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  • Rezurecta - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link

    This is a great offer from HTC. The M8 gave 6 months free screen replacement, but this is even better.
  • djc208 - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link

    One of my top two choices for a replacement phone. This makes it that much tougher of a call. It's an interesting incentive.
  • dishayu - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link

    "25% of users currently use a damaged phone"

    That's pretty ambiguous. Can we have a source link, please? What counts as a "damaged"? I have a few blemishes on the exterior of my phone from 18 months of usage. Does that count as "damaged" or not?
  • JeffFlanagan - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link

    You're right, it is poorly-defined. If scuffs count as "damage", that would be way more than 25% of phones. I've seen people using phones with cracked screens, but nowhere near a quarter of phone users. The people being surveyed must be defining "damage" themselves
  • bill.rookard - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link

    I have to say, I know quite a few people (especially younger kids 10-18) who have shattered screens. And it's more than just one or two (I own an FEC and see kids all the time). I have to give credit, most of the phones with a cracked screen are still perfectly useable, if not exactly very visible.
  • benzosaurus - Saturday, March 28, 2015 - link

    Heck, I know someone who BOUGHT a phone with a broken screen because it was cheaper. But, yeah, I see a lot of them at school. Probably not close to 1/4, but definitely a nontrivial number.
  • ianmills - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link

    I know this isn't a representative population but I work in a high school and about 50% of the kids there have cracked screens on their phones lol
  • docbones - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link

    I really could use the carrier replacement on my M8 right now.
  • hojnikb - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link

    F*ck you, HTC.

    Sincerly, the rest of the world.

    I mean really. Why are these things limited to USA only ?
  • Hrel - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link

    Government. Taxes, Levy's, Fee's, Fines, regulation.
  • fokka - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link

    logistics and cost is what i would say. USA is a big and kinda monolithic market, but also a market where they need sales and good press, so they offer uh oh. other regions like europe are much harder to service because of dozens of different countries, languages, etc, so they keep it US only, where they get the most bang/promo for their buck.

    also, such a move isn't quite cheap, since it could end up costing them upwards of a hundred bucks per device sold, once people replace their phone, or get 100$ off a new phone, so limiting it to one region saves money as well.

    it's still an interesting concept/decision, we'll see how well htc fares with its tactic.
  • Gunbuster - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link

    Wow to afford this.. it's almost like they are making a ton of profit selling $200 worth of hardware for $650+
  • JeffroGymnast - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link

    The cost of the hardware is not even close to the full cost of making the phone, though. R&D, labor, shipping, overhead, indirect costs, etc all add in to the cost of the phone.
  • Gunbuster - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link

    That's what the manufacturers are always crying poor about, yet there are $40 smartphones with 90% of the functionality and $200 laptops. Wake up and stop getting ripped off.
  • PEJUman - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link

    The engineers, managers and designers have to get paid, among other things. Every manufacturers factors this into the product cost.

    They can sell $40 phones because the bulk of tech & software on these value phones are already developed on the prior flagship(s). You'll never see cutting edge stuff on these $40 simply because there no room to amortize the development cost into a $10 profit margin.
  • WithoutWeakness - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link

    So, just like every other phone manufacturer? At least HTC offers a protection plan like this with the phone for no additional cost. The extended-coverage plan most people are familiar with is Apple Care which costs $99 and extends the manufacturer's warranty an extra year and offers 2 years of phone support. If you drop your phone and have Apple Care the repair still costs an additional $79 fee (on top of the $99 you paid when you bought it) and it doesn't cover water damage. Sounds like HTC has far better coverage for drops/spills and offers a free hardware swap if you switch carriers to one that isn't compatible with your handset. Add in that it's included with every M9 they sell in the US and I can't see any reason to complain. I hope other manufacturers follow in their footsteps and begin offering these sorts of protection plans instead of the standard 1-year defect-only warranties.
  • fokka - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link

    of course it's a nice move from htc to offer guarantees like that, even if it's US only, but on the other hand, wouldn't it be better, if they just cut their MSRP by 100 bucks or more, so their new flagship would substantially undercut the competition in price?

    they could still offer a very generous warranty for 50-100$ more, but to me it seems lowering the price of entry would be a better strategy to lure customers to an m9, who would otherwise have to pay hundreds of bucks more for an s6, depending on how much storage they want.
  • Denithor - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link

    No. From their standpoint, offering a warranty makes much better sense than reducing the base price of the phone. Some percentage (likely fairly high) of purchasers will not need to replace their phones due to damage or carrier change. And while those people will receive "$100" off their next phone purchase - this locks those customers into HTC phones for another generation.
  • FlamingDragon810 - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link

    This will be nice for all the people who accidentally drop and break their phones due to the overheating SD 810 processor raising the M9's exterior to 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • Sn3akr - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link

    So the rest of the world is paying for free replacements to clumsy US citizens (or morons that just want a new device in the 11th hour and "UH OH" smashes it" Theese news just made the M9 appear nowhere in my options for my next device.
  • Sn3akr - Thursday, March 19, 2015 - link

    Even worse.. Thos that's shopping for a new device and decides " i can get more for my old device if it's brad new.. "UH OH" *SMASH* No doubt in my mind that'll get abused for the rest of the world to pay for.

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