Radio Shack is offering a subsidized Acer Netbook for $99. Sounds good until you add up the monthly AT&T fees under a 2 year contract. That’s $1,540 in all. Ouch.
Kevin Tofel has it right, but I’ll be more forceful: Don’t go for this unless you’re really, really going to get your money’s worth from the AT&T connectivity. I think most people won’t.
There are other, better ways to acquire a low cost PC and get connected to the Internet. Kevin lists a few.
This style of connectivity is going to have to change. I only wish Google had gotten in the game this past year and tried to challenge the status quo here in the US. There are many of us that would acquire multiple, connected machines and devices, but we’re not going to if we have to pay $60/month per device under two year contracts. That’s not going to work.
My request is that the hardware companies (and the OS companies) need to apply some pressure instead of playing along with this game. So far Amazon has done the best job here with connectivity on its Kindle. Others need to follow suit.
Connectivity ideally should be transparent, simple and reliable with no additional congnitive or economic overhead. The simpler, the better. It’ll help sell devices and increase the number of connected devices. Carriers should take note.