Amazon, which will begin selling the Kindle Fire tablet Nov. 15, is offering the Motorola Droid Razr and other Android smartphones at discounted prices for the holiday season.
Amazon
(NASDAQ:AMZN) Wireless is now offering the Motorola Droid Razr for $199.99-one
day after offering the phone for $111.11 with a Verizon Wireless contract.
The $111.11 deal,
which has lapsed, commenced on Nov. 11, 2011. Still, the $199.99 price is $100
less than Verizon and its fellow retailers are selling it for, putting it on
par with the average costs of a premium Android smartphone.
Amazon passes
along the discount if consumers agree to become a new wireless subscriber, or
renew their existing carrier contracts and keep the service for at least181
consecutive days. Amazon Wireless will charge consumers $250 early termination
fees for breaking their contracts.
As
eWEEK noted in its review of the Android 2.3.5
"Gingerbread" phone, the Razr is as good an Android handset at
Motorola Mobility (NYSE:MMI) has made to date.
The
Razr is only 0.28 inches thin, has a 1.2GHz
processor and a special new Smart Actions battery saver and task automation
application.
Verizon's 4G Long
Term Evolution (LTE) technology fuels applications well on the Razr, but it
does burn the battery down quite a bit. And as we noted, $299.99 is a lot of
money for a phone, even subsidized from its $799.99 asking price. Amazon's
discount to $199.99 should make it more palatable to some consumers this
holiday season.
Amazon
Wireless, which is also discounting Android handsets such as Verizon's HTC
Droid Incredible 2 to as low as 1 cent on contract, has also kicked off a
"
hotspot
holidays" promotion.
Consumers can
purchase a hotspot-ready smartphone-which will enable users to connect anywhere
from five to eight devices via WiFi from the phone-and they will get a $100
Amazon.com gift card.
These include
such handsets as the Droid Razr and Droid Bionic 4G from Verizon, the Samsung
Galaxy S II, the Epic Touch 4G handset from Sprint and the Galaxy S II 4G from
AT&T.
Alternatively,
shoppers can buy a mobile hotspot device to receive a $50 Amazon.com gift card.
The devices include the Novatel MiFi 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot, the Sierra Wireless
Overdrive Pro 3G/4G, T-Mobile's 4G HotSpot and Verizon's Samsung SCH-LC11 4G
Mobile Hotspot.
"With a
hotspot-ready smartphone, you can access the Internet on your Kindle Fire or
other WiFi devices anywhere," said Amazon, which is launching its
WiFi-based Kindle Fire tablet Nov. 15 for $199.
Amazon expects to ship as many as 5 million Android-based
Kindle Fire slates through the rest of the year.
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