OP's comments are not BS - this is standard modern pricing practice across almost all businesses. Pick up the 'Undercover Economist' next time you are in a bookstore. It will save you money (lots) if you know the game that retailers and manufacturers play these days.

For example, you don't think that sales are really sales these days do you? They are just another technique to sell the same thing to different people at different prices. When Nokia pushed the N800s through the retail chain for an end price of $200 they were trying to find everybody who was not prepared to pay $350 and sell them something for a small mark-up. But they were not going to let that market window stay open for long because they still wanted to sell them for more $ to folks who are prepared to pay. Every salesman's dream is to find the buyer's walk away price and then offer it for 50c less. At one time Amazon actually tried to price their products based on individual buyer profiles.

We all think that Nokia Marketing are stupid ( and I am sure that they like that - a lot), but I think that we are underestimating them - at least on pricing strategy. Seems to me that they are doing pretty well. They are not as good as Apple at this game, but they are pretty good.

I would be very surprised if they don't release something in the $200 range.

What does Steve Jobs do? Tweak the product to make it better and reduce the price a bit. Lean on his suppliers until they squeal. Find new customers with the price and, the masterstroke, get existing customers to buy another unit with just a few more cheap to add features.

I could be wrong, but I would wager a small amount that something like this will happen.