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Google Reduces Its Nexus One Termination Fee 56


Google Reduces Its Nexus One Termination Fee

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  • by Korbeau ( 913903 ) on Tuesday February 09, 2010 @02:43AM (#31069510)

    Linking to an article mentioning Linus and an older advertisement, with a tiny bit of new information (a 200$ cut because of an about-to-be ruling by the FCC), that overall shows Google in a positive light. With clumsy maths at the end.

    Slashdot at its best!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Slashdot at its best!

      I've been reading that for at least a decade. At least you can't fault them on editorial style inconsistencies...

    • by skine ( 1524819 )

      No, I don't think you get it at all.

      If it's Mobile, Apple, Your Rights or Idle, we're supposed to be angry.

      Everything else has the potential to still be up to rational debate.

    • by Xiph ( 723935 ) on Tuesday February 09, 2010 @03:01AM (#31069594)

      Parent is not a troll, Korbeau is merely stating the obvious.

      The $49 price is not the real price, but the difference between doing it one way, and doing it a different way, both with HORRIBLE subscription prices by european standards.

      Early termination fees are a JOKE, especially with a size like that.
      This whole story reeks of someone lacking their sense of judgement or deliberately ignoring it.

      Yes, teH Nexus One is a nice phone, but
      A: it's not that cheap
      B: it's not a jesus phone (neither was the iPhone)
      C: this is neither the first or second story about it these last few days.

      anyway. imo, parent is not a troll

      • Subscription prices are crazy not just by European standards, also by Asian standards. Those prices are very high for basically any non-American mobile phone user.

        The discount of USD 20 mentioned is about as much as my monthly fee. And then I have a 3G plan now, plan to change back to some 2G plan which starts at less than USD 4.50 per month - including about 800 minutes air time, voice mail, etc.

        Getting a USD 20 per month discount for your phone is virtually impossible in Hong Kong, simply because most p

      • Early termination fees are a JOKE, especially with a size like that.

        i guess you should explain that comment. should a consumer be allowed to pay $180 + $80 for a contract, then cancel with no ETF thereby getting a $530 nexus one phone for $260?

        if the provider is subsidizing the price of the phone, a pro-rated ETF based on the retail price of the phone is fair. in this case, you pay $180 for the subsidized phone and an ETF of $350. $350+$180 = $530 ... and surprise, that's the price of the unsubsidized phone. in other words, if you decide to cancel your contract, you pay the

    • by shri ( 17709 )
      Not to mention, it got Computer World their link for the day. Wish we could ignore by submitter. Low quality garbage that passes for news...
  • by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Tuesday February 09, 2010 @02:45AM (#31069520)

    Nexuses are retired, not terminated.
    Just saying...

    -- Roy Batty


    Is this a new form of slashvertisement?

  • Get Real (Score:4, Insightful)

    by honkycat ( 249849 ) on Tuesday February 09, 2010 @03:46AM (#31069750) Homepage Journal


    And, by another reckoning, it actually saves you $5,000 and rescues your cat from a tree. Incidentally, both reckonings are fallacious.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    That (1) makes you look stupid, and (2) repeats advertising.

    Of course, this is pretty much the default with kdawson.

  • Dont be... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Johnny Fusion ( 658094 ) <zenmondo.gmail@com> on Tuesday February 09, 2010 @04:02AM (#31069800) Homepage Journal
    Evil? Well with these fees maybe just a little bit evil. But seriously this is google, how much more money do they need?
    Personally, I am waiting for the phone that is subsidized by non-obtrusive, relevant advertising.

      It will be interesting. I am waiting for the phone that pauses my call to tell me that I am about to pass best buy who is having sales! sales! sales!

      I better keep it away from my wife who bases how well she does shopping by how much she "saves" thanks to deals (whether or not it is something she needs - or really even wants.)

  • When they screw us they use lube!
  • by kidgenius ( 704962 ) on Tuesday February 09, 2010 @04:15AM (#31069842)
    So I just upgraded my phone on Verizon over the weekend, and though everyone is making a big deal about having 2 ETFs with the N1 (one on from Google, the other from T-Mobile), I believe the same thing is in place for ATT & VZW. See, you can upgrade your phones through a few 3rd party services (one being Amazon). In the fine print you have 6 months that you cannot change which plan a phone is on. If you do, Amazon will charge you the full device price for the phone. This is Amazon now, not VZW. If you also canceled your contract, VZW would also charge you an ETF, even though you paid Amazon for your phone. There you go, 2 ETFs. ATT, Sprint, and even TMobile all say the same thing when you upgrade through 3rd parties (of which Google would be one)
  • by VShael ( 62735 ) on Tuesday February 09, 2010 @04:16AM (#31069850) Journal

    It's one thing to have a story/advertisement, it's another to blatantly lie in it.

    The bullshit statistic of the $49 dollar unlocked version was ably debunked in the comments of the last story where this was claimed.

    Please stop doing it. When you're caught in a blatant lie, you don't repeat it unless you are also an idiot.

    • Story posted by kdawson, nuff said.

      • Here: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=296b01a23fd9f37289b4c61d63fa8519 [yahoo.com]

        It's a RSS feed for Slashdot without kdawson's submissions.

        Now can we please move on?

        • You could more easily just uncheck kdawson in the list of authors in your /. preferences. But the problem is that not all of his posts are ignorable. Some selections of a submission to post are obvious even to someone of his, shall we say, limited compatibilities with the community.

          Jon Katz was the only author I blocked here because he only posted his own stuff and didn't approve submissions. :)
          hah. I was verifying it was Jon and not John and noticed he was criticized just as much by the dog folks for hi
  • Not that bad. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Myion ( 1662861 )
    Initial ETF for iPhone 3G in my country (Latvia) is what would be around $570
  • Looking at the Google site [google.com], the phone costs $179 if you sign up with a T-Mobile plan. So if you cancel, you're out the $179 + $150 from Google, + $200 from T-Mobile... which brings the price to $529, which coincidentally, is the unlocked price of the phone. You are at a loss, however, of how many months you had the service before canceling (with T-Mobile's current discount for not subsidizing the device).
  • In November we got a bunch of G1s and then decided at the last minute we wanted to get the Droid instead. The restocking fee from T-Mobile was quite reasonable, I think around $10/phone. Then a few months later we got a bill for $50/line for the activation fee. I'm not really unhappy with the cost of canceling the service, we like the Droid much better than the G1 (it's just a much newer phone). It was just kind of surprising to get another $350 bill after I thought it was all taken care of.

  • I apologise in advance if this has already been discussed in previous stories: An early termination fee is for the early termination of a contract. Now I only skim the contract that I signed when I just bought my smart phone (HTC Eris) with Verizon a few months ago but I don't recall a contract with google or HTC. Only Verizon. How can Google charge an ETF when I don't have a contract with them?
    • by dtzitz ( 937838 )
      I was wrong, google is not billing this as an early termination fee. They are calling it an equipment recovery fee. I am set for my phone for the next two years (thank you $350 ETF from big red) but I would like to see someone challenge the new fee in court.
  • Just buy a lot of Nexi Ones for 49$, and sell them for material price! I am going to be rich!

    I didn't expect google of all companies to be braindead enough to subsidize unlocked phones...

  • You go into a T-Mobile store, you soak up half an hour of their employees time and then turn around and want ~all~ of your money back five days later, where you will then soak up another thirty minutes of their time. Not to mention paper, a device that now has to be cleared out, contacting headquarters so someone can cutoff your stuff, etc. And you want them to do this for "free?" This isn't Walmart, stop being selfish. If you cancel your service, you should owe them something, at least to cover their time
  • And why does he keep posting nonsense (like the $49 cost for the Nexus, seems kdawson uses the same accounting methods as wall-street) and gets approved for posting (two time in two days about the same nonsense)??? I know of lots of people (inc. myself) who proposed stories that were much less non-sensical than to claim that the phone costs $49 and these stories were not posted. Who is reviewing these stories? Is kdawson a slashdot insider? Hell, if nonsense stories get approved like this, please cance

    It'd be nice if the summary told us who Linus Torvalds is, rather than just assuming we know everyone in the tech world.

  • iphone: $199 + $79 * 24 = $2095 (AT&T, subsidized iphone)
    n1: $530 + $59 * 24 = $1946 (T-mo, no contract)

    nexus one savings over 2 years: $2095 - $1946 = $149

    not having a contract is a big plus, but i don't see where the nexus one is much cheaper.

    • i should also note that if you plan on keeping your phone past the 2-year boundary, the savings for the nexus one would continue to grow. despite being out of contract, AT&T does not offer a no-contract discount.

  • when the words 'termination fee' appear
  • Not to appealing to get a contract, that is still quite a lot of money for early termination. The unlocked version seems like the monkey to go for as it looks a better deal. (Or have I missed something here?).
