Can’t wait to hear confirmation on pricing. I also guess my short list just got down to 2. :D Hd2 and N900 get to fight it out…Everybody keep your seat belts on till this thing hits the market. :) Best to all.
BTW: the tax refund will pay for one of these. Here we go!

Question for any HD2 owners:

Does the HD2 ‘blow up’ to full screen m4v files like the iPod Touch/iPhone does?

There is some sort of zoom feature that allows the Apple devices to actually use the full screen. It would be a shame that such a gorgeous screen like the HD2′s go to waste by just giving us letter-box movie viewing.

Thanks.

Care would not have found a clue for the price yet, too early

On phone pricing I think it really depends on what the phone costs T-Mo.

Because of the poor economy gone are the days of charging a premium for a phone simply because it’s the hot item at the time.

– Iphone: Apple and AT&T learned that real fast. Sales of the iPhone were OK but still disappointing since expectations on sales numbers were very high. That’s why Apple lowered the price so soon after the iPhone’s debut. Carriers learned from Apple’s debacle (remember Apple having to give credit vouchers to first adopters to placate them and prevent an attack on headquarters by pitchfork wielding fanboys).

– Touch Pro2: When the Touch Pro2 debuted T-Mo’s retail price was about $250 to $300 less than what the phone was selling for in the European market.

– Nexus One: The N1 was pretty inexpensive to manufacture. Cost to Google was about $180. Old habits dying hard and being predictable, Google expected to sell the N1 mostly at the two year contract price. So they are offering it at Google’s cost, with no profit.

– HD2: With specs better than the N1 and the extras tossed in (16GB microSD), the cost to T-Mo may well be around $280 or thereabouts. If that’s so, then the posted $287 contract price is probably correct. Given T-Mo’s pricing models, however, they may tweak the price up a bit, to $350 or so.

I don’t think, however, that they will price the phone over $600 on non-contracted sales. There’s no basis for that and remember that carriers’ are in business to make money. Right now, with the price war and bad economy, that means selling data plans. Any person who is considering buying the phone even if they are not qualified for a discount, is a power user.

T-Mo needs to keep those people happy, especially those people on the Even More Plus plan who can cancel the service any time they want. T-Mo needs to get the HD2 into his or her hands, not price it so high that the person walks from T-Mo. Price the HD2 at $600++, loyal customers will walk.
So I think we have the same thing here. While I don’t know anything about it, seems to me the HD2 is actually a pretty inexpensive device to produce, certainly less expensive than the Touch Pro2 that has a physical keyboard (that are expensive to produce).

The HD2 has a large display, those are dirt cheap nowadays. It has a Snapdragon processor, but that does not drive up the cost that much. I read somewhere that was a $48 item. The camera costs about $15, but since HTC has its own source over in Asia, it might even be less than that.