[maemo-users] [maemo-users] 770 on the way

[From: Wolfgang Karall]

Hello,

On Mon, 2006-12-04 at 11:59 +0100, Frantisek Dufka wrote:
> Are you from US? Because most people around me (and I guess generally
>  in Europe) buy their phones themselves and not from mobile operator. 

Just jumping in on this: here in Austria I guess 80-90% of phones are
sold by mobile operators including a contract (binding customers usually
for 24 months). The phones are usually SIM/Network-locked and also
branded by the operator, but usually way cheaper than when buying them
without contract (most low end phones are given away with the contract
for free), which is probably the reason why they do get sold that way at
all.

So this "artificial market" does exist, and the manufacturers do produce
crappy phones for this market, because customers don't invest money to
buy them (well, at least not directly, of course the binding contract
costs money) and will not complain as much as if they had bought it for
the retail price.

No idea about the rest of Europe (even though in .fi I remember most
people wondering about SIM-locked phones as well), so maybe it's just
the usual Austrian way of being a bit behind the times. ;)

Kind regards
WK
-- 
Using Unison on the Nokia 770
http://linux.spiney.org/debian_linux_maemo_nokia_770_unison_port