Save $95 and bring your own Nexus 5 to the MVNO
Sprint MVNO Ting is now selling the Nexus 5 on its own website, but you'll be paying $445 (a $95 premium) to buy it from Ting instead of Google Play. And the carrier isn't making any illusions about the fact — it is telling customers to just buy the phone for cheaper from Google and put a Ting SIM card into it. As it explains on its official blog, even with selling the Nexus 5 at below cost, Ting just can't match the $349 unlocked price that Google is charging.
We've seen this price discrepancy from other third-party retailers that have offered the phone, but few have been so open about the situation. Given the circumstances, it's in the best interest of both you and Ting if you simply pay $10 for a SIM card from the carrier and pop it into your Nexus 5 ordered from Google Play. Ting will still sell a Nexus 5 to those who simply prefer to buy it from the carrier they'll be using it on, but we love to see the transparency regardless.
Source: Ting
Reader comments
Ting now selling the Nexus 5, would still prefer if you bought from Google Play
Why does Google charge phone companies more than us? Its always the other way around with every other company and every other product. It just seems odd to charge me $350 while charging a company $450+, are they buying it from Google or perhaps from LG?
Why would you pay more than what you can buy it directly from Google for? Makes no sense to me. Why do carriers even bother to try to sell it even a penny more than Google? Am I missing something?
Posted via Android Central App
Convenience. Some people are willing to pay for the convenience of one-stop-shopping and Ting is doing the right thing by offering a ready-to-go at a premium for the people who want to pay more for that privilege, while encouraging everybody else to order the phone from Google and the SIM from Ting and save money by putting the SIM in themselves. It sounds like a win-win proposition to me.
This.
Posted from my "Gift from God" Note 3, my "God-Given" iPad Mini 2, or my "Risen" Samsung Chromebook.
Loving this honesty, it's the way the world should be.
Posted via Android Central App
More companies could use this transparency (some carriers, specifically *ahem*)
Posted via Android Central App on my LG Nexus 6 (Sprint)
Does the Ting N5 price in include tax and shipping because Google charges? In NY state the charges about $50 on the $400 phone.
Posted via Android Central App
Is there really a $50 tax on phones other than sales tax on phones in NY? I could believe it in a state infested with Liberals and would deem people who can own their own phone as "evil" and need to be taxed in order to pay for Obama phones.
Posted via Android Central App
Ting is really cool. I'm about to switch my mother away from it and onto my T-Mobile family plan, but until now with her very limited usage it worked out really well. Some months her bill was below $13. Just too bad about the Sprint basis. I'd be more likely to stick with them if they were GSM-based. But the company's honesty and billing methods are fantastic. Really cool company.
Rogers is not much different. They want $500 for the 16gb nexus 5. Bought my 32gb from Google play.
Posted via Android Central App
Just curious, is Ting 3g only or can you access LTE also?
Posted via Android Central App
Uses Sprint LTE
Also uses WiMax!
Posted via Android Central App
WiMax. What's that? Lulz
Posted via Android Central App
Most Sprint mvnos use LTE in addition to 3G
Posted via Android Central App
Meh @ Ting. $81 for the XL package. No thank you.
Bravo!!
Posted via Android Central App
Same price as Sprint.
Posted from my "KNOX-FREE" 4.3 Sprint GS3 Maxx...!!!
(ZeroLemon 7000mA battery and ZeroShock Case)
Yeah talk about honest: (from the source link)
Starting today, Ting is now selling the Nexus 5. But, please, for the dear sweet love of Google, don’t buy it from us.
They really do not want you to buy it from them because it is in reality a $5-600 phone that Google gives away at that low price. Still charges the carriers and turns around and undercuts them.
That is not a $5-600 phone.
You keep telling yourself that but I aint buying it
How do you know?
Posted via Android Central App
How does he know?
We can both speculate all we want but at the end of the day neither of us truly knows.
it says it in the source link from ting.
The price that they have it listed at is still below cost. 50$ takes it up to $500.
I am not just taking a guess here, it is an educated guess.
No it's a random guess.
My stance is and always will be that google doesn't lose money on these phones.
They probably sell them at cost and make no profit.
In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they made slight profit.
I obviously have no proof to back this up but considering reports that I've read on prices of nicer phones that carriers are paying $300 for and then marking them, I think it's a good guess.
Their cost and google's cost is not the same
Google makes it back on ads, Carriers on two year contracts. Ting and the like have no guarantee that they are getting anything back.
It is sold at a loss to make it back later.
Sorry for all the posts apparently you are not allowed to refer to currency or it gets flagged as spam
Ad block. Most custom ROMs had it when I had the Nexus 4. Haven't seen a BOM yet for the N5 but a 2012 N7 had a BOM of $152. The N4 was a little over $200. I expect the N5 to be about the same. And no amount of fees will equal a loss at $350. I'm sorry but you're wrong.
Posted via Android Central App
Show us a phone that has similar specs and is $500, the Nexus 5 certainly compares favorably. They may just be overpriced.
Posted via Android Central App
When did I claim that other phones with similar specs cost that much?
My argument is that worst case scenario google sells the phones at cost or slight profit.
There is no "Google subsidy". No Corporation is going to lose money on 5 million(rough estimate) phones on purpose.
My guess. LG charges Google $300 per phone(if that). Google then sells them for $350. making $50(or more) per phone.
yes they are going to sell them at a loss. They are actually called "loss leaders".
The purpose is to lose money up from and get people in the "door" then make it up later on with something else. You see it all the time on Black Friday sales. You lose money on a low margin item on the hope that you make it up on higher profit items
your guess flies in the face of all the facts being thrown out at you. Your being obstinate about it
Most phones only cost a company around $200 to make even the Galaxy S4 and the Apple iPhone 5s. It depends on how greedy the company is.
Posted via Android Central App
*citation needed
Also, raw materials/components are not the only consideration in "cost to make"
Its pretty well established fact it only costs phone manufacturers less than $200 to make their high end devices.
Posted via Android Central App