The Vibe K5, one of Lenovo’s attempts to eat into the Xiaomi Redmi market, is now on pre-sale in Europe.
In Greece, the K5 can be pre-ordered for (what I think is a rather hefty) €199.
The Vibe K5 was initially shown to the world by Lenovo at the Mobile World Congress earlier this year. The phone features a 5-inch 1280 x 720p HD display, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of on-board storage, a 13 mega-pixel rear camera, 5 mega-pixel front facing camera and a 2750mAh battery.
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Considering that the Vibe K5 was announced for $129, the €199 price tag sounds quite steep. Potential buyers (according to Lenovo) might be better off importing a Xiaomi from China at that price, one would assume.
Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that the K5 Plus was launched in India a few weeks back for 8,499 INR ($126).
The SD415 is basically a 100Mhz lower clocked SD615(which is now considered entry level)
So, not a bad package, but a bit steep, should have been areound 150 Euros.
Even 150euro would be too expensive given how little it is selling for in other countries. At most 130.
Because in Europe taxes are much higher and people have more money in general – hence the much higher price.
They are also spoiled picky costimers that don’t trow their money away so this certainly won’t go. The tax difference is not that big, $ to € is usual differentiation & mainly for US brand goods that sale in EU.
More than that simply won’t pass & even that wouldn’t pass if EU isn’t US bitch.
EU market is at least more competitive as we are allowed to have MTK and Kirin based phones, unlike the US which is Qualcomm and Intel monopoly market.
EU market is not competitive at all as it doesn’t have its own products & it needs to have them in order to be competitive or simply to say that it can dictate it’s own turn. Without inter EU additional taxes that do apply to those out of union wile having fabs & brains I think they can be very competitive at list within its borders.
Perhaps you are not aware of a little British company called ARM that actually licenses all smartphone SoC architecture?
ARM design & license them doesn’t manufacture any. I do know a lot of hardware manufacturers including some you never heard of like British Paralela. I am well aware that architecturally EU is advanced as it owns: MIPS, ARM, D32 but when it comes to actual silicone in consumer electronics their are almost nowhere to be found wile it has biggest needs for it as a largest developed market.
Because the salaries and facilities rent in Europe make it impossible to be market competitive at the moment. Everything else is based in Asia, even if some products are assembled in US, all the parts are still Japan/Taiwan/China
i shudder to think how it will sell in Pakistan … our $ to rupee ratio is already shit …
129 US dollars is approximately 114 euros (with today currency exchange rate), 199€ is 74% more than US price.
And for that price we have better options.