If you need one example of why handsets provided exclusively from the carrier is a bad deal, look at the excitement around the new Sanyo MM-5600 available via Sprint PCS. It looks nice enough—especially the 1.3-megapixel camera—but it’s hardly cutting edge, especially for $430. But since the only phones you can use on Sprint/Nextel (or Verizon) are phones you purchase and authorize through their network, you have to sort of take what you can get. It’s not much better on GSM carriers like Cingular, but at least you can put an unlocked handset on those networks and go to town (CDMA handsets don’t even have the option of being unlocked).
Of course, we’ve basically gotten ourselves into this situation. If the phone carriers couldn’t lock us into one or two year contracts to get discounts and subsidies on our phones, then we’d all be paying $500 or more to get the latest hardware.
Sanyo MM-5600 on Sprint PCS [MobileMag]
Sanyo MM-5600 announced by Sprint [MobileTracker]
