back $700.
Confused yet?
This pricing rigmarole caused a little debate here at PC Magazine. Should we report the prices given by manufacturers? Should we print prices based on our own research? Do we list the service providers' prices and contract restrictions? Their Rebates? We'd probably need a four-way Opteron server just to compute the permutations.
Here's my take: We should list the price you'd pay for the phone without signing up for a service contract, and also publish a reasonable subsidized cost—without those rebates that never seem to show up—for each major US service provider offering the phone.
Unless you want to give up your mobile number, you'll be staying with your current service provider, so the subsidized price is key. (Number portability is another big can of worms—check out Wireless SuperSite editor Ross Rubin's recent column on that sham scam.) When you re-up, you should get the same phone discount as a new customer—or even get a free phone for being such a loyal customer.
In most cases, you will get the discounted rate. But there are situations where you'll need a new phone and won't be able to get a subsidized rate, because you'll still be working through that annual contract. For instance:
You've taken a dip with your cell phone before your contract expires. Don't laugh—I did this a few weeks ago in Hawaii.
You left your new phone in a taxi. Yup, I did this, too, a few years ago.
You really want an unlocked GSM phone, and your phone is bound to your carrier. There are a lot of reasons you might want this, mostly because SIM-card service from a local wireless phone provider can save you big bucks on both local and remote charges when you're abroad.
Whatever you do, though, read the fine print. I don't recommend signing up for a two-year contract, because you'll probably want a new phone after a year. And ask about whether you can use the phone on another service. If you make a stink, you might get an unlocked phone for the same price as a locked version. For GSM that's important, but with Sprint and Verizon, you are basically stuck. Phones are just not portable between those CDMA 'nets.
And don't be afraid to bargain. If you sign up for an expensive plan, you should get more of a subsidy on your new phone. Maybe you can leverage that plan into an unlocked phone as well.
But I believe phone vendors and service providers need to do a better job on pricing. If it's too confusing for them to understand, you know buyers must be mystified. And mystified buyers often buy nothing at all.
One last tip: If you need a new phone but can't get a subsidized price, try a used phone. Many users replace older phone models—but those phones still have long and useful lives in them. I've purchased two cell-phones on craigslist, and they work great when I'm in areas they cover. Two other great places to find older but still useful phones are eBay and its sister site, . One example of a fine, reliable older phone is the Ericsson T28. It works on the GSM network around the world, and you'll find it for $50 or less. You'll probably even find an unlocked version if you search for it.
