Sprint Challenges iPhone 3G With $129 Instinct
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: apple, iphone, 3g | Themes: Business
Overland Park (KS) - We have criticized the way the Samsung Instinct was marketed before, but it appears that the smartphone could have a shot against Apple’s new iPhone 3G, at least if it turns out that purchase price of such a phone is more important than the look-at-me factor. Over a two-year period, the difference in cost between the Instinct and the iPhone is negligible.
The Samsung Instinct is the first serious attempt of Samsung to challenge the iPhone with a device that has a similar look, is comparable in size and offers a handful of features the iPhone cannot provide. However, this morning Sprint made it clear that it plans to go against the Apple-AT&T iPhone with a campaign that focuses on price. Compared to the $199 iPhone, the Instinct will cost just $129.99. Well, sorta.
On a closer look, the Instinct is offered with an annoying $100 mail-in-rebate, which means that the phone is actually $30 more expensive than the iPhone at the time of purchase. Count in sales tax (we assume 7% here) and activation fees and you will leave the AT&T store with an iPhone for about $251 and a Sprint store with an instinct for about $281.
Sprint also requires you to sign a 2-year service agreement. The cost is identical with AT&T’s plans. Data plans with 450 voice minutes begin at $70 per month. A plan that can be shared between two phones and offers 1500 minutes is priced at $129.99 per month. The data/voice flat fee plan (including GPS) for $99.99 is also offered for the Instinct.
The Instinct is Sprint’s first EV-DO Rev A consumer-centric smartphone. Features include GPS-enabled audio and visual turn-by-turn driving directions and one-click traffic rerouting as well as Microsoft Live Search access. Also part of the phone are Visual Voicemail, support for POP3 and IMAP email. On the hardware side, the phone comes with a 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth as well as 2 GB storage space (through an included 2GB microSD card). Samsung promises that two standard 1000 mAh batteries offer up to 5.75 hours of continuous talk time each.
The Instinct will be available starting June 20.
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Starting at $70 a month huh? SERO my friend, SERO.
To anyone reading, SERO is a special Sprint plan that is by employee-invite only. You have to know an employee who gives you an e-mail addy to put into Sprint's sero website (sprint.com/sero). Luckily I already have a friend that works for Sprint, but it's pretty easy to just go to any corporately-run Sprint store and just make an offer to get their activating e-mail addy.
This plan makes anything AT&T is offering look like a loan call:
500 minutes + UNLIMITED data and text = $30/mo
w/1250 anytime mins = $50
w/unlimited anytime mins = $100
Glad I held out on buying a smart phone until now
You have to know a Sprint emp to get SERO or convince one of them to give you their activation e-mail. It's not that simple for the average person and you can't really count SERO as part of their normal plans when comparing it to AT&T's customer plans.
You have to know a Sprint employee for SERO, they have to give you their activation e-mail. Not so easy for the average person and you can't compare that to AT&T's customer plans since Sprint doesn't offer it to its customers normally.
But it's awesome. $30/month for 500 anytime mins and UNLIMITED data and text..........bliss
****ing toms giving me 404s every time I posted a comment when it was actually loading fine......wow who wrote this web code?