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Comment by eli | Hacker News Reader

I blame Google for letting people build the Nexus One up so much (remember the crazy pre-launch rumors about how it was going to change the world?)

It's not that Americans are stupid and the rest of the world is smart. The problem is that you typically pay the same monthly service fee whether you take a subsidized phone or not. To go buy your own phone at full retail price is leaving hundreds of dollars on the table. (T-Mobile is the notable exception as they let you pay slightly less for a contractless plan.)

Also, few people are willing to buy an expensive phone that they can't even hold in their hand first. My understand was that Google was going to try to get the phones some retail space in e.g. Best Buy.

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The same price for the service with or without a phone is just a sign that the market doesn't work for some reason.

Before my (coincidentally, American) employer started paying my phone bills, I had a service from one of the local operators here. In my "smart" country the costs were as follows:

- monthly fee: 0,67€

- phone calls: 0,069€ / minute

- texting: 0,069€ / message

Admitting I indeed don't talk on the phone that much and I don't use data services, I rarely racked up more than 5-10 euros a month. I could get 512k-2M data plan for 10-30 euros a month. Still, any plan that comes bundled with a decent phone here is many times more expensive.

> The problem is that you typically pay the same monthly service fee whether you take a subsidized phone or not.

Yeah, T-mobile is really great about this. I'm saving over a thousand dollars over the life of the phone by getting a data-only plan.

I'm curious: do you have a data-only plan so you can use VoIP to make phone calls?

I have been trying to find a device that would make it easy to make VoIP calls most of the time, since I am nearly always around free (or already-paid for) wireless broadband, but fall back on a prepaid SIM card when I only have cell network coverage. Some of the Android devices look promising for this, especially the Nexus One, but I have been unable to find hard information about whether it's possible to do this conveniently.

I use VoIP for almost all calls on my N1, but any Android phone will allow you to do it pretty conveniently. For instance, I have two friends who are doing the same with their G1 and Moto Droid respectively. We use the sipdroid application with gizmo5.

Do you not have any problems with dropped calls due to data being the lowest priority when the cell tower is processing heavy traffic? I have had this problem with data in general (when I go to a concert, for example, it's almost impossible to use data reliably, moderately difficult to use voice, and SMS works perfectly).

Indeed that is sometimes a problem, but I don't make a ton of voice calls in super-high volume areas.

> I'm curious: do you have a data-only plan so you can use VoIP to make phone calls?

Yeah. You need the Google Code version of SipDroid; the one in the market is crippled: http://code.google.com/p/sipdroid/

I have a Nokia N900 and I find making and receiving VoIP calls (Skype and Google Talk) just as convenient as POTS calls. I had never owned a smartphone before this, so I find its lack of battery life disturbing, even though it seems on par with a colleague's iPhone.

So for the random guy on the Internet recommendation: overall, I would buy this phone again, especially if I had wide-ranging access to WiFi.

If you want to use an unlocked phone and maximize your revenue as a customer, simply get an iPhone 4 on contract with AT&T, put the SIM in $GENERIC_SMARTPHONE, unlock it, and sell it on eBay for around $750.

Maximum profit as a consumer as the $750 spread over the 24 month contract gives you an effective $31.25 a month discount. Plus, you get it up front so you can invest it or do whatever you want with the money.

My corporation qualifies me for a 20% AT&T discount. I could effectively keep my iPhone 3GS, which works just great, and reduce my phone bill from $66 a month down to $35 - and still have unlimited data as a grandfathered plan.

The game works if you know how to play it... ;-)

That's likely what I'll do next time my contract is up... but it would really be easier and better for everyone involved if the carriers would just charge you less or pay you a cash bonus at the end of your contract (etc).

If your carrier charges for tethering, your not leaving $$ on the table.

The other point, not being able to handle it first, I agree with, although it didn't stop me.

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