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There were a few complaints and sighs that the HTC Droid Eris would only have a 528 MHz processor – and I dismissed that disappointment as misplaced. The Droid Eris (Desire) is essentially the HTC Hero and its been incredibly successful to date and will continue to sell well. I’m not sure why people who originally enjoyed the Hero are hating on the Droid Eris only a few months later?
Maybe this will help. The HTC Droid Eris will cost only $99 if the price point a GDGT admin suggests is on point. That would deeply undercut the cost of the very capable Sprint HTC Hero. We initially passed along info that the Eris would launch November 10th so lets see if that still holds up. We’ve also heard November 6th.
http://phandroid.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/droid-eris-80×150.jpg
Woohoo! That means I can buy this thing on a 1-year contract for around $170, and I can use that $80 savings for picking up some accessories. The deal is just getting sweeter and sweeter. I do find it interesting, though, how Verizon is way underselling their competitors on identical devices ($100 vs. $180 for the Hero, $200 vs. $350 for the TP2). And now with all the competitive rate plans out there, I wonder if Verizon is seriously considering some new rate plans to become more competitive in that market. Handset cost is really minor compared to rate plan price. If they really want to win back subscribers en masse, I think they’re going to need a killer combination, i.e. spectacular handsets (Droid family, Storm 2, check), competitive handset pricing (Droid same as iPhone, Eris dirt cheap, check), and competitive rate plans (still working on that one).
@Rob Jackson: Will you please stop perpetuating the idea that clock speed (MHz) matters for a processor.
Brad: Relative to what? Sprint? Sprint’s plans are vastly cheaper than Verizon – you break even after 8 months of the 2 year contract.
@Rob: Currently, the Arm11 architecture is fine. However, I hate buying a phone for 2 years knowing that it will run applications sluggishly a year down the road – when developers expect phones to have Arm Cortexes.
Is this phone stuck with 1.5? Will HTC/Verizon provide an OTA update to 2.0 in the future (is that possible)?
question: are we talking about a cdma or gsm gadget?
question 2: will this htc phone be released as in europe, i mean, SIM free, unlocked?
thanx.
@Brad … Verizon like AT &T wiht the Iphone 3G can easily undersell their competition with the phones .. because their plans are ridiculously high ..
Sprint just made it cheaper for their customers with ANY MOBILE … while T-mobile came out with Project Dark .. what that means is that Carrier’s cost are trimming .. Verizon and AT &T don’t want to pass the savings through the plan.. so they can bait you with the phones..
@Jerry Amen to that
BINGO!!!! Jerry lol
@Jerry
I’m well aware that that’s what’s happening. If you’d read my whole post, you’d see that I said they’re still missing the rate plan savings in the killer combo. There has already been a rumor (totally unconfirmed, of course) that a Verizon rep mentioned some changes to Verizon’s rate plans coming sometime in November. My point is that if Verizon both slashes phone prices AND responds positively to competitive pricing from Sprint and T-Mobile, then they’re going to have the ultimate combo: good, cheap phones, reasonable rates, and best network. And please don’t bring up customer service, because I’ve heard horror stories about customer service on all the major carriers. Your results will vary on that no matter which carrier you’re with. I myself am on Verizon via the Alltel buyout, but even though I’m looking at a very stiff increase in rate plan by moving from a dumbphone to s smartphone, I know the local rural coverage situation enough to know that nobody but Verizon “just works” around where I live and travel. Cheaper rates are meaningless if they don’t reward you with equal coverage.
Anyone know / guess if the Eris will require the Data plan for Smartphones on Verizon, or simply the add-on data plan for feature phones? (My terminology is probably not exactly correct, but hopefully you know what I mean).
@Patrick: How does clock speed not matter? Of course it matters. It matters a lot! The problem is when you use clock speed as your only form of comparison. For example a 550MHz Cortex-A8 processor(Droid) is a lot faster than a 528MHz ARM11 processor(Droid Eris). Then you have a 1GHz Cortex-A8 processor(HTC Dragon/Passion)… *droooool*
@ Bruce
The HTC Eris will require the add on smartphone plan of $29.99 a month, not the “feature phone” of $9.99. That would be for phones like the moto rogue, etc.
~Chuck
@Chuck –
Thanks for the clarification, that’s what I was afraid of. I think that is total BS by Verizon. Of course Android facilitates more features than a “feature phone” like the Samsung Omnia or others, but give me a break, I’m not a business customer who can justify the monthly surcharge without batting an eye. And honestly even though the Eris will have Android and all of the capabilities so implied, it will be competing more with phones like the Omnia, Rogue, etc. than with BlackBerries and the Moto Droid, IMHO.
Bruce
Gotta be careful of the phone lust in my eyes and making the jump too quick. Right now I have a Moto Q with WM 5.0 so a crystal radio set looks better.
The Eris may give me all I need considering MY usage.
I’m assuming no Google Map app so will have to settle for VZ Nav? Will it be available on this handset?
VCast?
OTA 1.6?
The Eris will more then likely get the 2.0 patch. HTC is pretty good about patches. They’ve already confirmed both the Euro Hero and Sprint Hero will get Android 2.0.
Got to agree.
If the Eris sells half as well as I think it will I can’t see HTC alienating that many consumers.
From everything I’ve read it’s a matter of getting 2.0 to mesh with UI.