Heroic prices
Oh, how the mighty hero has fallen; the HTC Hero that is, and when we say fallen, we mean fallen in price.
US punters were in for quite a surprise Tuesday when they discovered one of the hottest new phones of the season dumped unceremoniously in Walmart's budget bin, going from $99 to just $30 as a repackaged HTC Droid Eris, with a contract from Verizon Wireless.
That's one sweet price for a whole load of Android goodness in what is generally believed to be one of the best phones on the market.
Punters who buy through Verizon directly would get exactly the same phone and the same plan for $100, which is just plain cheeky if you ask us.
The HTC Hero/Droid Eris is not the only phone slimming down on its price tag before Thanksgiving, either. Motorola's much hyped flagship Droid, also based on Google's mobile OS, hit shelves two weeks ago at $200 and has since seen price reductions of between 25 and 40 per cent. Dell is even selling one directly for $119.
The Palm Pre is another example, dropping its price 60 per cent from its original $200 to just $80 on Amazon.
Whilst the aforementioned deals certainly fit in with the US' Black Friday deal craze, set for November 27, we can't help wondering whether the sheer speed with which prices have melted away points to something else being afoot. Like upcoming design wins for NVIDIA's Tegra or Qualcomm's Snapdragon, for instance.
Stay tuned to find out.
