If you pre-order the new HTC ONE M9 with Telstra on a 24 month plan before March 24th, you will receive a free pair of pair of Monster DNA Headphones. This deal with only be available for pre-orders with this particular phone. Note that you must sign up for 24 months with the Telstra network. Plans range from $78 a month with a minimum cost of $1872 over 24 months. Enjoy!
Was looking at this earlier today and thought the same thing. To buy these new handsets outright they're now all pushing & exceeding the $1000 mark with the Xperia Z4 rumoured to be a whopping $1200 when released! What happened & why?! Can't just be the crap Aussie Dollar surely.
It's not unusual for phones to be around the $1000 mark when they release. For bargain hunters, the general rule of thumb is wait until the new models release so the price of the last model (usually only 1 year old) drops.
I'm waiting for the M9 to release so I can get an M8 for under $500!
Yeah but my last two phones (SGS4 and an HTC Sensation before that) were both bought on the day of their release and were both classed as top-end phones in their day and they never exceeded the $750 mark. Why has the top-end price suddenly blown out to $1000 & 1200?! Even the SGS6 is $1000+. All a bit strange that's all.
That's true. The most expensive phone i saw when they were new was the lumia 1520. HN was selling it for 800+, which was ridiculous. A lot of reviewers said this pricing scheme would be the death kneel of that phone. Now i'm surprised new phones are heading the 1k mark.
Because people are stupid enough to buy. "Charge what the market will bear" is the capitalist catch-cry.
Free as in "you pay for it again and again".
But it's monster - the people that took audiophile marketing to brand new lows - so I refuse to buy these things on principle anyway.
newly released toys are always 'overpriced'. I never buy a new phone straightaway.
You're SO VERY right. If you don't care about price buy whatever you want. If you do, wait till it's been out for a while, read up on the problems and make sure you can live with them, and by the time the product has some history it'll be cheaper. If you're really frugal, wait till it's being cleared. Lately 1 year's difference in many product is not much in terms of it's usability and function. it's not like the 80s and 90s where every new gadget brought new and improved capabilities.
So true. Thats the concern for tech companies nowadays. The processor chips performance is starting to stagnate and its becoming harder to improve on the previous years design/performance/software. Most people update their phones on contract every 2 years and expect the latest phones to be a decent step up. Seems this step up is becoming more minimal overtime.
Careful looking at this page with Firefox or Internet Explorer -They keep crashing especially when changing colour. Its fine with Chrome though.
Vodafone is offering a $53 per month plan for the M9 which in total is $1272 which is $173 more than the $RRP of 1099 making the plan $7.20 per month after phone payment.
Cheapest I can see is $80.
you're not looking hard enough then.
$ 53
/MONTH
$ 30
PLAN
$ 23
PHONE
Total min cost $1272
300MB data within Australia
$300 included value
2 month Data Workout - Offer ends 31/12/15
Tell me more
GOT A STUDENT ID?
Get 500MB bonus data each month for the first 12 months of this plan. Enter your student ID at the checkout. Data for use in Oz. Ends 09/04/15. T&C apply.
Yep, it was hard to scroll across to the other options on my phone.
Vodafone no longer have the $53 option available, cheapest is $64 per month.
Who pays RRP?
No point upgrading if you already have the last year M8. With prices like this and inferior phone to it competitor, I see no hope for HTC.
the m9 has an sd card, which is quite handy. Unfortunately the s6 does not. Also HTC have finally ditched their "ultra pixel" camera (they have it on front camera now), which will hopefully be on par against the other flagship phones. 4k videos, better quality apps/games (increased size) and 64GB storage; that's not going to be fun.
ps, i have a lumia 1520. I got bored of flashing android. The note 4 almost got me, but i decided to wait.
Monster got to be worth that look at their HDMI cables maximum quality standards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkRoLZb3hV4
I remember the original O2 XDA was about $1,200 10 years ago!
This is bringing back memories…
A large part of the cost is to pay for the marketing, advertising, exhibitions.
Its definitely not because of the materials. There's probably less than $50 worth of silicon, glass, aluminum, etc. There are large Android tablets and portable hard drives containing more raw materials.
The marketing creates the demand. The demand allows for the higher pricing.
There are plenty of other models and plenty of sellers. Its just that people don't want to buy the thousands of other non-advertised brands and models.
so do the Australian M9s - Telstra, Optus etc have accidental breakage cover included .
HTC says this
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Uh-Oh---HTC-will-replace-your…
Voda have a 12 month plan for this phone, $100 a month including 5GB of data each month and free Spotify. If you have decent Vodafone coverage in your area then this is excelllent value IMO.
Free headphones are great and all (I got free Sony ones with a similar z1 promo) but my god $78 a month for the minimum plan? these phone things are getting expensive…