Samsung Note 9 - expected pricing is utterly ludicrous

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Saw an article earlier today, which of course is speculative at best, but it showed some materials that could have the Note 9 with 128GB of internal storage priced at $1200+ and the 512GB model (apparently it's actually going to be available) for $1500+, and those prices could go even higher depending on what happens with the release.

https://bgr.com/2018/07/23/galaxy-note-9-price-and-release-date-leaked-in-italy/

Of course, carriers will offer these at crazy deals, I fully expect T-Mobile to do their traditional BOGO offer at some point, maybe AT&T and Sprint and Verizon might offer some big discounts for a 2-year deal since they still love those plans and will never get rid of them entirely.

Even so, $1200+ for a smartphone of any kind, I mean really people, would any of you seriously fork over that kind of cash? I'd rather get a decent ultrabook-style laptop and get a year of unlimited (yes, I know that word apparently doesn't actually mean "unlimited" in today's world) 4G LTE using a WWAN card (yes they do exist) and do things in that respect and be far more capable of doing most anything I want for that kind of cash.

$1200+... holy fuckballs, Batman, the world's gone insane... :sick:
 
Samsung was heading in this direction with S9...It's a lot, but I'm not surprised that much, given Sammy is android's Apple.
Note was always the best Samsung, of course, again, the price is quite steep.
Anyway, I don't think they will lose that many buyers because of this pricing.
Sony priced their XZ3 for around 1050$. Great move for dying company. (Not to mention LG or HTC, which does the same).
 
I don't blame them; plenty of dummies out there willing to buy $1200+ phones when they can finance them through carriers for <$40/month for 24+ months or after $200+ down or whatever. What's even dumber than buying them at that price is not waiting a couple months to see them on sale through various sites/carriers for several hundred off or with BOGO deals which can be good if you're stuck with one carrier anyways.

My broke-ass bro in law (26, no HS degree/GED, no drivers license, 2 kids out of wedlock, currently unemployed, etc.), got 2x Note 8s for him and his baby-momma when they first came out through AT&T for full MSRP because of financing. My neighbor, late 20s, 3 kids, divorced (but getting crap for child support cuz her ex gamed the system by only having under the table jobs), and making maybe 45k/year gets the newest iPhone every year at launch because of financing as well. I have a feeling these people, who otherwise would definitely not be able to even consider these phones, probably make up at least 1/3 of these overpriced phone sales. If carriers didn't offer financing, then I'm pretty sure they wouldn't ever be able to attempt to sale these phones at these retarded price levels.

I know this invariably gets compared to cars and car sales as well, where most of the general public is usually required to finance their vehicles, but I don't think that's a valid comparison considering most people need a car to get to their job and live normally. I don't think a product that costs tens of thousands of dollars and is a general requirement for your well being can have the same rational applied to a phone that costs a fraction of their cost (even at $1200) and doesn't really do much (if anything) more than most phones half their cost or less.
 
If Apple and Samsung dropped the carrier monthly financing and instead asked, hey this new Apple iPhone X Plus is gonna cost you $1,000 right now out of pocket before leaving the store. Sales would plummet so fast they'd be fucked.

And I'm talking to rich people I deal with the very high-end clientele a cheap car that give to their kids is $129, 000. They drive high-end Bugatti SUVs that are $250, 000 bucks like you and I drive a Toyota.

And shockingly these people say they would never drop $800 to $1,200 on a phone. They like that's crazy I would never pay that much for a phone even though they all have the latest newest phones because they're buying it through the carrier financing.

I know family and close friends doctors and lawyers make $250k a year and they laugh at these off contract phone prices saying they would never ever spend that much money on a phone. But yet they have no problem with the $29 monthly payments for their iPhone.
 
Zorachus said:
And shockingly these people say they would never drop $800 to $1,200 on a phone. They like that's crazy I would never pay that much for a phone even though they all have the latest newest phones because they're buying it through the carrier financing.

I know family and close friends doctors and lawyers make $250k a year and they laugh at these off contract phone prices saying they would never ever spend that much money on a phone. But yet they have no problem with the $29 monthly payments for their iPhone.
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These boneheads don't realize that if phone financing is like cars then the $1000 phone is gonna be more like $1200 or so over time.
I'd rather buy a brand new modern phone for $150-250 once every couple years. I don't even do that.
I get a $100-150 Samsung that uses the Tracfone service & spend $20/month or less on data & "minutes".
Currently the 16GB Galaxy Sky w/ a 64GB sd card. The Sky Pro is next, or something else.
 
Slyr7.62 said:
These boneheads don't realize that if phone financing is like cars then the $1000 phone is gonna be more like $1200 or so over time.
I'd rather buy a brand new modern phone for $150-250 once every couple years. I don't even do that.
I get a $100-150 Samsung that uses the Tracfone service & spend $20/month or less on data & "minutes".
Currently the 16GB Galaxy Sky w/ a 64GB sd card. The Sky Pro is next, or something else.
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Carrier financing is usually 0% interest. So $1,000 is still $1,000. They can take the $1000 they would have spent on the phone up front and put it into something interest bearing and bring effective the price down a little.
 
ryan_975 said:
Carrier financing is usually 0% interest. So $1,000 is still $1,000. They can take the $1000 they would have spent on the phone up front and put it into something interest bearing and bring effective the price down a little.
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This, plus the deals you can get for going on the finance plan versus buying straight up.
 
Financing is the only way these astronomical prices even work, and because it's 0% interest and key to keeping in touch with everyone, everyone ends up spending that much on phones that they wouldn't dare pay for laptops...

Not that I'm one to complain; it's how I have my Note 8. But even then, I traded in one of the now-useless parental S5s (going from Sprint phones that old to T-Mobile entails buying new devices) for $200 off (more than they're worgh on the used market), and the 256 GB microSD + wireless charger bundle was worth probably another $200 by themselves. At that point, the cost was reasonable for a new flagship, especially a factory-unlocked one.

$1,200+ with no promo discounts or accessory bundles, though? To hell with that, I can keep my Note 8 for another year, even two years.

In fact, that's the only way the price even makes sense to me; changing phones like underwear means you're rich, have phones sent to you for free as a reviewer, or you have the old T-Mobile JUMP! on Demand plan. (Doing the same with cars is even more insane, but some people would rather get repeatedly fleeced at a dealership than drive a decades-old car in good running order for a few thousand.)

Hell, the only reason I retired my Note 4 in the first place was because of the Sprint -> T-Mobile switch followed by the unofficially unlocked Note 4 no longer getting 3G coverage on T-Mo that year (Sprint locked out every 4G band that wasn't theirs), and used Note 4s are risky buys due to the infamous eMMC failure problem.

Note 5? Functionally inferior. Note 7? Literally blew it. Note 8 wasn't out for several months.

I still think of the Note 4 as the pinnacle of power user phones (software aside, but you can flash LineageOS on all but AT&T variants), and at a reasonable MSRP at that, but Samsung got too much praise with the S6/Note 5 direction and isn't going back.
 
Hey folks, before you panic at the prices, remember that these are from Italy.

Italy has VAT; and like many European countries, devices can sometimes be more expensive than they are in the US. My hunch is that the Note 9 will still start at around $950-999 for a 128GB model, and somewhere around $1,200 for a 512GB version. Still expensive, but not "I could get a nice laptop with similar storage" money.
 
I always though $700 was a lot for a smart phone. I paid $750 for mine and won’t be upgrading for a about another year. I haven’t bought a laptop since the sandy bridge era and I paid $1100 for that i7 behemoth, I cant imagine paying that much for a web portal device.
 
The cost efficiency of a device you use often should be considered. Like you pay $0.27 extra a day ($999 vs a $799 device for two years) to use an always on device that you carry with you or is next to you 24/7. Does extra battery life and longevity cost that much more a day? Does having a pen cost that much more a day? Does it save time and does the wasted time cost more than a quarter and a few pennies a day?

For me, I couldn't care less about the pen. I'm almost always able to charge and I have plenty of battery banks, but having a bigger battery from the get-go certainly won't hurt but that's probably just a nickel or a dime justification. However, time saving, holy shit I'm willing to put in $0.50 a day to not have a laggy POS that needs to be restarted sometimes twice a day and crashes and dies every 2-4 days.

The problem with Samsung is that their bootlocked devices only get major updates like for 1.5 years. So that cost efficiency must be adjusted accordingly.
 
CHANG3D said:
The cost efficiency of a device you use often should be considered. Like you pay $0.27 extra a day ($999 vs a $799 device for two years) to use an always on device that you carry with you or is next to you 24/7. Does extra battery life and longevity cost that much more a day? Does having a pen cost that much more a day? Does it save time and does the wasted time cost more than a quarter and a few pennies a day?

For me, I couldn't care less about the pen. I'm almost always able to charge and I have plenty of battery banks, but having a bigger battery from the get-go certainly won't hurt but that's probably just a nickel or a dime justification. However, time saving, holy shit I'm willing to put in $0.50 a day to not have a laggy POS that needs to be restarted sometimes twice a day and crashes and dies every 2-4 days.

The problem with Samsung is that their bootlocked devices only get major updates like for 1.5 years. So that cost efficiency must be adjusted accordingly.
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Cost versus value is a point that often gets overlooked, and that goes for more than just smartphones. Happens a lot with cars, too.

But as for phones? That Wacom EMR pen, though not a constant use feature, is exceedingly valuable to me. Marking up photos for later reference, using as a mouse while Web browsing (especially for mouseover events, like on this one motherboard schematic site that shows what traces and vias are connected at a glance), occasional doodles, all on a device that fits in my pocket - which my Cintiq Companion Hybrid sure as hell doesn't.

There's also something to be said for having a microSD slot and a headphone jack independent of the USB port, things that shouldn't be rarities in this market, but increasingly are.

Samsung seriously needs to get their act together on the updates and bootloader locking, though, because that's one thing that there's just no excuse for. I just don't have any alternatives for what I want, just like you have to put up with the "launched on Lollipop, didn't even get Nougat" BlackBerry Priv if you want a slide-out hardware keyboard these days. (The KEYone and KEY2 have the wrong form factor for me, at the screen's expense.)

I never asked for curved-edge screens, either, which are just plain idiotic on a penabled device. They just crammed that down everyone's throats with the Note 7 with no flat alternative. At least the Note 8 doesn't have that dumb notch on the screen, one of the better decisions the Note 9 looks primed to keep.

You're a lucky one; you don't care about pen input, so the whole market's open to you. But since Samsung's the only one even trying to cater to this niche, they've basically got said niche by the balls. I'm yearning for some alternatives here.

Like, look at the Pixelbook and its Pen. Google knows what Wacom is and what they have to offer. Apple has their own Pencil. Make these things work on their larger smartphones already, and they have a real chance to steal some of Samsung's marketshare.
 
Apple shouldn’t be concerned with stealing from the Note series, they are still beating them in the race and making a better profit. Apple does listen to its customers though, mostly through software though. They speak loudly when they decide to support something on said device based on user feedback.
 
Aurelius said:
Hey folks, before you panic at the prices, remember that these are from Italy.

Italy has VAT; and like many European countries, devices can sometimes be more expensive than they are in the US. My hunch is that the Note 9 will still start at around $950-999 for a 128GB model, and somewhere around $1,200 for a 512GB version. Still expensive, but not "I could get a nice laptop with similar storage" money.
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Also keep in mind that this is actually LESS than what the Note 8 cost, and the S9 was slightly cheaper than the S8 as well.

Nobody is telling you to buy the $1200 version. It's worthless, ESPECIALLY with SD card storage. It's there for the people who blindly buy the most expensive model, plain & simple.

That being said, I got my S9+ for $320 on preorder. I'll PROBABLY sell it and pick up the Note 9 on a similar discount, so I'll probably profit slightly.

I'll also finally be upgrading my wife & I iPhone 7s to the new version this September.
 
I found it funny that with the note 8 they came from a device completely recalled and not re-released tp a note 8 device that costs over $1000. Now, that have increased even further with the note 9. I had a note 3 and absolutely love the line but this much money is ridiculous.
 
First off, please note that this is A: Italian prices converted from Euro to USD (which never accurately represents shit), B: Taxes are included in that Italian price while they aren't in US listed MSRPs, and C: Phone pricing is ALWAYS higher in Europe than in the US.

Not to mention, the Note 5/S6 Edge+ were close to that price as well.

The Edge+ was $915 for the 64mb version, while the Note 5 was $840. Now factor in they're going to be 128gb as standard.
 
I'm hoping for 50% off as an employee and $450 for an S9+ trade in. I might go for it if that happens.
 
There is no way that I'll pay that price. I've learned from the iPhone X. That phone in no way was worth the money! Luckily sold it pretty soon and didn't take too much of a loss from the sale.
 
The financing is absurd though. Anyone can get it. Rarely do I even see deposits required. Forget about outright denials. Its the same shit we see with student loans and tuition costs. Any asshole can get as much in student loans as they want and so universities raise prices through the roof.

I'm looking forward to talking to people who can't afford their $150 phone bill and then adding a $1500 phone payment to it.
 
If I can plug it into a monitor kb and mouse with a USB-C dock the same way that I can do with both of my laptops, sure, *maybe* there's a use case there and a reason to spend the money, but outside of that, hell no. I can't see spending more than $600 on a phone.
 
big_aug said:
The financing is absurd though. Anyone can get it. Rarely do I even see deposits required. Forget about outright denials.
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When my credit was doing poorly, I was denied credit for a phone. Good thing too, it wouldn't have been a smart move on my part.

big_aug said:
Its the same shit we see with student loans and tuition costs. Any asshole can get as much in student loans as they want and so universities raise prices through the roof.
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Uhhhh... What? How is this in any way comparable to student loans? 0% interest for $1000, vs 2-10% interest on 50K-500K. Yes, that's EXACTLY the same.

Oh, and THAT'S the reason college costs are out of control. Sure it is. What are you even talking about?

big_aug said:
I'm looking forward to talking to people who can't afford their $150 phone bill and then adding a $1500 phone payment to it.
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I see customers ruin their credit for phones, cable TV, cars, houses, you name it. The US is one of the few countries that don't teach finances and economics at an early age, and people are fiscally fucktarded because of it.
 
Trimlock said:
I always though $700 was a lot for a smart phone. I paid $750 for mine and won’t be upgrading for a about another year. I haven’t bought a laptop since the sandy bridge era and I paid $1100 for that i7 behemoth, I cant imagine paying that much for a web portal device.
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Exactly...I'm typing on a $130 Chromebook that has essentially replaced a Windows laptop, and I picked up a new S8 after the S9 was released for $350. I figure I don't need that much firepower for something that essentially surfs the web.

That being said, I leave my S8 on "battery save" mode to extend the battery for 2 days. At this rate, I should just get a Snapdragon 6XX phone with a 4000ma battery and ditch the high end phone for my needs anyway.
 
entropism said:
When my credit was doing poorly, I was denied credit for a phone. Good thing too, it wouldn't have been a smart move on my part.



Uhhhh... What? How is this in any way comparable to student loans? 0% interest for $1000, vs 2-10% interest on 50K-500K. Yes, that's EXACTLY the same.

Oh, and THAT'S the reason college costs are out of control. Sure it is. What are you even talking about?



I see customers ruin their credit for phones, cable TV, cars, houses, you name it. The US is one of the few countries that don't teach finances and economics at an early age, and people are fiscally fucktarded because of it.
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Yes, it is exactly the same. People are being extended credit they can't actually afford. It's the same with just about all credit and loans these days. Cars, student loans, phones, etc. People finance shit they can't actually afford. There are perfectly good phones, cars, colleges that aren't expensive as fuck. People get ridiculous financing on it which lets them buy shit they have no business owning.

Because more people are buying shit that can't actually buy it, there is more demand and thus higher prices.
 
Samsung is nuts. I won't pay that especially since the phone isn't much different over the Note 8. Manufactures are getting greedy and people are paying it. Samsung had slow sales of the S9 and had to drop the prices to get them to sale. I would have thought they would have learned from that.
 
I think the price will be closer to the Galaxy S9+ which is already pretty damn high. I do believe they may have a better-specced model with more memory cost a bit more though.
 
It's a newer device, it'll offer more storage capacity - up to 512GB - so it won't be priced like the S9+, by probably at least $100 or more, especially a 512GB model which I would say will be at least $1299, maybe more. They're also planning some kind of "kit" box thing with some AKG headphones (never heard anything from AKG that sounded good, guess it's just me) and some other accessories as well so, figure $1400+ for the whole shebang I suppose.

For that kind of money, fuck it, I'm buying a laptop or two and a bunch of used LG G4's and I'd use 'em till they all died. :)
 
Watching the live stream of the Unpacked event, I swear they cannot put on a presentation to save their lives. :) The people they choose from their marketing departments and whatever are just so boring and lacking in charm and personality, geez.

"People love how our smart watch looks like a real watch..." Seriously, the woman said that just a few moments ago, almost made me spit out my drink. :D
 
The innovation is there, but they need a Steve Jobs to properly present it. Hell, Apple needs a Steve Jobs these days!
 
Props to Samsung for making the screen not go as far into the curved edges - that shit was so annoying for watching videos. Also props to them for finally making the phone thicker to accommodate a much larger battery.
 
Unless my corporate phone guy offers it to me at $400 or so I'm sticking with the Note 8 one more cycle or maybe go Pixel 3 - we'll see.
 
Tiberian said:
Watching the live stream of the Unpacked event, I swear they cannot put on a presentation to save their lives. :) The people they choose from their marketing departments and whatever are just so boring and lacking in charm and personality, geez.

"People love how our smart watch looks like a real watch..." Seriously, the woman said that just a few moments ago, almost made me spit out my drink. :D
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That and "looks like a real watch" isn't really a selling point these days. As far as most customers are concerned, the Apple Watch is a real watch.

And on the subject of the Note 9 itself: told folks not to freak out at Italian pricing. Sure enough, the starting price is the same as for the Note 8, and the 512GB model... well, it's a 512GB phone, you weren't going to get that extra space for $50 more.
 
The plus to the watch for me is the battery life. Finally a multi-day watch. Other than my old Pebble watches nothing in the new generation watches ever last long enough.
 
What do you store in a 512gb storage? Flacs, raws, 4k videos? That is still not enough.
 
hmz said:
What do you store in a 512gb storage? Flacs, raws, 4k videos? That is still not enough.
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4K/60 video eats through storage. 2 minute videos can exceed 1GB by themselves depending on the bitrate of the camera.
 
I kinda like the thought of having 512 GB of UFS flash right on the phone itself, with a microSD card on top of that... but not for friggin' $1,250 at launch, plus tax and shipping.

Also, the promo this time around doesn't appeal to me as much. The headphones seem kinda tempting, but if I really wanted new noise-cancelling wireless headphones, I'll check in with Head-Fi first and put any savings toward that. And Fortnite cosmetic stuff... unlike my younger bro, I haven't touched the game at all. Battle Royale just sounds like a potential salt mine to me.

$400 trade-in for the Note 8 doesn't knock off enough for me to warrant that kind of price jump. I'll just keep what I've got and see what next year's Note brings to the table, because I'm thinking that they'll probably keep the 8 GB RAM/512 GB storage option here in the US this time.

And if I don't like it for whatever reason? Hey, the Note 9 will be much cheaper, particularly the prospect of importing an international model with an unlocked bootloader and taking advantage of Project Treble Generic System Images on such a ludicrously beefy phone once Samsung inevitably stops pushing out feature updates (that also fall behind on camera features and other things that aren't quite covered in ticking up the Samsung Experience version).

If anything, it's the fact that I already got a Note 8 last year that kills the value proposition here, because it's kind of a tough act to follow, unless Samsung does the unthinkable and bring back some old Note 4 features like a removable back and battery, the IR blaster, and of course, the possibility of a North American variant actually having an unlocked bootloader again. Screw the carriers.
 
Anyone who spends that much for a phone that doesn't get the support and updates like a couple of its counterparts either just have money to toss around or blinded by blind hate.

It would be beautiful if Samsung proves me wrong and actually do what project treble promises. Most under two years old Samsung phones would be lucky to get Oreo next year. Save your money for a Pixel or iPhone.
 
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