About three weeks ago I wrote that I planned to build up a new computer. Since then a few other options have come to the fore. Windows 8 and the Surface RT slate are being released at the end of October and Windows Phone 8 is being released shortly thereafter. This brings up the options of buying a slate and/or a phone, or both.
Whether I buy a new phone will depend on whether a model equivalent in price to the current Nokia Lumia 710 ($399) comes in. At the moment Nokia have the 820 and 920 coming out. The current models 800 however is priced at $899 which is far too much to pay for a phone. The sort of plan that would fit me would shave $100 off any handset price. If Microsoft wants their phones to be competitive then manufacturers will have to produce models that are in the $399 range which is competitive with the lowest iPhone model currently on the market. Samsung like Nokia have a current model in a similar price range to the 710 which is available in NZ, and like Nokia they have just released new Windows Phone models. It remains therefore to be seen what will come out for that sort of a price when 8 is released. A suitable phone plan would be around $40 and would be similar to my current (free) plan from Telstraclear (which is actually in fact subsidised by my home line cost) and knocks around $100 off the phone’s price. This sort of plan will give me only 250MB of data which is what I currently get for an extra $20 on Telstra. However in that Telstra plan I pay 19c per minute for most calls. The $45 plan would give me free minutes so it could be much of a muchness really.
Supposing the cheapest Surface comes in at the equivalent of US$199 which some are suggesting it will sell for in the States. It depends on whether it is mobile or Wifi only. If it has a USB socket then you could plug in a Vodem which will cost $30 for each 512MB of data bought casually. This is a substantial cost, so I can understand why many people have chosen to buy Wifi only devices which are a lot cheaper to run. I would probably look at the mobile option but prefer Wifi within sites like everyone and be on a casual data plan rather than a monthly one. Tethering to a mobile is an interesting option if it is possible and allows the data to be shared.
The costings for a new computer or the parts thereof on the other hand probably come in at about $700 but will need to be nailed down. I can buy it gradually a part at a time.
So at the moment a lot depends on a lot of things and I haven’t really shifted my priorities much, we will have to see how things pan out over the next 8 weeks or so.