palmOne Raises Unlocked GSM Treo 650 Price!?!?!
Judging by the number of emails flowing into my inbox many Treonauts are (to put it mildly) extremely upset by the latest turn of events relating to the unlocked version of the Treo 650 GSM - quite rightly so.
Out of the blue, last night palmOne increased the price of the unlocked GSM by $100 (some 15%) to $699 from the previously advertised $599. There has been no press release about this nor some sort of apology of any kind so it is still my hope that this is but one of the latest in a string of 'errors' on the part of palmOne and that the price will soon revert back to its original advertised price.
However, this appears to be complete wishful thinking on my part as a palmOne sales representative confirmed the price increase to $699 and attributed the previous advertised price of $599 as an 'error'. This representative was unable to inform me as to whether sales placed at $599 would be honored by the company but I reckon that this is the very least that they could do.
I am at a total loss trying to understand what happened here but I just can't buy the party line that this price increase could be simply attributed to an 'error'. An educated guess is that Cingular and/or other carriers applied pressure to avoid having the unlocked Treo 650 GSM compete directly with their own offerings. Another possibility is that the price discrepancy between the unlocked Treo 650 in the US and the rest of the world was too high and palmOne may have felt that it was necessary to reduce this gap. Yet another scenario, is that sales rates of the unlocked version have been so high in the past couple of days that palmOne may have felt that it had room to increase its price without reducing demand.
Either way, even though I believe that there will be significant pressure on palmOne to explain this 'sudden' price increase I don't think that we'll find out for sure what happened. At present it looks like US Treonauts will have to live with the new official price of $699 for the unlocked version thus conveniently making Cingular's 'subsidised' version that much more appealing...
UPDATE: It appears that palmOne will do the right thing and at least honor purchases of the unlocked Treo 650 GSM made at the previous 'erroneous' price of $599. However, this will be little consolation for all but the lucky Treonauts who were first in the queue...
Unlocked Treo 650 GSM [Palm Store]
Treonauts don't like 'errors'... 
Comments
I have a report from a customer that this key sequence:
*#*#1234#
Will unlock an ATT/Cingular Treo 650. Can anybody confirm?
This totally sucks, they way both PalmOne and Cingular are handleling the realease of the Treo650, on one hand i can't buy the lock version yet because previous ATT Wireless users have to call up to order it and the sales rep state that it's not in their computer yet so i have call back in a week. In the other hand I saw the benifits of a Unlocked Treo and was gathering information whether i should buy it and then boom a price increase of 100 dollars ouch.... now i don't know what to do.
The palmOne sales rep tole me today (Friday, Feb. 4) that the $599 was a 24 hour introductory price!
HOLY -- I (perhaps foolishly) entered that sequence on my AT&T Treo 600, hit Dial, and got a window that said "Please Wait" followed by a message that my SIM Lock had been removed.
Wow.
You can still order an unlocked GSM 650 at $599 Just call Palm One (do not use the web) at 1 800 881 7256. When you get to the operator, mention that you saw the ad for $599 and that the ad did not mention it was a "two day special". They will take your order, will not charge until shipped (one-two weeks). The order will be put in at $699 and once they bill and ship they will immediately credit $100 bak to your account.
Yeah. There are definite monkeyshines going on. I already have a Cingular contract, and ran the gamut of clueless Cingular customer service reps yesterday, trying to buy a Treo.
I (eventually) got told the same thing: it's 'not in their computers yet'. But it's been widely reported the new Cingular pricing is expected to be in the $450 range, so I would definitely bet this is a gambit to get more people to buy the Cingular service.
(I have had them for a couple of years and haven't had any complaints on the actual phone - other than their truly craptacular customer service, they've been pretty good.)
Another thought - yep, this really sucks. Cingular punishes its loyal customers by making them wait weeks while they scoff up new customers, who they'll then proceed to treat badly.
Way to run a marginally profitable enterprise, guys.
Yeah right.... Federico.... This coming from a company that feels they can sponge even more out of its customers....
With all the other nonsence (memory, lack of wifi,DUN, and an old OS) and now this "error" from Palm.. SCREW THEM Palm should be truthfull to customers, doing everything to keep them around. This last straw is what turns the heads of the loyal users around to notice that Palm is about 2 years behind all the others. Cobalt?? Heck dont worry about it now Plam is DONE!
Its time for the REAL phone/pda, its too bad it means a trip to the dark side
http://www.bargainpda.com/default.asp?newsID=2363 or http://www.ipaqabilities.com/index.php or maybe even Symbian thats a REAL OS built for Mobiles.. http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/nokia-7710-pictures-024716.php
The real reason for the price change is that europeans were all buying the 650 from the US site - The $US exchange rate made the 650 much cheaper to purchase from a US source.
They had to raise the US price to keep from killing european sales.
A bunch of us at the office here were going to buy the unlocked Treo today... but an extra $100! No way.
Any chance anyone has a ripe email at PalmOne for "disgusted" customers to complain on?
obviously i'm no longer getting the Unlocked version 700 dollars is to much. I just called a local store and the guy told me, they had just order some treo650's and would be in the store in two days and would give me a call when they come in... one can hope they do call me since i can't buy it online or by calling cingular.
$699? Are they high? For a few dollars more I can get a Sony Ericsson P910 with a bigger screen and a platform that isn't out of date. I don't have the money to pick up the phone and lay down $599 today to try to save $100 on this thing, but I was thinking of saving up for one. Not any more, though.
The execs that have abandoned ship at PalmOne recently must have left the company in the hands of gibbering morons. The Treo may still have the reputation of being The Hot Smartphone, but they've got a fair amount of competition from models that are either cheaper or have more/better features. I think that my current, trusty Zire 72 will be my last Palm PDA.
I just bought one from their phone sales dept. They said they'll charge $699 but credit the $100 for the difference - if you ask for it.
Chuck.
I don't think that unlock code actually does anything as I recall, but try another provider's SIM and see
Refuse all orders, Return all currently ordered units to Palm. Who wants to use a device tainted by a has been company which has just driven the last nail into is coffin
That key sequence unlocked a locked T-mobile treo 600! Schweeeeeeeeeet!
That key sequence does unlock both a Cingular & Cingular/ATT version of the phone.
The key combo gives you an unlock message, but does it actually allow you to use a t-mobile sim card in the phone?
Darn, I didn't try. Tomorrow, I'll swap with my buddies SIM and see. I only saw the dialog stating it was unlocked.
I just tried the *#*#1234# unlock code and can confirm that it works on the Cingular branded TREO 650. I got the message that the SIM had been unlocked.
Yeah, but have you inserted another non Cingular SIM (T-Mobile, AT&T)?
Well, I just tried swapping SIMs with my buddy, and the aforementioned code does not appear to actually work. If you have the correct-brand SIM in when entering the code, it will report that the phone has been unlocked, but it isn't.
When entering the code while have the non-brand SIM in the phone, it returns a dialog stating that the phone has NOT been unlocked.
Yes, it is look like right. When you entering non Cingular SIM card in the phone, it returns a dialog stating that the phone has NOT been unlocked.
Can somebody give a right code to unlock it?
The comments to this entry are closed.
