We will always advocate picking your carrier before picking your phone, but sometimes the allure of a specific phone can be too much to overcome. Millions switched to AT&T to get access to the first four iPhones, BlackBerry faithful jumped to Verizon and Vodafone to get the first BlackBerry Storm, and old Palm fans moved to Sprint to pick up a Palm Pre. They made these moves not out of interest in monthly savings or coverage, but for a specific device - one exclusive to that carrier.
These carrier exclusives have long been a fact of life in the smartphone space, but with smartphones becoming something that even the average consumer has an opinion on, they're increasingly becoming more of a headache. When it comes to smartphones, there's little worse than the new hotness landing on a different carrier than yours and you finding yourself a year away from getting out of your contract without forking over a heft ETF.
Exclusives can be good for manufacturers, no doubt. But can they be bad for them too? And are they bad for consumers outside of the frustration of denial? And what about all of the apps and services that the carrier insists on loading on these handsets - are they useful, or just useless bloat?
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Nicole Scherzinger
Katie Cassidy
Arielle Kebbel
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