[Closed] Palm Pre will be exclusive to O2

October at the earliest
they'll have lost out on a lot of business by then...

Daft for who? Seems like O2 will do rather nicely out of this. They certainly did well with the iPhone exclusivity.

Daft for who? Seems like O2 will do rather nicely out of this. They certainly did well with the iPhone exclusivity.

Daft for them and for us! Limiting the network choice limits the customer and in turn the handset manufactuter. How many thousands of potential customers can't get a reliable signal on O2, but a good one on other networks? How many people find a better deal on a different network? It's severely limiting for the user, the customer!

The iPhone has done well regardless of the restrictive choice of network. I'm at a loss to understand why frankly.
Don't you see, Apple have pulled off a great marketing campaign? They are charging a great deal for their contracts (£909 for a the current cheapest contract, 24 months and which includes £87 for the 16gb handset). They even hike the price of a handset by £90 for an additional 16gb of storage - more than double the cost of a micro SD card of the same capacity. Then there are other considerations like what happens after the battery ceases to hold a charge?

The exclusive deal with O2 was about securing and controlling the sale of content to Apple iPhone users. So after your £1000 outlay for your 32gb hanset with airtime etc, they still want more off you! Well they clearly know that there's one born every minute eh! 😆

What I want to know is WTF are Orange playing at, they even bothering any more? TMobile/Vodaphone have that google thing O2 have the IPhone it would have been Oranges obvious choice to buy the Pre! BAH!

(one annoyed orange customer)

Making the iPhone exclusive to single mobile operators in Europe and the States has absolutely harmed sales - look at how no-one wants to buy an iPhone. 😛

This is standard practice for mobile operators and vendors. Manufacturers give specific operators exclusives on certain devices - for example, the Google handsets on T-Mobile and Vodafone in the UK.

In France, mobile operators have successfully challenged iPhone exclusivity, and you can buy them unlocked, as well as from all three operators (Bouygues, SFR and Orange).

Free handsets and subsidised handsets don't make sense, unless you don't want to pay in advance for the true cost of a handset.

I recently renewed my contract, and needed a new handset. The iPhone seemed too expensive. So [b]I didn't buy one[/b]. Shocking, I know.

XCSteve - I switched from Orange to Vodafone, but got a handset from Mobilephonesdirect.

Also bear in mind that O2 has poor 3G coverage compared to competitors, but good Wifi services via The Cloud and BT Openzones. So, good if you spend a lot of time in towns and cities using data, not so hot if you're a data consumer in the countryside.