NEW YORK - In a blink of mere months, the mobile "smart" phone has been transformed from pricey corporate gadget to an affordable alternative for ordinary folk.
In the last month alone, Cingular Wireless has unveiled three devices priced as low as $200 (after jumping through the assorted contractual hoops and rebates). That's well below the $300 to $500 that BlackBerries, Treos and Pocket PCs have generally fetched even with promotional savings.
The shift began in May with the "Q" from Motorola Inc., a slender handset with a full QWERTY keyboard for typing e-mail that Verizon Wireless introduced for $200 and now sells for as low as $100 — a price cut that happens to coincide with an increasingly crowded field of rivals vying for consumer dollars.
T-Mobile struck twice over the summer with the launch of the Pearl, the first BlackBerry with a camera and music features, and a hybrid cellular and Wi-Fi device called the Dash. Both were priced as low as $200, though the Dash can now be had for $150.