BlackBerry is going after iPhone users this holiday season, offering owners of Apple’s handset up to $550 if they swap it for the recently released BlackBerry Passport, the business-focused smartphone noted for its square display.
The deal, which kicks off on December 1 and runs till February 13, is valid for U.S. and Canadian shoppers only. In addition, the phone has to be purchased at shopblackberry.com in the U.S. and Canada, or shipped from and sold by Amazon.com in the U.S.
Taking a closer look at the BlackBerry discount, we see that the Waterloo, Ontario, company is offering $150 with a prepaid gift card (CAD$200 for those north of the border), plus up to $400 for the trade-in depending on the model and condition of your iPhone. However, when you realize you can probably get more for your iPhone by selling it yourself, the offer begins to look a little hollow.
The deal is open to anyone with an iPhone 4S and up, but an iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in excellent condition will obviously bag you the top discount of $400, while a beaten up 4S will likely score you next to nothing.
New colors
The company has just made available for pre-order red and white versions of the Passport to go alongside the existing black model, so if you are thinking of dumping your iPhone for a Passport, you now have several flavors to choose from.
But how many sales will BlackBerry realistically make through this limited-time offer? The company’s troubles in the handset business have been documented to death, while the Passport is aimed primarily at business users, cutting out a major chunk of the market from the offset. Perhaps it believes there are former BlackBerry owners out there regretting their hot-headed dash to the iPhone, who long to once again feel a BlackBerry’s physical keys beneath their fingers, and that a trade-in offer like this is precisely what’s needed to win them back. And maybe it is.
Other BlackBerry incentives launched for holiday shoppers include a straight $200 discount on the unlocked black BlackBerry Passport, leaving it with a $499 price tag, and a $100 discount for the white model, taking it down to $599. However, at the time of writing, the red version remains priced at $699 on BlackBerry’s website.
In addition, a hefty $175 has been lopped off the price of the Z30, making it available for $225.
