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The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked

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Re: The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked

#91

Post by mahyarm »

dak1 wrote: post #24
mikeash wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple still works with the carriers quite a bit. For example, you can't turn on tethering unless the carrier allows it (often requiring you to pay more money), and most iPhones sold in the US are locked to a single carriers. But who can blame them? Of the $650 cost of a new iPhone, the user only pays $200, while the carrier pays $450. Apple knows where their bread is buttered.

Don't worry, you're paying that entire $650 (and usually then some). It's just hidden in your contract price.

I remember several years ago back in canada, the plan prices were the same if you brought your own phone or if you got one on contract. They wouldn't even give you decent promo plans unless you got the contract anyway. So when pricing is the same, the rational thing to do is to buy a subsidized phone.

Re: The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked

#92

Post by batuhanicoz »

reustle wrote: post #61
davidw wrote: post #30

I recently went to the US for a few weeks. My Nexus 4 worked just fine with a US SIM from T-Mobile. $70 for a month for voice and data was worth it, and everything worked quite nicely. Big +1 for unlocked products!

I pay $30/month in the US for a t-mobile month-to-month sim with 5gb data (soft cap), unlimited texts and 100 minutes on my nexus 4

Do you have a contract? That maybe why price you pay is cheaper. Seems like parent was only in US for a short period of time, so he probably didn't wanted to sign a, say 12 months, contract.

Re: The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked

#93

Post by melange »

fpgeek wrote: post #83
Osmium wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually you can as of iOS 7.

Yes and no. Apparently there's a bug that can crash iTunes if you put Newsstand in a folder: https://discussions.apple.com/message/23039388#23039388

I'm sure that was done on purpose.

Re: The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked

#94

Post by mahyarm »

gonehome wrote: post #59
Touche wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> THIS is what I don't understand. Why do people call it "subsidized" when you're locked in to a 2 year contract with an early termination fee. The cost of early termination + subsidized price is still quite a bit cheaper than the full price of the phone.

ETF is $350, new phones are usually $2-300 so the total is $5-650. Not really "quite a bit cheaper".

With the iPhone, the difference is $450, so it's usually cheaper. If you keep it for a while, the ETF goes down.

Re: The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked

#95

Post by csense »

This is a great business model from the standpoint of making profits (less so from the standpoint of ethics or consumer satisfaction).

Most people don't travel internationally very frequently, and region locking is not something that's marketed, so they only discover it when they actually travel, and then they're forced to buy another phone!

Forget region locking, can't they inflate their profits further at their customers' expense if they just use GPS or tower location to deactivate the phone when the user gets 200 miles from home? That would increase your market from international travelers to domestic travelers...

Re: The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked

#96

Post by ihsw »

differentView wrote: post #79
Sheepshow wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like it any more than you, but to Samsung and its investors, the undeletable Pizza Hut bookmark is a feature. Not only does it generate additional revenue with little additional design time, but it also indicates that Samsung has a healthy and attractive business in which other businesses would like to participate.

It also cheapens the brand.

Fuck brand, it's a middle finger to users.

Re: The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked

#98

Post by incongruity »

Touche wrote: post #50
incongruity wrote: post #7

If this is driven by carrier request, as the article speculates, then it is yet another example of how the mobile market is broken... Are phone manufacturers selling to consumers/end-users or are they selling to networks/providers? You can't do both, equally -- at least not at the moment -- because the carrier's interests and profit models generally directly conflict with the interests of consumers. Until the wireles…

> The exception are models like Apple's where they've figured out how to consistently drive profits by focusing on the consumer and using the phone as a platform for selling other things (i.e.: apps and content like movies and music) -- the carriers are almost incidental in Apple's model. Almost. This is absolutely untrue. Apple's business model is to sell $650 phones to carriers, who then turn around and sell them t…

To an extent, you're right, I overstated my case. They make their profits from hardware, yes, but they don't sell to carriers. They sell to consumers, some of whom buy from individual carriers but the majority channel for iPhone sales is from Apple itself. No other phone maker can say that.

Secondly, Apple's profit is uniquely enriched because it has built the platfrom that it has -- again, no other phone manufacturer reaps the direct from consumer benefit Apple does.

Lastly, because Apple sells markets/sells to the consumer, the consumer picks Apple first and then the carrier -- many change carriers but continue to be loyal to Apple as a phone maker. This is definitely the culmination of a major sea change in the mobile industry. Apple may not the only phone maker that has ever had a consumer act this way, but they are the first to have it happen on a widespread basis.

Re: The new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked

#99

Post by rapht »

Looking at Twitter and at Google's first 50 results on Note 3, I can't help but wonder : is the marginal profit they expect from region-locking so high that it will pay for all the bad buzz?

At first sight, even though pricing differences exist between regions around the world, on this kind of products they are not that big, not to mention that that part of these price differences come from retailing alone...

So these differences must be big enough to justify alienating your early adopter userbase, thus endangering the whole adoption process, not to mention bad PR that will stick. When you try too hard to get every cent out of people and they start seeing it - and any locking of that kind screams "I'm going to get more juice out of this" - they generally don't like it.

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