Nokia 5800 XpressMusic just before getting ready to hit shelves on Nokia Stores created lot of chaos everywhere with their declared prices in Spain and Italy. The pre-booking price displayed on these official sites is 429 Euros instead of 279 Euros (without taxes) which was originally promised by Nokia.
The potential buyers were shocked, stunned and disappointed to see their long awaited Nokia 5800 listed at 429 EUR. They found it simply unacceptable and shameful act of Nokia to not keep its promise on the pricing. However, the clouds of confusions looks like clearing off now with some good news that came our way this evening.
According to the official information our friend Eldar Murtazin on LiveJournal got from Nokia, the base price of the phone is still €279, but each country is free to bundle additional goodies with it.
Nokia Spain bundled the 5800 trendy with their 100 Euro voucher for Nokia Music Store and 3 month subscription of Nokia Maps (Voice) Navigation service, and thus the price increased. The other countries which are ready to launch Nokia 5800 XpressMusic this season may follow the suit too.
Another reason for this twist in pricing is probably to stop grey market sales in this Christmas season. The grey market sellers just can’t grab a bunch of Nokia 5800 sets from a neighbor country to sell in their local grey market to make loads of money, just like they did with Iphone. They will probably not go for it if they have to overpay well over 100 EUR for the stuff they can’t use in another country.
But this pricing scheme will hopefully come to an end when Nokia 5800 starts shipping worldwide in early 2009. It will become unbundled again and prices will come down to €279 (plus taxes) as promised earlier. So if you are not so desperate enough to grab the smartphone this holiday season, its better to wait for prices coming down very soon. Cheers!!


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