A hot new smartphone can be Incredible, Vibrant, Epic or just "eh," but no matter how it stacks up, it's a safe bet that it will start selling at $199.
On the four major wireless networks -- Verizon Wireless (VZ, Fortune 500), AT&T, Sprint (S, Fortune 500) and T-Mobile -- there are 13 smartphones priced at $199 with a two-year contract. There are no phone models with a higher starting price (add-ons like more memory can increase the price tag), and there are more smartphones selling at $199 than at any other single price point.
But spending $199 doesn't guarantee you a top-of-the-line phone. On AT&T's (T, Fortune 500) network, $199 will buy an iPhone 4, the best-selling smartphone of all time. But you'll need to fork over the same amount for a BlackBerry Bold 9700, a nine-month-old phone that lacks a touch screen.
It will also cost you $199 to get an HTC Tilt 2, which runs Windows Mobile 6.5 -- an operating system so out of date that Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) is set to completely abandon it in the next few months.
So what's so special about $199?
"The obvious answer is that $199 is a magic price point for smartphone volume," said George Appling, partner at consulting firm Booz & Co. "The not-so-obvious reason is that carriers are not charging customers what they pay."
In other words, wireless carriers pay significantly more for smartphones than you do. In exchange for your signature on an expensive two-year contract, they'll offer you the smartphone for less than it costs them but as much as they think you'll pay for it -- and right now, that's $199 across the board. Buy an unsubsidized iPhone 4 straight from Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) and you'll pay $599 for the 16 GB phone that AT&T sells for $199 with a two-year contract.
Smartphones generally cost carriers around $500 per unit. Volume deals and other negotiations with manufacturers can shave down that price tag, but the hotter the phone, the more a carrier will pay to buy it.
But that's just the start of their calculations of what a phone "costs."
Phones that tend to eat up more bandwidth -- hello iPhone! -- add to the carrier's overhead. Put together the upfront cost of the phone and the back-end cost to service it, and you're left with the phone's profit margin. For a model with really tight margins, the carrier might find itself essentially forced to charge more upfront than it otherwise would -- it can't discount the purchase price and still scrape out a profit. That sometimes leads to inferior phones, like the BlackBerry Bold, carrying the same price tag as more advanced rivals, like BlackBerry's Torch.
Apple introduced movie and TV streaming through its second-generation Apple TV Wednesday, a simpler and cheaper device than its previous product.
"We introduced it four years ago, but it's never been a huge hit — nor has any competitive product," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
Prices for TV show rentals —which now cost $2.99 through the iTunes Store — will be 99 cents, Jobs said. Offerings will be from ABC and Fox; "we hope the other studios will see the light and get on board with us."
First run, high-definition movies will be available for $4.99 on the same day they come out on DVD, he said.
Netflix, YouTube, Flickr and MobileMe users will also be able to stream movies, videos, music and photos to their sets using Apple TV.
Customers "said the No. 1, 2 and 3 things they wanted are Hollywood movies and TV shows, whenever they want them," Jobs said. What they don't want, Jobs said, it to have to deal with synching content from a computer to a TV, or worrying about where to store such huge files.
The previous price for Apple TV was $229. The new price is $99. It will be available in about a month.
Jobs said consumers will see the new Apple TV as a "phenomenal way to watch Hollywood movies and TV shows in your living room whenever you want," as well to stream movies and other content from other sources "right onto your TV."
Technology analyst Michael Gartenberg, a partner with Altimeter Group, a research and advisory firm, said the new Apple TV "is to television what iPhones were to phones three years ago." The stage, he said "is set for mass market adoption."
The battle for streaming to the TV screen is heating up; both Amazon and Google are looking to get into the arena.
Amazon is trying to create a service that gives paying subscribers unlimited access to some television shows and movies over the Internet, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, although the Seattle-based company declined to comment about it.
They may have stopped running attack ads against each other ... and they might even have come to terms ... but the Disney/Time Warner Cable saga was still on-going (or at least unannounced) as of late yesterday afternoon. Even if negotiations continue into the week, nobody seriously expects any stations to go dark. For one thing, the FCC is hovering over the talks; for another, nobody wants the black eye of punishing consumers. So looks like we'll keep waiting ... and talking about that 10¢ per ESPN3.com sub ... and wondering if, as noted in today's letter to the editor, monetizing the web will eventually lead to website bundles, with automatic buy-ins, and ....
Disney and Time Warner Cable
RE: This is also a pivotal point in the fight between Time Warner Cable and Disney. The Disney guys reportedly want 10¢/month/customer for ESPN3.com and TWC (quite rightly, I suspect) sees a world in which powerful content providers can hijack the Road Runner.
This could be the tip of a very expensive iceberg. 10-cents / month (double it when you add a profit margin for the cable operator). That's 20-cents for EVERY subscriber whether or not you even care about ESPN3.com. If Time Warner's Road Runner knuckles under, so will Comcast, Verizon, AT&T U-verse and all the internet providers. Once that happens many in demand websites...Facebook, CNN, Yahoo, Google etc. will seek a monthly fee from ALL internet providers. Once again the media moguls will have FORCED subscription bundling on the American consumer.
A few years down the road this could result in a doubling or tripling of your monthly cable bill. This is exactly what has happened to cable and satellite bills in the last several decades.
Don't get me wrong. If ESPN wants to charge for their web content, let them. The same way that the Wall Street Journal requires subscriptions for much of its web content. Just don't FORCE me to pay for content that I have no interest in just so I can log on to the internet.
The Satzen z500 is available from www.EFTA.us for $179.99
Well, Zoomsat has done it again, the new Satzen z500 FTA receiver ROCKS !(available NOW at www.EFTA.us w/Free shipping and handling) This time around the guys at Satzen concentrated on video quality as well as end user entertainment upgrade compatibility. The setup is just as user friendly and easy as the previous z300 unit. (It takes 10 minutes to set up at most.) Some thought was given to different remote frequencies for those of you hobbiests that may have multiple Satzen units installed. An HDMI port was a welcome addition for ease of installation and superior video quality. Also the much needed ability to up-convert all channels to 720p or 1080i was also included. This is a new approach to poor video quality, which has been a problem that has plagued all standard definition FTA units in the past, and is an option that will quickly become a standard in the next gen units. The z500 has all the normal outputs; composite video and audio, component video (YPbPr), loop through for another unit, as well as the HDMI port for newer TV's and projectors. PVR functionality with a external hard drive or USB memory stick is also an option you will find very useful and easily accessible with the z500's on-screen menu.
And with the Satzen z500, everything you need to get up and going is provided with the unit (you provide the internet). Network setup has never been this easy, just set it to auto and it does the work for you. Satzen's IKS stability has FAR OUTPERFORMED all other IKS formats to date, and is expected to continue for a long time to come. The ability to share media between your z500 and your home network is included and easily accessible through the z500's on-screen menu, and easily integrates into any Home Theater or entertainment network. All in all, I'll give the z500 5 out of 5 stars, and the z500 is my new personal favorite choice for an FTA receiver. Check it out at www.EFTA.us for only $179 , with FREE shipping and Handling.
The CNX Nano 2 is available at www.efta.us for only $199.99
The Conaxsat Nano 2 replaces the Nano. In addition to the same features on the original Nano such as USB 2.0 and PVR support, the Nano 2 comes with a built-in ethernet chip and a separate RS-232 to ethernet converter (included). Simply connect the RS-232 to ethernet converter to the Nano 2's serial port and you are ready to network your Nano 2. Another innovative feature the of CNX Nano 2 is the home streaming support which allows users to stream video files from PC over local area networks (LAN).
The Nano 2 has a front USB port which makes it easy to load updated software with a USB thumb drive or enable PVR options with a USB hard drive. The picture is as good as any standard definition receiver. It is also well supported in areas that many other boxes are not. For International channels on 118.9 it has better support than most of the other top rated boxes, so if ethnic channels with foreign languages are of interest to you, then you would do well to buy this one.
The Nano2 is the first receiver that CNX has released that was designed for connection to the internet. It has a built in ethernet chip so all you need to do is connect the ethernet to RS232 adapter and connect an ethernet cable to the receiver and with a bit of set up enjoy some TV. Physically, it looks good. It is of a smaller size similar to the Kbox and Coolsats as compared to the size of the SV units. It has a sleek look, all black, very nice and evident quality to the case. It has the standard door on the front of the unit which covers the usb port. It can connect via component cables (red, green, blue) for video as well as composite (yellow). It also has an spdif port for audio via fiber optic cable.
It has automatic network setup from the network configuration menu, it works very well, when you select it it makes all your network settings automatically in just a few seconds. The remote is small and well laid out, however it is not and universal remote and can not be programmed to control other components such as a TV or sound system. The info bar is one of the best I have ever seen and give you lots of info. One of the best things about it is the fact that it not only tells you what in playing at that time, but it also tells you what is coming on next. Super nice. Other than that, it has all the basic information on it that most brands do.
The guide is nice and easy to read. It has the typical layout with a small window that shows what is playing on the channel you are on, and a box that tells what channel you are on with the description of what is showing on that channel. The PVR on the unit works very well. You can manually start recording or program them to start at a later time automatically. You can also set it up to change channels and start recording. It all works very well.
The CNX Nano 2 is available at www.efta.us for only $199.99
First off, I'd like to say WOW! for 179 bucks this unit provides an extreme number of features normally only seen in a much higher end and expensive reciever.
The z300 is a new and upcoming FTA receiver with IKS ability (Serial to rj45 adapter is included with every unit for no additional charge) as well as PVR ability with a standalone USB harddrive or a USB memory stick. And the unit is also built for full DVB compatibility with almost any provider world wide.
My first impression of the unit was admiring how small that it actually was when unpacked. The unit comes with most every cable needed for installation, and the front top edge located USB port made software upgrades and additions very easy and fast. The ethernet functions also extend to your personal home network; allowing easy sharing of media.
The IKS setup was also surprisingly easy; it took me about 15 minutes total to set the unit up and start watching TV. I've payed special attention to the IKS performance since I installed the z300. And I'm very pleased to report that it is the most stable IKS solution I've seen to date. During the last 72 hours, I've witnessed both Nfusion and Sonicview having stability problems with their solutions. But not the z300, it has been stable and strong.
The menu system on the z300 is very well laid out and makes sense. I was also impressed by the level of control the unit has for picture calibration and OSD (on screen display) options. The z300 also had a few surprises for me as I surfed through the channels, such as the integration of EPG and PVR options into the info panel GUI (graphic user interface) that's visible on every channel. It makes keeping up with channel details and receiver functions more in your face and easy. And naturally the z300 is equipped with component video and digital audio outputs for easy home theater integration.
In closing I'd like to add, if you're on a budget and want Dishnet, this is the unit for you.
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