Here comes Android

Well, Motorola is officially back in the game. Their stock is up over 10% today on strong 4th quarter earnings and the launch of Android.

This new smartphone is ready to tackle Apple, Rimm, and Palm once it releases. Motorola has some major hitters behind them in Verizon and Google. Droid 2.0 has a solid exterior, intelligent interior and is one of the thinnest full QWERTY keyboards slider phones now available. It has voice recognition, and could be summed up as a no fuss, high tech, over the air updating, multitasking machine. The screen is brilliant and has high resolution qualities as well and of course Google maps will be a staple feature. The camera is 5 mega pixels with a 16 GB memory card which is very impressive.

There are also many preloaded apps like gmail, youtube, calendar, Amazons MP3 store and another 12,000 apps that can be downloaded. Compared to Apple and its 90,000 apps, this may not be significant, but this phone will deliver competition to the smartphone market. The partners that are vested in this project are all serious players.

The unit will be exclusive from Verizon and run $199 with a 2 year agreement. For more information go to www.droiddoes.com. I love the press release I got earlier which starts off by saying "Hello Humans"

Welcome to the Future.

Mike

Those misleading cellular prices

You see the commercials. $49 for the new Blackberry Tour, or $29.99 for the Motorola Rival. Verizon, Sprint, ATT all of them do it. They advertise these prices left and right with the small print almost off the picture. These prices are for renewals for 2 year contracts. These prices are only available IF you are eligible for an upgrade.

Most cellular contracts are the same. You have to have made it roughly 20 out of 24 months through the contract to be eligible for the advertised prices I mentioned. I get calls every other day from people confused about this. They are 6 months into a contract, break or lose their phone, do not carry insurance and then I quote them "$289, are you kidding me I saw it on TV for $29.99" Well that is for an "eligible" customer.

The retail price of most all of these phones is not cheap. A Blackberry for example will run well over $400 to replace at retail if you do not carry insurance or have eligibility to get an upgrade with a discount off the new phone. In the carriers defense, when they discount or subsidize the phone they are losing money and have to keep you under contract for several months to reclaim the discount and actually be profitable.

Be careful of the E-bay purchases for replacements. Carry insurance on Smart phones and create a relationship with a broker that has access to wholesaler's if and when that dreaded day comes.

Welcome to the Future.

Mike