T-Mobile announces pro-rating of termination fees

T-Mobile has just weighed in with particulars on how it will pro-rate its early termination fee, the penalty of up to $200 it charges when subscribers cancel their service before the end of a new 12- or 24-month service contract starting June 28.

T-Mobile brings to three the number of major cell carriers who are reducing such fees, which range from $150 to $200, depending on how far subscribers are into their contract. Two other big companies, Alltel (which may soon be swallowed up by Verizon) and Sprint, are not yet making such adjustments, though they've pledged to do so.

So while T-Mobile's announcement is welcome, its pro-rating is in some ways less generous than the schemes for Verizon and AT&T, the other majors who pro-rate their termination fees. T-Mobile's $200 fee, the highest among the three companies, doesn't actually drop at all for the first year-and-a-half of two-year contracts.

Vizio hits $600, $800 prices for 32- and 42-inch plasmas

In conjunction with retail partner Wal-Mart, Vizio—a company whose sets have typically fared well in our Ratings of plasma TVs (available to subscribers)—is now offering 32- and 42-inch 720p plasma models at prices of $600 and $800, respectively. The 32-inch screen size for plasma, popular in Asia, is new to the U.S. and will enable plasma to compete for the first time with smaller LCD models.

The company has also announced a new higher-performance series—called XVT—that will include both 1080p plasma and LCD models.

The VP422, the 42-inch model, is especially low-priced compared to 720p models from other well-known brands, which typically cost $1,000 or more. While there are no other 32-inch plasmas, the VP322's price compares favorably to 32-inch LCD models in our Ratings, which are typically priced at $800 or more. One exception: Vizio's own VW32L HDTV, which sells for the same $600.

Both models have 3 HDMI inputs, plus component video and RGB PC connections, and offer multiple color temperature settings and independent Red/Green/Blue adjustments.  The company claims that these latest models use new glass for improved brightness for use in brighter rooms. The TVs are now available in all 3,400 Wal-Mart retail locations.

BBB warns of DTV converter-box scam

The confusing conversion from analog to digital TV broadcasts is ripe for consumer deception—which is exactly what one company is practicing in a nationwide advertising campaign, according to the Better Business Bureau.

A BBB investigation found that Universal TechTronics is peddling "five-year warranties" for $59 that must be purchased with their "free" digital TV converter boxes. With shipping and handling fees rolled in, the total cost per box is nearly $100.

BBB believes that these are the same boxes consumers can buy in electronics retail stores across the country using $40 U.S. government coupons that make the total cost to consumers about $20 per box. Consumer Reports just completed tests of 14 DTV converter boxes.

Old to new iPhone: AT&T upgrade policies

AT&T will be offering various breaks to current iPhone owners to induce them to upgrade to the new iPhone 3G, which debuts July 11.

The new models will cost $200 less than comparable first-generation iPhones—potentially leaving those who recently bought the older model stuck with a fairly new, already outmoded phone.

Anyone who bought the original iPhone on or after May 27 will be able to return it and receive a refund on the price difference between comparable new and old iPhones, minus a 10 percent restocking fee.

"We just want to be fair to customers who were very, very late purchasers of the 2G iPhone," said AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel in an interview. Anyone who merely bought earlier—including merely "very late"—will be out of luck on the returning their iRelic and receiving a refund on its price difference with the new model.

Refund or not, anyone who upgrades from original to 3G iPhone will have to sign a new 2-year contract that begins when they take possession of the new phone. And, as we previously reported, they'll have to pay $10 more per month for the data plan. Those who hold on to their old iPhones won't see a data-plan increase—even when they renew their contracts, according to Siegel.

AT&T is taking a quiet approach to publicizing these policies. Siegel maintains they've been in effect since the new iPhone was introduced. Yet there's no mention of them in the iPhone press release or on AT&T's Web site.

—Mike Gikas

DTV converter box: Ratings and buying advice

[Aug. 26, 2008 UPDATE: We've added 24 new models to our Ratings of DTV converter boxes. See our latest update to our guide to DTV converter boxes for more information. Both are free on ConsumerReports.org. —Ed.]

Our guide to DTV converter boxes, including Ratings and model recommendations, is now available on ConsumerReports.org. This section expands on all the information we've previously posted about these set-top boxes, including:

• Ratings of 14 DTV converter boxes (no online subscription required!). We'll continue to update these Ratings as we buy and test more models over the coming months.
• Notes and recommendations for each of the DTV converter box models we've put through our labs.
• Buying advice including "how to choose" and "features" that count.

We hope this new section will serve as an online "help center" for DTV converter boxes and digital TV transition issues. But we realize there are still many challenges for us and for consumers.

Is June 18 the end of the line for Windows XP? Not quite.

After a 5-month stay of execution, the end is nigh for Windows XP.

Tomorrow, June 18, will be the last day you can purchase a Dell computer with XP pre-installed. Dell has announced this in order to meet Microsoft's June 30 deadline for ceasing sales of XP.

I spot-checked other manufacturers' sites and found limited availability of computers, mainly business-oriented models, available with XP. Compaq and HP together offered at least 11 laptops and 7 desktops, Lenovo a couple of laptops, and Sony one model. I couldn't find any Gateway models with XP.

Microsoft had originally intended to kill XP this past January in order to give its heir, Vista, total reign over the PC market.  But an outcry from consumers and businesses  (and manufacturers looking to appease them) stayed Microsoft’s hand for five months to give XP users time to warm to the beleaguered Vista.

Says Microsoft to Vista detractors:

"We love that you love Windows XP…But our commitment to innovation sometimes means making tough choices. This is one of them."

Despite the tone of finality, Microsoft has left open several loopholes so that XP lovers can hang onto it for some years to come.

GPS and the new iPhone 3G

Portable GPS navigation devices aren't just for car drivers and hikers anymore. An increasing number of cell phones are adding turn-by-turn navigation services and location-related capabilities. (See: "Cell phones that tell you where to go.") The latest of these is the recently announced iPhone 3G (Click on image), due out on July 11.

Our colleagues over at the Cars Blog can't wait to get their hands on a new iPhone—just like us here on the Electronics Blog. Naturally, they'll want one to test out how its GPS-based navigation feature will work compared to a dedicated GPS unit. And in preparation for the day we get a few into our labs (and test cars), they've already gone ahead and mapped out (sorry) some of the iPhone's navigation potentials. (See: "Apple puts new iPhone 3G on the GPS navigation map.")

The new iPhone shows promise as a full-featured smart phone with improved navigation abilities over the current iPhone. But:

Two digital photo frames that try to do more

The creep of convergence—that is, of devices that take on extra tasks once done by separate, standalone units—has now reached the digital photo frame, with mixed results. Yesterday, we blogged about the Sony DPF-V700, $189, a decent-performing 7-inch frame that's also a fine slide-show player for your HDTV. Today's post covers two more attempts to integrate a digital photo frame with another device: the SmartParts SP8PRT, $279, an 8-inch frame with a built-in printer, and the GE 27956FE1, $130, a 7-inch frame with a built-in cordless phone.

Both are the first of their kind that we've seen and tested in our labs. And an electronic picture frame that does more than just show off digital photos might sound cool—and a seemingly perfect gift for Father's Day or recent graduate.

Unfortunately, neither the SmartParts or the GE digital picture frame fulfills the promise of convergence.

The Sony DPF-V700 digital photo frame: A great slide-show player, too

If you've ever fed images from your digital camera to your HDTV, you've probably been disappointed at how they looked on the big screen. That's because most cameras can't output images in high-definition. Enter the Sony DPF-V700, $189. (Click on the image, right, for a closer look.) In our latest tests of digital photo frames, this decent-performing 7-inch frame proved adept at turning an HDTV into a megasized photo frame of superb quality.

On its own screen, the frame produced very good image quality overall, although it scored slightly lower in one image attribute, contrast, than in the others, color rendition and clarity. Its greatest distinction (besides being one of the first frames from Sony, whose HDTVs typically score very well in our Ratings of plasma TVs and Ratings of LCD TVs) is that it's one of the few frames with an HDMI output for connecting directly to an HDTV.

When connected to an HDTV via HDMI cable, the DPF-V700 successfully transmitted 1080i resolution images that looked as good on the big screen as on the device's own smaller display. That's an unusual achievement since most frames output only at low, VGA resolution, which invariably yields dreadful images on an HDTV.

As a slide-show player, the DPF-V700 has minor drawbacks. Most digital photos have either a 4:3 or 3:2 aspect ratio, squarer than the 16:9 aspect ratio used by HDTVs. When you view photos on a TV set, then, you generally must use the menu system on the frame to either zoom in and crop off images' edges or live with a letterbox effect-black bars framing the edges of your photo. Also, high-res viewing requires an HDMI cable, an extra that costs about $20.

The bottom line: This Sony is well-priced and performs decently as a photo frame, though it falls a little short of the very best models in our Ratings of digital picture frames (available to subscribers). But it's worth serious consideration if you're a slide-show aficionado who wants good quality images, but can't display them directly from a computer, which is the only other way to enjoy them in their original resolution.

—Terry Sullivan

New iPhone: Lower price, higher cost

The new iPhone 3G, announced yesterday and available next month, costs $200 less to buy than its predecessor. But the new version (click on the image for a closer look) will actually cost a little more to buy and use in the long run than its predecessor, due to higher service costs.

The new phone is $200 in its 8-GB version and $300 in its 16-GB version, compared with $400 and $500 for the older iPhones of the same capacity. An unlimited data plan with the new device is $30, $10 a month more than with the old iPhone. (The least-expensive voice plan, with 450 minutes a month, is the same price as with the old iPhone, at $39.99 a month.) Multiply the $10-a-month extra data cost times the required 24-month contract period and you're on the hook for $240 in additional charges for owning the new iPhone rather than its predecessor.

The hike in fees may be rooted in a change in the business arrangements between AT&T and Apple for the new iPhone. With the original iPhone, subscribers paid full price for the device, even though a two-year contract commitment was required—an unusual arrangement. The new version reverts to a more traditional business model for the industry. That is, AT&T will buy the phones from Apple and sell them to customers for less than they paid. Then they'll devote a part of subscribers' bills every month to reimbursing themselves for that subsidy.

So customers will pay a little more to buy and use the new device as the old, but they'll pay that slightly higher cost more slowly. The lower upfront cost likely will, as Apple's Steve Jobs predicts, allow some people to buy the device who couldn't swallow the $400 price tag for its predecessor. And, at $200 the iPhone 3G will be very competitively priced, given that plenty of plain cell phones that lack the iPhone's versatility cost that much or more. Also, new iPhone owners are getting a faster, more capable 3G network, rather than the slower AT&T EDGE (2G) network used by the older iPhones (the data plan for which will remain priced at $20 a month, according to AT&T).

All that said, the headlines proclaiming the new phone as cheaper than the old don't quite tell the whole story.

If you're looking for other money-saving tips, see our recent post, "Cell plan extra charges: Why and what you can do." Additional information on ConsumerReports.org will also help you find the best cell phone deals as well as other ways to cut your cell phone bill (available to subscribers only).

—Paul Reynolds