[AmritD]

So I had bought a Q5 from India. And I couldnt believe this the the Indian model of Q5 doesnt support NFC. And the best part is there is the Smart Tags app. I mean how frustrating can Blackberry get ? There you have the older curve models (9320,9360) supporting NFC which are selling for 15-16,000 Rupees and here Q5 for 25000(now 19000) Rupees not supporting NFC. I mean Indians arent supposed to use NFC are they are supposed to pay more and get less ? BlackBerry really needs stop these cheap tricks. Especially when it knows how important the Indian market is for BlackBerry. Hope they never do this with future devices.

[KermEd]

That's a tough one. I mean no offense but is NFC something you would have rathered to pay extra for?

If I was going to cut a feature from a BB10 phone to reduce price - NFC would be first on the list. At absolute best - it is a nice to have - there is nothing NFC does that you couldn't do without...

But that's just me. Maybe you'd have preferred a lower quality plastic. Or worse speakerphone. Or lower quality battery?

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[AmritD]

point is if the other markets are getting it at the same price, why not India ? had Q5 not supported NFC I would have had no issues. But Its only the Indian market that didnt get it . Thats the frustrating part

[KermEd]

point is if the other markets are getting it at the same price, why not India ? had Q5 not supported NFC I would have had no issues. But Its only the Indian market that didnt get it . Thats the frustrating part

Fair enough.
Here the Q5 is 349 on my primary carrier (on sale for 199 but I bought one for 150 from my backup carrier... which now just sits in a box)

Mmm my carrier doesn't sell BBOS7 anymore so let me price compare
My backup carrier also doesn't sell BBOs7 anymore. Still digging.
Ah Bell has 3 bb10 phones and 1 bbos - 9320 at 199 and q5 at 399

My thought being. Q5 is about double the price at most carriers here too except when in sale. But BBOS here is getting harder to find. Getting rid of BIS and BBOS means less paperwork for the carriers.

Posted via CB from my LE

[jevinzac]

There are NFC less variants also? I was not aware about that. I thought all the BlackBerry 10 phones had NFC!

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[OneofLittleHarmony]

Yeah the sqr-3 has no nfc but is cheaper.

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[tx ram]

If BlackBerry can cut production cost by removing the NFC feature, I would expect BlackBerry to pass on the price advantage to the customer, and not sell the Indian spec q5 in India at the European/US spec prices.

Though the q5 now is being sold at a discount of Rs 6K (about us$100) (from Jan 14).

So will BlackBerry loose face with all the customers who paid for the phone before the price cut?
BlackBerry could have given an additional warranty to the older customers who had paid higher prices of INR 25K for non NFC q5 variants.

How do you think BlackBerry cut its losses to that little (compared to the last quarter) $423m this quarter. They only got rid of inventory by selling at a discount. This will just add up to a book adjustment. What will happen when the inventory dries up.

Unless Foxconn can give BlackBerry a high cost saving in the manufacturing process of handsets, BlackBerry can concentrate on building a better ecosystem. Not to mention cost savings thro Foxconn manufacturing need to be passed on to BlackBerry handset buyers so the ecosystem grows faster and stronger to ensure high sales/revenue from BBW app sales, BIS, BBM / BBM channels and carrier charges for BIS to help generate revenues.

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