Google today announced their new “Nexus One” phone and one of the key points was the concept of buying the phone as unlocked.  Buying it full price and choosing whatever carrier you want (in reality it’s only T-mobile and AT&T right now).  This is not the normal model in the US – instead we pay a small fee (large to some of us) and sign a contract with a carrier.  Then they basically pick up the rest of the cost of the phone over the course of the contract.

In theory it could save us money to buy the phone up front and get a cheaper monthly rate – and it could give use the freedom to change carriers.  For me I can’t see how I could afford a $500-600 phone – that’s a lot of money to lay out.  But paying $200 for a phone seems more feasible – even if it means a higher monthly rate (as I don’t have the cash to pay more money).  I wonder now if that’s really a form of financing for the masses – as we can’t manage our money enough to possibly save money.  As a society we’re addicted to financing – to the small monthly cost that ends up costing us more money.  We like to max out our money to the point there’s no margin anymore – so putting down that amount of cash seems insurmountable.

I don’t know if this will change over time – as if these devices become more like computers we may be willing to pay more in order to keep our phone and ditch our service.  I’ve had a palm phone for years (not the new Web OS but the original Palm OS) and have worked hard to keep all my data and applications.  I’ve gone from Sprint to T-mobile and back to Sprint.  I’m actually one of those strange Sprint customers who’s happy with my service and the costs.  I’ve kept most of the same apps and data from one phone to the next – using the palm Desktop to synchronize (my data is not in the cloud – but is backed up locally on my computer – that is when I sync it…).

Then again with the growth of the cloud will all the data eventually be in the cloud?  Will the phone just be a UI into common data in the cloud – that moves from my phone to my tablet to my PC, browser, etc.  Will the phone eventually be a light computer – possibly using an OS like Chrome?  Will Apple or some other company come up with some UI that will blow us away – will the hardware change to the point the phone part is basically the size of a bluetooth headset (anyone seen Minority Report?).

« »