With a major announcement expected next week, HTC is starting to clear the decks. HTC has discounted the outright price of the HTC U Ultra and U Play through their retail channels, as well as dropping the handset repayment on the U Play at Vodafone.
Announced in February at $1199 for the HTC U Ultra and $799 for the HTC U Play, the phones are now available outright through both Harvey Norman and JB Hifi outright for $899 and $649 respectively. The discount applies across all colour options – Brilliant Black, Sapphire Blue and Cosmetic Pink.
Over at Vodafone, the HTC U Ultra appears to still be on offer for $80 per month with an $8 handset repayment, though you can get a little bit more data per month with it than when it launched. The HTC U Play however is now slightly cheaper with no handset repayment on their $60 per month plan.
When I took a look at the HTC U Ultra in our review, I found that it was a pretty good phone, though over-priced. That criticism has seemingly been taken on board now with this not insignificant discount.
If you’re looking for a new phone, and the HTC U Ultra or HTC U Play has been tickling your fancy, you head into Harvey Norman or JB Hifi to buy it outright, or check out Vodafone for a contract deal.
They were overpriced at launch so the price drop is no surprise. They can’t get away with Apple and Samsung pricing unfortunately.
$799 for the U Play was ridiculous looking at the specs it rocked, especially the low end Helio P10 SoC.
It’s still way overpriced at $649 considering a Moto G5 Plus can be had for $399/$449 and it’s rocking a Snapdragon 625 and the rest of the specs are similar to the U Play.
Cheers
I’m keen to see what HTC manage with their announcement coming up next week, but I agree, diluting their brand is something they should only be doing once they find their feet again. It might be too soon.
Those phones were a mistake in my opinion, I’m rocking a htc10 and that is a awesome smartphone, HTC is following the sheep with their new smartphones of late removing the best parts in the headphone Jack amplifier and dedicated Dac, my next smartphone probably won’t be a HTC and that’s a shame as I love the 10