I almost guarantee that the majority of people will have dead spots in their houses. Couple that with advertising and your state's AG, and you've got a pretty easy contract "out."

But still I'd rather save the money and bet against me breaking my phone, then if I do break it use the would-have-spent-on-insurance money to help me buy a NEW phone instead of the crap used phones Asurion sends.

The whole thing is a scam in order to justify the oppressive contracts.

@pratzert: I think so too, I can't believe that I can buy an Ipod Touch for $200, but some crap cell phone would cost over $300 without a subsidy. Really, it can't cost that much to add the phone portion.

This deal wouldn't be a bad deal from Verizon if the monthly deductions equalled the total ETF. If you cancelled one day before your contract ended (you'd be dumb, but still), you would owe them $110 still.

Or if US carriers would actually be reasonable and allow prepaid users to have the same package plans as postpaid users they could do like the local iPhone carrier here in China and use the "prepay" as the subsidy guarantee. Pre-pay US$900-something and you get it for free. No need for an ETF- because the money's aleady locked in the account and you can only use it with them. Unfortunately they don't extend the same system to other phones.

Instead it's, for example, about US$120 off above-mentioned Sharp phone (Google for "SH0902C" if you're wondering what exactly manages to beat the pants off HTC's high-end smartphones sales-wise for the past couple months) if you sign a 2-year contract at about US$26/month (510 minutes, 20 videocall minutes, 600MB internet phone or tethering, free multimedia content off the carrier's portal, free incoming anything with free incoming text anywhere in the world). It's free if you sign at US$120/month (3000 minutes, 200 videocall minutes, 3GB internet, but otherwise perks same as above- and did I mention that overage is US$.01/minute? And internet overage is US$.03/MB? And roaming to the US is only US$.32/minute and US$.21/text? AT&T's CS sucks so bad I'm willing to pay the extra just to be able to deal with CS people that are actually helpful).

Just don't offer any 2-for-1 sale of smart phones.

I believe there is some sort of price fixing going on anyway of ALL cell phones.

You can get a subsidized phone on a two year commitment,
But no matter what, you end up paying full pop for a phone without a commitment.

Why can I find sales on any other electronic ityem EXCEPT a cell phone ?

@theblackdog_FeelingRandom:

I flipped my 1 storm that vzw didnt make me send back in. and i flipped my storm when i bought the tour, i made about hmm lets say 500 plus the 268 they credited my bank acct with when i sent a defective storm 1 in. :).

Something else I found out. Had 2 friends, one was NE2 ready but didn't want a new phone, one was still in mid contract but wanted a new phone. Though the NE2 friend could get a BB, then say they don't like it, use the NE2 credit and then just sell it to mid contract friend. No dice b/c the BB data plan has a automatic 6 month time frame so even if NE2 friend canceled he'd be responsible for paying for BB data for 6 months.

@zacox: Becasue the fair cost of phones is more than most people will pay. A High end smart phone will cost upwards of $800, they are basically handheld computers. HTC is relelaseing a phone with a 1GHz Processor, 1GB of RAM, a several GB of space...My netbook as similar specs, and has a whole lot more room to cram it all into.

@Rask: Another BOL listener? Nice! :) I saw this in the rundown yesterday :p Hopefully Verizon will get out the word that you only pay 45 dollars if you want to use Verizon's Hosted Exchange solution.

I'm also glad this ETF thing is for new contracts, i'm getting ready to jump ship to T-Mobile for the HD2 *drools*

@bohemian: Yes all phone companies have this.. Also, even if it goes beyond the date you can always swap out phones.. I have done this a few times.. The latest was 2 months after I had it because I hated the phone so much..

Thats me exactly. I was going to jump ship and pay the ETF from ATT and switch to Verizon for the Droid. Just didn't want to do it before 11/15. I like to be an early adopter, but want to make sure the phone isn't garbage (from real life reviews, not just blogs/etc). Everyone I know is on ATT, so the change would be big for me (minutes used and whatnot, so may have to get a more expensive plan), but I was going to do all that to get this phone.

Now...not so sure...

Still, good to know. Read them contracts people!

[www.otterbox.com]

Now had they introduced this right before the Android was released, it may have tempered some of the excitement surrounding the device. I think it will cause some discomfort for early adopters - those that would already pay an early term fee from their current carrier to switch to Verizon only to pay an arm and a leg to jump ship again should they grow tired of the Droid. However, I don't think it will hurt sales too much.

I only wish that they would have increased the ETF for everyone, so I could have gotten out of my own contract w/o term fees and played the waiting game to see what the final verdict was on Droid before dropping $200 on the phone again. It only takes one bad experience to make you think twice. Looking to get an Ozone - maybe.

Still use the old 1st Gen iPhone as an "iPod Touch".

[www.pcmag.com]

@bohemian: Like startertan said, Verizon usually gives you 30 days. The key is to remember the return date and then write a day for the week before it in huge red letters and post it at eye-level in your home. Then you know how much time you have because things will always pop up last minute and you don't want to be stuck with a phone you don't like because the dog ate a marker and needs to go to the vet.

@Muthafodder: Likely not, as it looks like this will only be implemented for phones purchased after 15 Nov. The contracts already extant will not be affected.

@Muthafodder: No because it is for new service, not existing.

[www.wired.com]

Consumers and regular people will get to use to for the $30 price point.

You should be able to get a phone and try it out for 30 days and return it if you don't like it. If you use your NE2 they would credit it back to you if you decide to return the phone...at least that's what they've always told me.

I wish AT&T would make another change...

@He: Fair? FAIR? You, my friend, obviously don't have a phone from Verizon. The only reason I've stuck with them is their coverage + company discount.

The Droid looks appealing but after the fail that is our current LG phones I want to try one first. Our LG phones have such horrible voice quality I avoid making calls on it. I don't want to make that mistake with a smart phone.

@Rask: Except for the Droid that is... :)

Between this and the 15$ extra charge for Exchange Activesync support(heard this on Buzz Out Loud), Verizon isn't looking like a very appealing provider to get a smartphone from.