Tag Archives: pricing

Leaked Verizon doc prices Galaxy Note 3 at $699 retail, $299 with contract, $599 if you bundle the watch

Posted on by

​

AT&T and T-Mobile customers already know what they will have to cough up if they want to squeeze Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 into their pockets. Verizon customers, however, are currently in the dark -- despite big red encouraging you commit in advance all the same. A reportedly leaked document received by AndroidSPIN pegs the phone at $699 sans-contract, or $299 if you sign on the dotted line for a two-year fling. Verizon seems keen to bundle in the Galaxy Gear, too, offering a joint package for $599 should you want to go all in. The pricing-curtain officially lifts at 9am ET, but here's a head start if you need to count those beans. Take a squint at the image yourself past the break.

Filed under: , ,

Comments

Via: Sammobile

Source: AndroidSPIN

Samsung’s 55-inch curved OLED hits Europe this week for 7999 euros

Posted on by

DNP Samsung's curved 55inch OLED hits Europe this week for 7999 euros

We guessed Samsung wouldn't be far behind LG in terms of its curved OLED's European debut, and we were right. Starting this Wednesday, if you're in Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium or Italy you'll be able to bring home a "flawless" screen for a mere €7,999 (around $10,697) -- a full grand less than LG's similarly-sized not-flat display. We've been wondering when we'd see the tech giants sparring again; thanks for not making us wait very long, Samsung.

Filed under: , ,

Comments

Source: Samsung Tomorrow, Samsung (Korean)

DOJ defends Apple e-book price fixing injunction, says publishers had it easy

Posted on by

E-book on an iPad

The US Department of Justice isn't buying publishers' arguments that proposed injunctions against Apple for alleged e-book price fixing are excessive and contradictory. DOJ attorney Lawrence Buterman claims in a response letter that the penalties against Apple are necessarily harsher, since it didn't settle the accusations like its reported co-conspirators. The group objection even justifies Apple's punishment, Buterman claims; it suggests that publishers are just waiting until the end of a two-year ban on agency pricing to raise prices once again. The five-year restriction imposed on Apple could keep prices down for longer, the lawyer says.

Apple, meanwhile, isn't done with its objections. In addition to an earlier request for a stay on proceedings pending an appeal, it now contends that the court excluded or ignored testimony while giving Amazon and Google witnesses too much credibility. The company will present more of its opinion at a conference today with both the DOJ and the presiding judge, but we're not expecting a quick resolution -- neither side is budging at this stage.

Filed under: , ,

Comments

Via: CNET, GigaOM

Source: Letters to the court (1), (2), (3), (4)

Australians urged to ‘lawfully evade’ unfair prices on digital goods

Posted on by

Australians urged to 'lawfully evade' unfair prices on digital goods

After going through a year-long rigmarole of summonses and interrogations to find out why Australians are being overcharged by as much as 66 percent on digitally-distributed Apple, Microsoft and Adobe products, and how the practice of "geo-blocking" prevents customers from seeking fairer prices elsewhere, an Australian parliamentary committee has finally hit on a solution. In the words of committee chairman Nick Champion, speaking to ABC News:

"What we want to do is make sure that consumers are aware of the extent to which geo-blocking applies to them and the extent to which they can lawfully evade [it]."

Now, if you were hoping that the Australian government would somehow force these companies to drop their prices down to US-equivalent levels, then this quote may admittedly sound a bit weak. It might also seem impractical, since geo-blocking is designed to be difficult to evade, by binding a customer's IP address, credit card or other details to their home market. Then again, things start to make more sense when we factor in the committee's other suggestions.

In particular, it proposes that the country's Copyright Act be amended to make it clear that an Australian won't be prosecuted just because they annoyed a multinational tech company by circumventing its geographic restrictions -- and, indeed, the population as a whole should be taught "tools and techniques" to achieve this wherever possible. The committee even recommends that Australians should have a "right of resale," such that they could legally remove locks on digital content that limits it to one user or one ecosystem. We have no idea how seriously the government will take these ideas, or how quickly it may implement them, but the committee's defiant tone makes for some good reading at the source link.

Filed under: , , , ,

Comments

Via: ABC News, HotHardware

Source: Committee report (PDF download)

Xbox One first-party games priced at £50 in the UK, versus $60 in the US

Posted on by

Xbox One firstparty games priced at 50 in UK, versus $60 in the US

Take the $59.99 official price (before tax) for first-party Xbox One titles in the States, run it through your favorite currency convertor and you get something like £39. Add in Royal Baby taxes (aka VAT), incomplete globalization and whatever else, and it seems the final amount for UK buyers comes to £49.99 -- a price tag that has appeared on games like Dead Rising 3 and Forza Motorsport 5 over at Microsoft's UK web store. It's not a surprising figure, and not too dissimilar to current Xbox 360 RRPs either, but it still seems high in a world that has seen Steam's sales model bring prices down for PC gamers. Anyway, maybe it's better not to get into all that again.

Filed under: ,

Comments

Via: Pocket-lint, VG247

Source: Microsoft Store UK

Ubuntu Edge pricing drops to $625 minimum on Indiegogo after initial sellout

Posted on by

Ubuntu drops Edge pricing to $625 minimum on Indiegogo after initial sellout

So far, it seems that Canonical's $32 million Ubuntu Edge smartphone Indiegogo campaign has been a roaring success, having raised over $3.5 million in about 40 hours. But after selling out all 5,000 units in the lowest $600 pricing tier, Canonical has added three new pledge levels. Initially, those who missed out on the one-day-only offer would've needed to cough up $830, but there are now $625, $675 and $725 rungs prior to that price, each with 1,250 of the linux-coated handsets available. Meanwhile, the counter at the original $830 second level -- which had already been in the hundreds -- has been reset, with all those buyers dropped to the new $625 tier. Canonical promised it would "refund the difference (to those buyers) at the end of the campaign," adding it would contact each with more info. After setting an Indiegogo record by raising $2 million in about 8 hours, the fundraising inevitably slowed down, and the revised price tiers could be a response to that -- either way, there's still a steep climb to the gargantuan target.

Filed under: ,

Comments

Via: OMGUbuntu

Source: Indiegogo

US federal judge rules Apple conspired to raise e-book prices

Posted on by

Following a non-jury trial that ended on June 20th, US District Judge Denise Cote has ruled that Apple conspired to raise the retail prices of e-books, according to a Reuters report published this morning. Apple has been at the focus of the Manhattan-based antitrust trial, which began last month, with publishers Macmillan and Penguin Group named as co-defendants. The violation here centered on Apple's agency pricing model, in which publishers set the price of each book and give sellers a 30 percent cut, rather than a traditional wholesale model in which retailers set the pricing at their own stores. Eddy Cue, Apple's SVP of Internet Software and Services, who was tagged as the "chief ringleader of the conspiracy" by the DOJ, went on the record earlier this year to say that some prices were inflated since the launch of the iBookstore in April of 2010 -- a statement which likely didn't help Cupertino's case. A trial for damages will reportedly follow soon.

Update: TechCrunch has received the below statement from an Apple spokesperson.

Apple did not conspire to fix ebook pricing and we will continue to fight against these false accusations. When we introduced the iBookstore in 2010, we gave customers more choice, injecting much needed innovation and competition into the market, breaking Amazon's monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. We've done nothing wrong and we will appeal the judge's decision.

Filed under: ,

Comments

Source: Reuters

Apple’s Eddy Cue acknowledges e-book price increases at antitrust trial, reveals talk of Amazon deal that would split books/music control

Posted on by

Antitrust trial reveals Apple discussed Amazon deal to split control of music and books

The issue of e-book prices, and alleged price fixing, has come up again and again in recent years, with the focus most recently shifting to a Manhattan courtroom where Apple is at the center of an antitrust trial. After revealing new details of the company's market share yesterday, Apple's Eddy Cue has today offered another piece of surprising news: that he and Steve Jobs once discussed a potential deal that would see Apple stay out of the ebook market if Amazon agreed stayed out of music. There's no indication that went beyond the early discussion phase, or actually involved any discussions with Amazon, but it would obviously raise considerable antitrust questions had it gone any further.

As CNET and The Verge report, the DOJ is hoping that revelation will bolster its case that Apple engaged in antitrust practices to inflate ebook prices across the market. On that front, Cue, who the DOJ describes as the "chief ringleader of the conspiracy," reportedly acknowledged that the prices of some ebooks did go up from April of 2010 (when it opened its iBookstore) through to 2012, but he attributed that to publishers unhappy with Amazon's $9.99 pricing. Cue's facing further questioning from Apple's attorneys this afternoon, with the trial expected to wrap up by the end of next week.

Filed under:

Comments

Source: CNET, The Verge

Gigabyte reveals prices, availability for NVIDIA-equipped U-Series Haswell notebooks

Posted on by

Gigabyte reveals prices, availability for NVIDIA graphicsequipped USeries

Since not everybody wants to lug an eight pound gaming machine or settle for a lightweight but graphics-challenged notebook, Gigabyte unveiled its U-series at Computex: two notebooks and an ultrabook with discreet NVIDIA graphics and 4th-generation Intel CPUs. The models build on the company's last-gen 14-inch U2442 Ultrabook, which unlike most models in that category, carried GeForce GT640M graphics and a generous supply of ports while still maintaining a respectable 3.3 pound heft. Gigabyte's looking to continue in that vein with the new models, which will all arrive by early August. To see a breakdown on all the pricing and specs, head after the break.

Gallery: Gigabyte U24F Press Gallery

Gigabyte U24F Press Gallery

Gallery: Gigabyte U24T Press Gallery

Gigabyte U24F Press Gallery

Filed under:

Comments

Microsoft said to cut prices for OEMs who push Windows RT on small tablets

Posted on by

Microsoft said to cut prices for OEMs who push Windows RT on small tablets

Acer has already managed to cram full Windows 8 into a $380 8-incher (shown above), but ARM-based Windows RT tablets have the potential to drive prices down even further -- if only someone, somewhere would see their merit. According to Bloomberg, Microsoft is now trying to help things along by offering discounts to OEMs who'll use RT in smaller tablets. The prices in question are confidential, so it's hard to gauge the likely impact for consumers, but with Dell's XPS 10 (shown above) still costing $400 with its dock, and with Surface RT fetching $500, there's definitely scope for improvement.

Filed under: ,

Comments

Source: Bloomberg