Mobile phone data cables

Zaph

I recently got a Nokia 6230 and I want to hook it up to my pc so I can back up my numbers, etc. My pc doesn't have infra-red or bluetooth, so I dcided to buy a data cable. I went to Carphone Warehouse and was told that a Nokia cable is €59.99 (although I presume all mobile phone shops charge the same for this so I'm not picking on CW specifically). Now this is only a USB cable with a connection for the phone at one end, nothing fancy about it. I just checked Komplett and the most expensive USD cable they have is €21.

I decided to check eBay, and I was able to buy a generic, i.e. non-Nokia branded, cable for €1.80! Admittedly postage bumps up the price a lot, but the price of the cable, an installation CD and a CD full of ringtones, games, etc. to be mailed to me from the States set me back €8.53.

Now a bit of profit I can accept, as can I accept the fact that you'll pay more for branded goods, but a 3300% price increase on the cost of basic cable itself is beyond a joke.

shamalive

I bought one on Ebay,
it's not an official Nokia cable,
but it works fine,

only problem with it is that with WinXP it seems to crash the machine
when hot-plugging, so make sure to use the remove hardware wizard.

Got the cable and the data cd for less than 10 yoyos.

Tobias Greeshman

I bought a USB cable the other day for my 6230i and it was €50 shocking, the girl in the shop said they buy them in for €25. Shocking stuff when you see the cost you can get them online.

Fitzer12345

It is shocking alright. I was in NY recently and got a Nokia one in RadioShack (which would be cheapest even!) and i definately got change out of $10

Linoge

I bought one on eBay for $2.50 + p&p. Works perfectly. Its what got me hooked!

DonkeyStyle \o/

Disgusting prices alright... I got myself a USB->Infrared device... looks just like a usb memory stick... I can transfer all the sounds/pics I want over IrDA.
The nice part is that I can just keep it and use it on any phone with IRDA and not have to worry about getting a new data cable if I change my phone or want to send something to someone elses phone from my PC.

LFCFan

silas wrote:

I bought a USB cable the other day for my 6230i and it was €50 shocking, the girl in the shop said they buy them in for €25. Shocking stuff when you see the cost you can get them online.

So she basically told you they had a 100% Markup on the Cable and you still bought it. It's no wonder we're so ripped off when people are so easily parted with their cash in this country :rolleyes:

lomb

LFCFan wrote:

So she basically told you they had a 100% Markup on the Cable and you still bought it. It's no wonder we're so ripped off when people are so easily parted with their cash in this country :rolleyes:

standard retail markups for clothes are 100%, for food 400%, for electronics 25%, and for electronic accesories like cables, print cartridges 50-200%, thats the world for u, everyone has overheads, prime rents are up to 200 euro per square foot per year thats 200000 grand a year folks for a small shop , average staff costs+insurances+telephones+ theft of stock+ obselesence of stock+rates+security+cleaners+advertising+delivery costs+vat= over a grand a day, that means just to break even u have to sell between 6000 a days worth of low margin apples or 2000 a days worth of cloathes, just to break even. and thats without making a penny.
ontop of that leases are signed for up to 5 years with commitments (ie no break clauses before) thats a commitment of 1 million euro for those 5 years, and landlords seek personal gaurantees, which means b4 u make a penny u are signing ur life away if u fail.

people should think twice b4 critising anyones prices, if u arent happy with the cost shop around that is the BEST advice, in a legal society no one can force u to pay anything, all transactions are carried out that are 'mutual'

Lemming

I concur with the data cable prices. I bought one recently for a SE T610 and was charged an even €50 for it. Again, nothing fancy. Just a cable with a phone connection at one end and a usb connector at the other. No software, no nothing.

Total rip off.

Lomb, the problem is not the price, it's the disparity in price for the same item in countries of a similar status. We're not talking comparing Ireland with some third world country's prices. We're comparing with our european neighbours and N.America

LFCFan

lomb wrote:

standard retail markups for clothes are 100%, for food 400%, for electronics 25%, and for electronic accesories like cables, print cartridges 50-200%, thats the world for u, everyone has overheads, prime rents are up to 200 euro per square foot per year thats 200000 grand a year folks for a small shop , average staff costs+insurances+telephones+ theft of stock+ obselesence of stock+rates+security+cleaners+advertising+delivery costs+vat= over a grand a day, that means just to break even u have to sell between 6000 a days worth of low margin apples or 2000 a days worth of cloathes, just to break even. and thats without making a penny.
ontop of that leases are signed for up to 5 years with commitments (ie no break clauses before) thats a commitment of 1 million euro for those 5 years, and landlords seek personal gaurantees, which means b4 u make a penny u are signing ur life away if u fail.

people should think twice b4 critising anyones prices, if u arent happy with the cost shop around that is the BEST advice, in a legal society no one can force u to pay anything, all transactions are carried out that are 'mutual'

It's a vicious circle of price gouging. 1 service, say Insurance companies, rip companies off. This forces someone like a delivery company to increase their prices to compensate (while adding on another wee bit for themselves). Now you've got the retailer who is now paying more for insurance and for delivery so they increase their prices, along with a bit more for themselves. This happens all over the place and you end up in the situation we're in today. RipOffIreland. In my opinion, Insurance Companies are more culpable then most in the ripoff as ALL companies need insurance so it could be said that it's here that the vicious cycle starts. Still doesn't excuse some companies charging what they do though. They just use it as an excuse.

Zaph

Got the cable today (it's actually been sitting in the local sorting office for a few days but I wasn't able to get down there until today) and it works perfectly. Can't see how a €60 cable would have worked any differently or better.

lomb

yep 60 euro is mad for a cable but being genuine nokia it probably costs the shop 25 then being a niche product it gets marked up to 50 or 60.

my advice like anything is shop around, but u are always going to pay for quality and reputation...be it a phone cable or a car or a house. for example sure the same house in neilstown say cost 250000 might be 1250000 in donnybrook, does that mean the donnybrook one is a rip off and the neilstown one is good value? maybe only the final consumer can decide thats the free market...

lomb

can i also say that i certainly wouldnt pay 60 and i would rather buy it on ebay, just to say i can understand why prices are high. nokia charges shops an arm and a leg for something because its a niche product and has their brand on it, then the shop takes this and like everthing else marks it up, and because its a niche product they HAVE to mark up by 100% to stay in business. their standard phones may only be marked up by 10% and lets face it no one can run a mobile phone shop with 1000 a day overhead by selling 10 ready to go phones at a profit of 15 -20 euro each.
it really is a vicious circle and alot of the blame is on the return to land and prime rents. u really would be risking alot signing long leases and anyone who takes a calculated gamble deserves to have it pay off. of course assuming the consumer is game at the price and service points

jor el

It's not just phone cables either, all cables (and electronic accessories in general) are a complete joke. I had to buy a Firewire cable for my dad at the weekend. He wanted it urgently to try out his new DVD recorder with his digital camera. So I went into Maplin and it was €34 for a 1m cable! I see practically the same one on ebay would have cost £5.32, but as I said, he didn't want to wait.

I was expecting it to be about €20, as USB cables are generally around €20 and this is practically the same, but €34 is completely taking the piss.

It's ridiculous when you consider that you can buy a DVD player in Aldi for €15 but a 4 wire cable costs more than twice that amount.

The Brigadier

As mentioned earlier Rents are a huge factor in this. A large retail group moved out of Grafton Street recently because they could not break even with the cost of the rent.

Grafton Street is one of the most expensive retails streets in the world to rent a unit on.

paconnors

here's my 2 cents

a few months ago i need a data cable for my trusty nokia phone went into o2 galway and was told 80 yo yo's , rememberd a freind of mine who installs fone kits for a living got him to order me one, total paid € 20

Spinnaker

No offense Silas but handing over e50 for a cable ultimately manufactured in China for cents sustains the notion that the retailer can rip us off at will. e25 profit for handing a pre-packaged cable. Grrrrr !!!

Leave it on the shelf so they stop selling, restocking, insulting our better sense and shamelessly profiteering. Its your choice....starve the rip off chain !

dudara

Mobile phone accessories are notoriously over-priced. If you're prepared to wait, it's far easier to purchase them on eBay. I've bought chargers, batteries and data cables, all for a few quid each.

As was said, it's a niche market, and they can and do charge what they like.

FinoBlad

The data cables are even bigger rip off when you consider that the same cable will probably not work on your next phone.

I'd rather one of these for backing up sim card data;
http://www.suntekstore.com/universal-usb-sim-card-reader-and-writer.html

LFCFan

FinoBlad wrote:

The data cables are even bigger rip off when you consider that the same cable will probably not work on your next phone.

I'd rather one of these for backing up sim card data;
http://www.suntekstore.com/universal-usb-sim-card-reader-and-writer.html

not much use though if the data you want is in the phone's memory and not the SIM card which is the case with most newer phones!

LegacyUser

This is slightly off-topic.

Has anyone who posted here every tried to connect using bluetooth? I've a 6310i, and an Inspiron with in-built bluetooth. I eventually configured the laptop to see the phone, but when using Nokia PC Suite, the connection always fcuks up at the last minute. I read somewhere that there's only one bluetooth adaptor compatible with Nokia phones, but the details were a bit sketchy. Is this true? If so then 99% of phones are incompatible with bluetooth PCs, which forces the consumer to purchase an extortionately priced cable.

OMcGovern

€16 for a usb IrDA adapter for your PC.
Or if you've a laptop, you may have an infrared port already.

I got a similar adapter to this at home, works fine with Nokia software and a Nokia 3200 phone.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=120368&cks=SER

regards,
Owen

lardboy

My Inspiron 8600 connects to my 6230 via IR without problem, but I had to edit the BIOS to enable the IR port as it is turned off by default, for some reason.