Pocket Gets The E1000, e815 (?) and UTS Mini Coming Up!

Looks like Pocket is first to the game, unlimited-wise, with another Kyocera phone: the E1000. Previously seen on US Cellular, this shiny little thing (they don't call it "Deco" for nuthin') is basically the Kyocera K342 Pocket already has (for $139...the rebate time period looks to be up), except newer, with more memory...and prettied up. The cost above the K342 is a mere $10, so if you were thinking about getting the K342 this is probably where you should be going. Hopefully I'll be abl to play with this phone a little in six weeks or so when I get back home to Texas, to see whether Kyocera has actually made something worthwhile (doubt it, but we'll see).

So how did I predict the entrance of this phone awhile back? By the media store online, of course. Well now they've leaked another phone or two. The first one, the Motorola e815, may have already been there, I'm not sure, but the Audiovox 8935 (actually the UTStarCom 8935) is new. What exactly is the 8935? Why, the Mini seen on CricKet of course. I didn't make a price prediction on the Kyocera E1000 last time, but I'll try my hand at predicting the cost of the 8935\Mini this time around: $129. Lower than the retail price of the Mini but higher than the online-only price, similar to the pricing scheme pursued by Pocket on other hones, where prices are either equal to or below retail, though not necessarily below the price including the online discount.

My take on things: bring on the phones! Just make sure they're not bad ones...like the Kyocera K132. I'm betting Pocket will be down to 11 phone models relatively soon, once they sell out of the older, low-end models. Then again, I could be wrong...