Wednesday
Jun102009
Total cost of ownership: iPhone 3G S vs. Palm Pre vs. Android G1 $840 Savings over 2 Years
Tony Peric
There you have it folks in writing from BillShrink. The total cost of ownership: iPhone 3G S vs. Palm Pre vs. Android G1. $840.00 difference with Android G1 and $1200.00 with iPhone 3GS. Now if you are like the rest of us that work for a living, you can see that the comparison above is of great savings over the course of a new contract with either of the three companies when compared to the Palm Pre. But if you have money to burn, you can always go out and get a Nokia N97.
Reader Comments (16)
AT&T website lists unlimited Talk, Text & Web bundle for $134 instead of the $149 total listed in the table.
Link:
http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/basics/choosing-plan/individual-options.jsp
300 hrs of battery life standby?
Everything I've read is about how bad the battery life is
Is it really that bad? I hear the more you recharge your battery the longer it lasts (something about lithium ion batteries working that way)
No, it really is $150 for those options on the iPhone - you forget that the iPhone has its own "special" pricing that is not the same as any of their other phones.
Matthew, you are correct. AT&T iPhone rates requires searching, not customer friendly.
Unlimited Talk and Web $129 + unlimited text $20 = $149
The best for me would be 450 talk + unlimited Web $69.99 + unlimited text $20 = $89 with the iPhone.
They need to roll that unlimted text in wiith the unlimited web to compete with Sprint's 450 talk + unlimited web and text for $69.
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/specials/iphone-info.jsp
It says that voice commands are YES on the Pre. So how do I get it to work on mine?
What if I need to connect to and Exhange server for email, calendar & contacts? I mean all is well and good, and clearly the Pre plan -seems- less expensive, however the feature list is awfully selective.
@sdmeyers
Both the Pre and iPhone can connect to Exchange ActiveSync easily. The Pre only required me to enter my email address and password and configured EAS automatically from there (our email server uses Exchange 2007 with AutoDiscovery enabled). EAS setup on the iPhone setup is very similar and easy to perform through the standard email account setup menu.
Email/Calendar/Contacts sync is supported on both phones, along with push support. Email messages on my Pre show up at the same time as they hit my Outlook 2007 inbox. EAS support is not a differentiator for either phone at this point.
Just remembered one semi-major difference on EAS support. The Pre can sync multiple Exchange accounts on the same phone. The calendar entries can be color coded by account as well. The iPhone is currently limited to 1 EAS connection (but you'd still be able to set up your other accounts to sync mail via IMAP if that option is available on your server).
They also forgot to mention that the Pre seems to take MUCH better photos and takes less time between photos than both of the other compared phones, IMO.
@Vadim
Currently voice commands are not available on the Pre, I have no doubt an app will be developed pretty soon or Palm will make voice commands available in a future firmware update.
In the ROM code unearthed today, they did find listings for voice commands so I expect them to come in the next few OS updates.
I wish I could replicate this, and I swear on my mother this is true, but I was fumbling around with the keyboard and touchscreen on my Pre at the same time, and a prompt came up for voice command. It was on the same green screen voice dialer app. I couldn't get it working, and after I exited that screen I was never able to get it again. Should I assume this hints that we'll be able to use voice commands in the future with the Pre?!? On a side note, I love this phone!!
@Brett
You really should have taken a screen shot of that. Or a picture of it with another camera.
Post title is incorrect. The chart shows costs over two years, not one year.
Wow, those prices are expensive for you guys. I am in the UK and got a G1. Signed an 18 month contract, got the phone for free and it's £30 a month (about $50) which includes unlimited data, 300 minutes and 600 text messages. Total cost for 2 years... £720 (maybe $1200).