How to get a Palm Treo Pro for nearly free
It seems Palm has taken many pages from Apple’s playbook, the latest being releasing an unsubsidized phone at a pretty high price into the market. The main difference however is that the Treo Pro is unlocked, whereas the iPhone, despite being unsubsidized was very much locked.
The fact is however that $549 is a pretty steep price for a phone. How does the average Palm customer get his hands on Palm’s most desirable Treo ever. The solution is simple: Buy an iPhone 3G for $199 and sign up for a 2 year contract.
Step 2 – yes, there is a step 2. Sell said iPhone 3G, still boxed, on E-Bay for around $700. Does not matter if its locked or not, prices are still pretty steep. This part is important – keep the SIM card AT&T gives you. This is where Apple’s innovative SIM Removal Tool’s importance becomes clear.
Step 3 – buy a Palm Treo Pro for a mere $549, or $50 out of pocket for you. Pop your AT&T SIM card into your Treo. Proceed to laugh merrily while iPhone 3G users drop calls, suffer constant resets and apps that wont start and revel in your ability to cut and paste.
And yes, turnabout is fair play.
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[...] meaning that the only way to get it is through Palm at a steep $549 plus tax and shipping. However, wmpoweruser.com has a great article detailing the way to get the Treo Pro for nearly [...]
And how do you suppose you get rid of the 2 yr contract you signed?
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You dont. To get a subsidy you get a contract. Thats how it usually works, doesnt it? This is a way to get a 2 year subsidy on a phone that AT&T does not offer, thats all.
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Well maybe I’m missing something, yes you do get a discount when you sign a contract, but once you sell the phone, you will have to continue to pay for the contract or break the contract and pay 250.00 for breaking it. So you have paid 200.00 for the iphone sold it for 700.00 on ebay, you have a 500.00 profit out of that 500.00 you pay 250 to break the contract (or continue to pay the monthly fee for 2yrs, which puts you past the 250.00 after 2 yrs.) that leaves you with 250.00 so you actually pay 299.for the treo pro. What am I missing?
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Stratosurfer Reply:
March 18th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
You keep the contract (the service), you sell only the phone. The service (the contract) is the SIM card, which you keep.
Brilliant strategy.
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That you dont mind having a contract. You need to pay for service in any case, so why not get a subsidy out of it too. This is obviously only useful for people who are upgrade eligible or nearly so, but then thats the same for all subsidized phones.
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