Hi folks! I know I mentioned this before, but I wanted to let people know about my recent success getting some cash from T-mobile towards the purchase of an N900. For those of you not opposed to a contract with T-mobile, but still wanting something towards you're purchase of an N900, I just wanted to share my recent success building a custom "subsidy".

There is currently a sale on HTC Touch Pro2's at http://wmdeals.com/ for $49.99, plus you get your activation fee waived, a $50 credit on the account, and a free platronics 360 bluetooth headset. The fine print is that you have to sign up for a 2 year contract with T-Mobile including voice and smartphone data for at least $54.98/mo (300 anytime minutes + weekend + unlimited data). This is the same price you would have to pay under a "flex pay" T-mobile contract with voice and data for the N900.

The subsidy is achieved by reselling the phone on eBay or any other market. I checked the eBay and saw that it was selling regularly for over $300. I bit and went on with the auction. It sold!

I just received a $430 deposit in my PayPal account! Obviously, this is a nice bit of cash towards the purchase of my N900. Granted, I had to sign a 2 year contract, but I don't think I was going to be with anyone other than T-Mobile given the 3G bands that US companies support.

I hope this helps some of you.

Of course it would not be nice selling a net-locked or SIM-locked phone on eBay without mentioning this fact.

You could always ask TMobile to unlock it.

They wouldn't do it for free on a brand-new phone.

I asked. Their policy is that they will unlock after ninety days if you ask for a code. Others have said if you tell them "oh, I'm going out of the country" or something like that, they will also unlock it for you then.

Anyways, a lot of people on here have been bemoaning the fact that T-mobile isn't subsidizing the N900 and that they can't afford it, this was just a way I found to get around that. If anyone has found a better deal, please share it here.

lol...good job.

or you could have a good friend that owns a cellular phone store that sells tmo, then do the activation with them, and have them pay you a portion of the commissions.


or..

...like i did, cleaned out my office one day and stumbled upon $650!!! just sitting there! that was better then putting your hand into a pair of jeans you havent worn in a while to find a =$20 bill.

That is a smart idea bocaJ.

I'm totally not knocking you, but I think this is also a great example of why the whole phone subsidy system is such a bad idea. It just encourages people to upgrade their phone as often as possible, because effectively you're paying for the subsidy whether you get a phone or not. You can then use the phone or turn it into cash as bocaJ did (and judging by the thousands of brand new phones from a particular carrier for sale on eBay, bocaJ is far from the only person with this idea). In a sense, you're a fool not to do what bocaJ did. Your paying the same rate as everyone else, but not getting the material/monetary benefit of a new phone.

On top of that, since the carriers are all dumping a huge amount of money into subsidizing devices, plus the amount customers pay after the subsidy, this has the effect of driving up the retail cost of the phones. It's just basic economics (and the same thing that happened in the housing bubble). Dump a bunch of extra money in a market and prices go up because people have more money to pay for the same thing. If carriers stopped subsidizing phones altogether, it would push their cost down and save everyone money.