Over 24 months, what will a N900 phone and service need to cost?
 

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3300/...b61522ed_o.png

Cost/benefit chart comes from Billshink.com -- a wireless site that enables users to discover the best cell phone carrier and plan to meet their personal usage requirements at the lowest cost.

Thoughts?

Re: Over 24 months, what will a N900 phone and service need to cost?
 

Based on my data usage over the past year and http://wiki.maemo.org/Data_plans#United_Kingdom, the total cost for me would be unlocked device price + £15 - £30 (Vodafone, 1GB goes a long way on a tablet) or 24 x £5 (Three). Don't need or plan to use voice or SMS.

Re: Over 24 months, what will a N900 phone and service need to cost?
 

My thought: none of them are worth it. I'll stick to my $30 a month Sprint plan...

You'd think there would be a way to finagle the expenses on the Android phone and make it cheaper than the others. The T-Mobile price for data and messaging seems exorbitant.

Re: Over 24 months, what will a N900 phone and service need to cost?
 

Billshrink can't yet wrap its head around low cost, PAYG plans though. I currently pay ~$42/year for greater than 5x the minutes I need (plus slow data) from Boost Mobile. Billshrink claims that by switching to T-Mobile Pay As You Go, I'll save $120 over two years. Apparently, were I to open enough accounts with T-Mobile, I could retire.

Re: Over 24 months, what will a N900 phone and service need to cost?
 

$2,100 MAX for me.

At the moment, I am paying under $1,050 (over 24 months) for unlimited high speed tethering + 500 minutes/month [N800 + Palm Centro with USBModem + Sprint SERO service].

Re: Over 24 months, what will a N900 phone and service need to cost?
 

People apparently like to compare a (speculated) Nokia N900 phone with the Nokia N97 which is about to be released. The Nokia N97 is probably somewhere inbetween the Android G1 and Palm Pre/Apple iPhone 3GS for non SIMlocked one. [EDIT]Price wise inbetween I meant but I read it will cost 700 USD. We'll see exact details when it is available.[/EDIT]

One thing I know for sure, and that is that I apparantly phone a lot less than the average person. 100 USD for voice a month. WTF?!?! That is for average consumers? And I thought 24 months 30 EUR for an iPhone 3G 8 GB and 150 min phone_minutes/sms a month was already a lot, and that was the cheapest subscription available.

I've seen this funky commercial targetted at business on TV, saying it has one bundle for 'phone, e-mail, sms, and internet'. Maybe I'm from the past but I wonder what the difference is between e-mail and internet. Probably thet refers to push-mail. The nice thing though, is that one can spread the costs with colleagues.

What is the difference between data and messaging in the iPhone subscription? Does the latter refer to visual voice mail or SMS or something?

Nike+ is more a gimmick; if you mention that there are a lot of other things to compare, hardware-wise. It remains to be seen how good BlueTooth is on either; I also do not see tethering mentioned.

If I ever tend to phone a lot more while in home country I will subscribe for 5 EUR more the data plan which allows VoIP (total for 15 EUR a month), or use VPN. If N900 supports OpenVPN (I dont' see why not possible) that is for me a great value over S60-based phones. I also do not believe these subscriptions stated are really 'unlimited'.

From a site claiming to save your pockets I'd rather expect cheaper subscriptions and explain the status of VoIP, or include information about applications on the device which can help you tracking down your pocket (such as the fuel analyzing program for Maemo). Or explain how you can phone cheap via landlines because from what I remember that is cheap or even free in USA.

So what this site does is trying to make it easy for a consumer to chose, but I see several elements where they're biased or unclear. The Misc elements are incomplete. We all know the MP doesn't say much about the quality of the camera, and is video editing really such a big deal for the average customer, will it be impossible on Palm Pre and Android G1? I rather prefer reviews by professionals where there is some kind of community-based peer review.

Re: Over 24 months, what will a N900 phone and service need to cost?
 

It's probably simpler than that. In the phone marketing lingo 'internet' means 'web' more often than not.

Re: Over 24 months, what will a N900 phone and service need to cost?
 

I want voice and SMS, but mostly to receive calls so I use Virgin which is PAYG (paid in arrears by direct debit).

I now have an Android phone (one of the specially badged Google ones :)) so on top of my £1-£2 monthly bill for voice I'm now paying 30p/day for data, but only if I use it. I think that still works out cheaper than the providers offering £5/month for data as they also require at least £10/month contract.

I've added a line for Virgin to the page you referenced.

Re: Over 24 months, what will a N900 phone and service need to cost?
 

I'm GREATLY hoping that Cradlepoint adds support for the Virgin Mobile USA Broadband2Go device soon (those plans need to be added to the US section of that page... ). That would be an outstanding way to get data for my (netbook and/or phone and/or samsung tablet and/or NIT/Maemo-Phone and/or other wifi devices).

(ok, added the plans to the page)