Technology & Gadgets

The new Motorola Droid RAZR is generating lots of buzz, mainly for how how “impossibly thin” it is, at a skinny 7.1mm. It’s been reported all over, with that same number mentioned every time. What none of these reviews mention, however, is that the WHOLE phone isn’t actually that thin. There’s a pretty significant chunk at the top of the phone that’s considerably thicker. It doesn’t appear Motorola is releasing specs for how thick the thickest part of their phone is, which is generally how you measure something’s thickness. By Motorola’s reporting, the MacBook Air is only 3mm thin, since that’s how it measures at its thinnest point.

See for yourself. Personally, I’d rather have a couple extra mm width on the entire phone, than a thick spot at the top that sticks out an extra 3.4mm. But, maybe that’s just me.

Apple’s profit margin on iPhones are estimated to be around 60%, and the average selling price of the iPhone is $625. That’s $375 net profit per phone, and $250 in costs. Considering the BOM is $187.50, that leaves $62.50 in other cost factors (licensing, R&D, pack, ship, reseller’s cut, etc.).

If they were to release a $200 phone, those ‘other factors’ likely wouldn’t decrease much, if at all; so even if they got the BOM down to $100 (near impossible), and they knocked $12.50 off the ‘other factors’ costs, the actual total cost of the phone would still be $150, leaving them with a mere $50 net profit (25% profit margin). They would have to sell 7.5 times MORE iPhone Nanos to make the same profit they’re making on the current $625 (average) iPhone. They sold 47.5m iPhones in 2010; so just to make the SAME profit, they would have to sell 356.2m iPhone Nanos in a year. Even for Apple, that’s a big jump. Read the rest of this entry »

True story. I had a speck of dust behind the screen of my nearly 1-year old iPhone 3GS. I had read you can bring in your iPhone (under warranty) for dust under the screen and Apple will take it in the back & either clean the dust out, or replace the whole screen. I gave it a shot, and after looking closely into all the crevices using a little magnifier, the Apple Genius suggested he just replace the phone with a new one instead of just swapping out my screen. He pointed out that there’s lots of dust & ‘gunk’ in the bottom, around the dock port and speakers; he also pointed out a tiny hairline crack I had never noticed before (around 3 or 4mm long- seriously!) on the edge of the dock port, and some scoffs on the case – mostly around the corners. The way he said it, it sounded like he considered them all defects, and not regular wear-and-tear. I guess they’re giving all of their still-under-warranty iPhone customers the kind of service usually only reserved for AppleCare owners. Fine by me! I wish they considered the dings on my MacBook Pro to be defects, too!

So he pulled out a new phone, and I specifically asked him if the phone was refurbished, or new. He didn’t directly answer, but I was intrigued by what he said: the screen, case & battery were all guaranteed to be brand new. Other parts may have been serviced & re-used; So technically, it’s a refurb; but all the parts that really matter are brand-spankin-new, and the phone doesn’t say anything on it about being refurbished. And it comes with a 90 day warranty. My original warranty had 26 days remaining, so that was good news, too!

So when the new iPhone 4 comes out, I should be able to get a premium for my ‘old’ 3GS on eBay, since it’ll be nearly new, and even come with a couple months of Apple warranty remaining. Not bad for a piece of dust behind my screen. The funny thing is, the phone is bright enough that you couldn’t even see the dust speck unless you were really looking for it.

From what I’ve gathered, the new iPhone (iPhone 4) will actually have the screen laminated to the glass – so there will be no way dust will be able to get in there. So I guess I’ll have to find a different ‘defect’ to complain about a year from now, to get a replacement for my ‘old’ iPhone 4 – right before the new iPhone 5 is released… on Verizon. Then I can sell it, and use the money to buy my way out of my AT&T contract, and jump ship to the Verizon contract. I’m the first to say 2-year contracts suck, but when you can resell your phone every year for the cost of buying the new phone, isn’t really not such a bad deal.