Readers in Finland may like to know that the unlocked SIM-free 5800 is now on sale on Verkkokauppa at just 269 euros including taxes, which brings it into line with the UK unlocked price. It also makes it one of the cheapest smartphones in the country right now, and places it firmly in the mid-range category. (The same deal is also available in blue.)
Read on in the full article.
Spotted this earlier, and if the black variant was available for the same price, I would of bought one. Im still waiting for Finland to be added to the N97 pre order list.
Moro, moro Tzer2.
Are you in Helsinki? I work for the State Department in the American Embassy. If you are in town maybe we can hook up. Did you know that yesterday, Nokia had a Family and Friends day at the Flagship Store? All things between 10% and 30% with some demo phones up to 70%. It was great. I picked up the new Nokia BH-214 Stereo BT Headset. I also got an E75. You will not believe the price.
Cheers
Micky! wrote:Spotted this earlier, and if the black variant was available for the same price, I would of bought one. Im still waiting for Finland to be added to the N97 pre order list.
Verkkokauppa is supposedly accepting orders. Some operators are making order acceptions for special customers. 😊
Verkkokauppa and Gigantti both have N97 pre-orders available, as do other Finnish retailers.
I'm not quite sure what people mean by "Finland being added", you can pre-order any phone model in Finland as soon as it's announced.
(Perhaps people mean pre-orders from the official Nokia shop? If so they're going to be paying a lot more for phones than they have to, the Nokia official shops are consistently much more expensive than ordinary retailers.)
In Denmark you can buy a 5800 for roughly 279 euros. No contract. No strings attached.
Here in Italy, on one of my favorite online stores, the red import unlocked 5800 (SKU: NK5800RIMP) is listed for 270 euros, inclusive of 20% VAT.
Edit link
Unregistered and rvirga, if you have links to the 5800 at 270 euros in your own country feel free to post them in this thread. 😊
Thats impressive. I was shocked when I saw in an add that Cincinnati Bell had the 5800 and it was at an outstanding price of $150. After you get through the sign up process it ends up costing about $290 up front for phone plus the activation and $50/month for a data contract that you have to pay at least a month of.
You can always find the best prize right here:
Right now it's about 279 for a red one.
On another store, I found the regular (non-import) unlocked red for 270 (SKU: NK5800R) as well: link.
Thee711, the prices we're talking about are the unlocked SIM-free models which have no extra costs added. It's a pure hardware cost, like buying a PC or a music player.
I don't know why Americans put up with "activation" as there's no such technical process, it's basically just a way of charging money for doing absolutely nothing. We don't have "activation" in Europe, all phones sold in Europe are ready to use straight out of the box even if you buy them unlocked and unbranded.
I think the activation fee refers to activating the SIM card. Not sure but once again it is a way for the operators to rip people off in the US. It never amazes me at how completely out of touch many Americans are when it comes to mobile telephony. I see it daily at the embassy.
In Holland the price is also about € 280 simlockfree/unbranded . There is however a interessting bargain including a subscription with T-Mobile for one year and 150 min/month for total € 229 branded red , and € 239 unbranded black/blue . See this site :
http://www.studentmobiel.nl/shop/abonnement_met_toestel/nieuw/2/t-mobile-relax-1-jaar/5032/nokia-5800-xpressmusic
😊 Regards jApi NL
I think the activation fee refers to activating the SIM card. Not sure but once again it is a way for the operators to rip people off in the US. It never amazes me at how completely out of touch many Americans are when it comes to mobile telephony. I see it daily at the embassy.
Yes, definitely.
It's ironic that America is often criticised by outsiders for being too obsessed with the free market, but in some areas of life such as mobile telephony (and arguably operating systems too) the US is totally anti-competitive with large incumbents actively stopping the free market from working properly.
If this kind of anti-trust behaviour happened in Germany or Sweden or France, people like PJ O'Rourke would be using it as an example of how inferior and anti-competitive Europe is, but because it happens in America it just gets waved through unnoticed. People don't even realise they're being conned.
Obviously every country has phone networks that try to stop competition, but the American networks have taken it to a whole new level of anti-competitiveness. Only in America do people pay to activate a SIM card. Only in America do people pay to receive calls. Only in America do networks threaten to prosecute people who use unbranded unlocked phones. Only in America have the networks demanded that Wi-fi be crippled on phones in case people use it for free internet access (and they did the same thing with early Bluetooth phones too).
People should be able to use any phone with any network, and switch phones or networks whenever they want to. As things stand, that's much more likely to happen in Europe than in America, and American mobile users ought to be asking themselves where things have gone wrong.
If America had had a truly free mobile market I think they would have been leading the world in mobile phones as they did with personal computers. Instead, they've got one moribund mass producer (Moto) and one fashionable-but-low-selling niche producer (Apple) with practically all mobile phone sales globally coming from manufacturers based in Europe and Asia.
Even Apple's actions with the iPhone are very telling: they refuse to sell it unlocked wherever possible, they lock it to one network, take a share of your phone bill, and they ban "jailbreaking". They ban third parties from releasing software that competes with Apple's own official apps. They see phone users as cash cows to be captured, milked and prevented from leaving. The idea of keeping customers purely through competitiveness seems to be totally absent, they want to do everything they can to make it impossible for people to switch to another brand.