[ToniCipriani]

its not about usage in price game. its about perception. Apple iPhones are not necessarily better than Samsung S6's but its the perception. And in marketing thats the only thing that matters. One Plus would have closed shop by now otherwise.

OK then let's talk perception. In marketing you should also know that if you start low, your brand would be perceived as a low end and it will be incredibly hard for you to raise prices. Say if OnePlus wants to move up market, would you buy them, given that people only remember them as the "flagship killer" with terrible RMA and QC problems?

Another case in point: Nexus 6, that came after the relatively cheaper Nexus 4 and 5.

I understand your point about entry into the Android ecosystem, but this is clearly not what BlackBerry is aiming for, but rather creating their own niche in the secure and productivity device market. All I can say your "sound logical analogy" has a lot of factors not considered, including how BlackBerry wants to position their brand.

[A_Aviator_A]

You people need to relax and enjoy your weekend instead of being mad that the PRIV is out of your price range. At 500K units they're not even marketing the phone to you they're going after the high-end business consumer. This is a strategic choice for them. If you get all the tech bloggers giving the phone excellent reviews, BB will sell them. Remember, they're looking for 500 thousand richer Android users out of a market of 1 billion. Its not hard to do considering that the OS or app-gap is no longer an issue..

[southlander]

They can always drop the price. Can't raise it as easily though. There is precedent for adjusting a price early on. For example either Sony or Microsoft quickly dropped the price of their latest game console near the launch as I recall.

BlackBerry will see the early adoption rate and adjust if they need to to spur sales.

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[DocDRM]

ReCrackBerry'd [email protected]:

sad part of all of this.. I believe this is BB death knell.. usual BB MO.... make a decent to excellent device... annoy your use base with no launch... high price and no advertising... generate bad PR to overcome the actual goodwill you have generated before..... yup business as usual... if I wanted to kill the device business... this is exactly how I would do it... so yes... complain all you want... diminish the products value... and you will soon only have Apple or Google vendors to deal with.... good luck with that....

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[gottawee]

Don't worry. It will drop by 30% within 6 months, 50% in one year just like other android phones.

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[chats90]

They simply don't have the luxury of trying to determine their own positioning. Market dictates much of that. People have lost trust in the Brand and pricing so high is already creating a Barrier for people to actually consider the phone. If they really want to upscale and position atleast first win some customers back.

In the smartphone market price alone cannot determine the positioning anyway and Blackberry certainly cannot do it before proving reliability and consistency.

[chats90]

Plus I only said that they undercut Samsung and Apple a little bit for customers to start considering it. I am not saying that they do a One Plus. It was just for a reference so to how it carved their own niche.

[KermEd]

For people thinking 700 isn't too much, this is an interesting link inside that article:

http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartpho...rket-share.jsp

'Android dominated the market with an 82.8% share in 2015 Q2. Samsung reasserted its global leadership with a renewed focus on lower-cost smartphones.'

'This comes in the midst of an underwhelming performance by its flagship releases, Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. However, the Android share has seen a rise compared to 2015Q1, with strong growth in unit shipments by other players such as Huawei, Xiaomi and ZTE.'

If true this would suggest the market is capped for higher end price devices. Which is what I think the writer in the article posted above was alluding too by saying a poor pricing choice by BlackBerry... not that the device itself isn't decent. Absolutely BlackBerry will need to fight it's competitors for every sale it makes in that price bracket. Remember they need to target average droid consumers, not us. Folks who know nothing about BlackBerry today, and somehow convince them the Priv is a better deal than an S6.

Posted to CB via my Passport | Lloyd Summers | FileArchiveHaven

[Bbnivende]

The whole point to the PRIV is that it is more private. If this is attribute is actually true then maybe they might find a niche. Not a five million units a year niche. To get to that number they need an all touch that works as well as a Nexus and at the same price point.

At this price not having a finger scanner is disappointing.



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[KermEd]

One other topic I'd like to bring up, that gets brushed aside easily, is long term dependability. The average user knows an S6 will be supported and what quality to expect. The priv is the only one of its kind and even Chen alluded to the possibility of shutting down handsets next year. And rumours like that mean everything when your marketing team operates like a couple of first year students volunteering over instagram.

I suspect... interest aside, not many people here will be willing to buy a 950-1035CAD phone that has a 50/50 chance of survival. This might not be as critical ... if they didn't already go through it with the PlayBook just a short while ago. A troubled early adopter experience could haunt them with sales this year with the priv...

Posted to CB via my Passport | Lloyd Summers | FileArchiveHaven

[alternator77]

Very good point

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[tickerguy]

Meh.

There are essentially zero android handsets that are "supported" beyond one software release past where they're issued, and many that get zero -- ever. I have gotten nailed by this twice over the years with name-brand devices (e.g. Samsung) so the idea that this is a differentiating factor is nonsense. You can try to tell me that's not true but I've ported later versions of Android twice on my own for this very reason -- once with a Samsung device and the second with a Motorola one. And yes, that involved writing/modifying device drivers on my own too with zero official vendor support.

As long as the warranty is honored (and it will be) then this is no different than any other manufacturer in the space irrespective of the device or whether they keep making DIFFERENT devices.

You guys are making stuff up here.

[Bbnivende]

Not really. It took a long time for BlackBerry to address the double type issue if in fact the latest update has fixed the issue. I am sure that there are plenty of Q10's prematurely abandoned. BlackBerry does not even admit to various hardware and software issues as they arise.

Just based on past performance, it seems doubtful that BlackBerry will get it right out of the box.

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[KermEd]

And yes, that involved writing/modifying device drivers on my own too with zero official vendor support.

You guys are making stuff up here.

It's great you've done this in the past. If you think I have time, or interest, in doing any of that for a BlackBerry device, you are truly crazy :P. I already code 10->14hrs a day.

But I do appreciate that this is an acceptable solution for you, that you feel you have little risk using a first-time-device from a company with a history of burning early adopters, and that you are happy to spend this much cash on it.

Posted to CB via my Passport | Lloyd Summers | FileArchiveHaven

[RoseBud68]

Ops on vacation again????

[byex]

The comments in these articles are always much more enjoyable than the article itself. Much better than comments on a forum.

It never ceases to amaze the level of single celled intelligence that comes out in the comments over a smartphone.

A smartphone.


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