Why different prices for this phone?

[trparky]

Amazon has it on sale for $199. Verizon is selling it for $299. Costco is even less than Amazon.

So why the price differences? And if I buy from the Verizon store, what are the chances of them price-matching the Amazon.com price?

 

[AMTrombley0924]

I'm not sure about the price-matching, but these are pretty great deals compared to the ridiculously overpriced $300 VZW charges.

The only thing to know is that when you buy from third-party retailers like Amazon or Costco, you should avoid changing things on your plan (like minutes, or texts) for about 6 months, as the fine print will tell you that a change could incur a charge on your account for the full-retail price of the phone.

 

[DocBeech]

Some of it has to do with the memory card. Make sure you are extra careful to check.

The ones coming from costco have a 32gb and sometimes even 16gb class 2 micro sd. The ones coming from the VZW store and Bestbuy have a 32GB Class 4 micro sd. The price to purchase a class 4 micro SD from Kingston or Sandisk is a lot of times around 60-75 dollars before taxes and shipping. So make sure you look at the memory they are offering. That 100 dollars more you spend at verizon is basically getting you a much faster memory card.

A class level 2 card is not considered high enough by most manufacturers to record hd video "which the driod does record at HD 720P".

Class 2 is 2MB/s
Class 4 is 4MB/s
Class 10 is 10MB/s <--- this is what I use from kingston.

You will notice a huge difference just FYI.

 

[kyler13]

Some of it has to do with the memory card. Make sure you are extra careful to check.

The ones coming from costco have a 32gb and sometimes even 16gb class 2 micro sd. The ones coming from the VZW store and Bestbuy have a 32GB Class 4 micro sd. The price to purchase a class 4 micro SD from Kingston or Sandisk is a lot of times around 60-75 dollars before taxes and shipping. So make sure you look at the memory they are offering. That 100 dollars more you spend at verizon is basically getting you a much faster memory card.

A class level 2 card is not considered high enough by most manufacturers to record hd video "which the driod does record at HD 720P".

Class 2 is 2MB/s
Class 4 is 4MB/s
Class 10 is 10MB/s <--- this is what I use from kingston.

You will notice a huge difference just FYI.

This is exactly why phones should have appreciable internal memory such that they can control performance of key features like write times for HD video recording. There's no reason why these phones shouldn't have at least 8GB total, even if you only get 6GB because 2GB is dedicated to apps or the OS. Truth be told, the manufacturers know this and you see it in the international versions. Why Verizon feels they need to continue to muck with these types of features is beyond me.

 

[Ken7]

Some of it has to do with the memory card. Make sure you are extra careful to check.

The ones coming from costco have a 32gb and sometimes even 16gb class 2 micro sd. The ones coming from the VZW store and Bestbuy have a 32GB Class 4 micro sd. The price to purchase a class 4 micro SD from Kingston or Sandisk is a lot of times around 60-75 dollars before taxes and shipping. So make sure you look at the memory they are offering. That 100 dollars more you spend at verizon is basically getting you a much faster memory card.

A class level 2 card is not considered high enough by most manufacturers to record hd video "which the driod does record at HD 720P".

Class 2 is 2MB/s
Class 4 is 4MB/s
Class 10 is 10MB/s <--- this is what I use from kingston.

You will notice a huge difference just FYI.

I don't believe your info regarding phones from Verizon is accurate. I had two Charge's from Verizon and both had Samsung 32gig Class 2 cards.

 

[Zohar127]

Amazon (where I got mine) and Coscto are offering these ridiculous prices because they want to entice people to buy from them. They need to come up with a compelling reason to get people to leave their "comfort zone" of the VZW store and buy from a third party.

Verizon can get away with selling it for $300 because the majority of people either don't know about getting it from a third party or aren't comfortable buying from one.

It's not so much what the phone's actual value is. It's about how much they can sell it for. These phones cost upwards of $700 dollars off-contract because they don't want anyone to buy them that way. In reality they aren't worth anywhere near that much money.

The deal they set up with the manufacturers is buying the phones for whatever the manufacturer sells them for directly and then offering those to customers at greatly reduced prices in order to sell you a $90/month contract. Carriers make back the money "lost" on the price discount after a few months of your contract deal. Everything you pay after that is where they make all their money.

So I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the actual price of the phone doesn't really matter. I honestly don't know how Amazon makes money but if I had to guess I'd say they are getting paid by the carriers to draw in new customers.

 

[Elevated]

Will Verizon or Best Buy price match Amazon, or at least come down some in price? Or could you get a better phone plan rate?

 

[Eric Bishop]

So I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the actual price of the phone doesn't really matter.

It matters to the person buying it. If you're going to have the same plan either way, you should buy from Amazon.

 

[DocBeech]

Verizon offers veterans discounts. 25% off. I got my charge plus the extended battery with no activation cost for 300 out the door after taxes at best buy. VZW stores and best buy charges come with 32gig class 4 cards like mine did. Veterans get 25% off anything you ever buy from verizon if you are on file or present a military id or dd214 st the time of purchase. This includes never a activation fee and 15%off voice with 12% off data.

Always read your contact and you will find things like this.

 

[Zohar127]

It matters to the person buying it. If you're going to have the same plan either way, you should buy from Amazon.

Well yeah, obviously. I was saying in the perspective of actual market value the price of the phone is irrelevant to the carriers as they make their money off contract payments, not selling you a phone. Kinda like how videogame console manufacturers will sell their consoles at a loss, but make back all that money and then some on licensing/royalties.

They put forth the initial investment risk of getting the products in your household and then bet on you buying games or paying for their online services to make all their money. Phone carriers take a less risky route by forcing you into a contract and then slamming you with a gigantic fee (to make back the money lost on their initial investment of selling you the phone) if you try to cancel early.

As to price matching, I asked walmart and best buy and they will price match their retail, brick and mortar competitors, but they will not price match an online store like Amazon.