MSFTisMIA
New member
It's all about the dollars right now... The 810 and 8x were contract driven phones... They paid too much to get them and can't sell them against the HTC One and Galaxy S4... At $360 they weren't making enough on the 810 to keep stocking it. Even the 521 is $70 more at a T-Mobile store than it is at your local Wal-Mart. The $500 phones have to have $500 features and the 810 was mid-range at best. The 8X however, had the high range specs, but everyone busted it down for not having the SD slot. The fact is the 16GB 8X should have been $450, but T-Mo had to charge $550 for it to make up for the lower contract prices.
T-Mobile dug their own grave on this one, not that I think the 810 or the 8x were bad devices. They were just overpriced. I can say that the new cheaper phones, like the 521 are so close in performance to the 810 that it would be hard to justify spending more than $200 at a T-Mobile store right now. You have the Optimus L9 for the Android crowd that is under $200 at Amazon and Wal-Mart... The 521 for $130-200 for the Windows Phone fans... The new unlocked iPhone 3GS for the iClones at $300... The BlackBerry 9315 for $168 for the BB fans... Seriously, any of these paired with a $50 a month bill is a pretty freaking sweet deal.
Now compare that to the 810 for $500, the 925 comes out at $575 and the 521 is still at $150-200... Would you buy the 810 for that or would you just save the extra $75 and get the beast?
And just a side note to the 8X - my buddies at HTC basically said all resources in the US are going to the One - for better or worse - it's their life saver if they have one left. I doubt that HTC is going to be a major player much longer in the industry - though I am secretly hoping that Microsoft buys them and starts turning out their own hardware... But that's just wishful thinking... Of course HTC headquarters is only 10 minutes from Microsoft's main campus...
^This 100%.
It is sad to see where HTC is. I've picked up today what probably is my last HTC phone...the 8X (VZW version)...to use alongside my 810. My favorite HTC devices are the Touch Diamond and the Kaiser. I wish them well with the One, but I still say they need One flagship Android and one flagship WP8 per year to stay afloat. I don't think the One will save them because they always cut corners on the feature they try to sell as to why to buy the phone.
I'm at a point where I'm going to pass on new hardware for a while unless something completely magical happens to pull me back in. Back to the old days for me once my 2 year bid with T-mobile is up....buy em GSM unlocked unlocked and say no to contracts...