Phone colours in Canada Vs elsewhere

[rossputin]

Is it just my imagination or does it seem like phones in Canada are quite limited in colour compared to the US/world?   Always white, black/dark blue, or grey?

Why don't we ever see fun vibrant colours?

[CFPartDeux]

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@AE_Collector wrote:

Just the beige AE 880 Speakerphone is missing here, my beige one needs some work!

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Looks like someone was upset at some point in time, in a couple of those aforementioned boardrooms, and must've tossed some pens(or something larger) at the speakers on a couple of those phones. 😮 🤣

And that orchid phone would almost be enough to make me want to get a landline again..... almost. 😉

[AE_Collector]

@CFPartDeux 

Yeah those last two (red and purple) aren’t actually mine. I have the speakerphone in all 6 colours it was made in but they never made it in red. That has always been a bit of a mystery to me. Automatic Electric had a standard red colour used on many other models but someone in marketing decided to limit the colours available on the speakerphone. Okay but that red looks fantastic in the speakerphone which was used in boardrooms and executive offices. You telling me red wouldn’t have been popular on this model? This one has been repainted red by a collector who has many phones professionally painted.

The purple one is a colour called Orchid by Automatic Electric. It is more a 1930’s and 40’s colour they offered when almost all phones were black so it is extremely rare to find. Furthermore, early coloured plastics didn’t hold up well, certain formulations of plastics shrank considerably with age and/or heat. And the orchid colour was notorious for changing with time to robins egg blue which also was very nice as long as it changed colours evenly. 

AE_Collector

Just the beige AE 880 Speakerphone is missing here, my beige one needs some work!

[CFPartDeux]

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@AE_Collector wrote:

I did the best I could (on short notice)… well okay, I could have done better. But when was the last time you tried to take a picture standing on the kitchen island looking down while your better half expressed her feelings …. Constantly!

LOL, maybe next time tell her to take a walk for a few minutes, so she doesn't have to witness the upcoming picture taking event. 😁

AE_Collector

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You've been holding out on us - don't recall seeing this particular specimen before..... am kinda diggin' both the style(have seen similar before) and especially the colour! 👍

[AE_Collector]

I did the best I could (on short notice)… well okay, I could have done better. But when was the last time you tried to take a picture standing on the kitchen island looking down while your better half expressed her feelings …. Constantly!

AE_Collector

[Korth]

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@AE_Collector wrote:

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These colours are arranged in an improper order. Illogical. Wrong. It makes me sad.

[AE_Collector]

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@rossputin wrote:

Is it just my imagination or does it seem like phones in Canada are quite limited in colour compared to the US/world?   Always white, black/dark blue, or grey?

Why don't we ever see fun vibrant colours?

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I haven't noticed this lack of phone colour situation around my house.

AE_Collector

[Korth]

Mass-produced "luxury" consumer items in other industries - automotive, gaming motherboards/cards, consoles, books, DVDs/Blu-Rays - often come in a variety of colours or appearances but restrict which ones are available in each region.

Maybe it's a logistics thing, just cheaper to offer fewer choices in smaller markets.

Maybe it's an executive decision, some marketing genius determined that backwards consumers from superstitious little Canada aren't going to buy "unlucky" or "haunted" colours like black, or that bling bling consumers in America aren't going to buy anything which isn't ostentatiously plated in gangsta gold.

Maybe it's a more aggressive marketing decision. They know that certain items are prized by collectors, people willing to pay whatever it costs to own a complete set. The desirable "missing" colours can be made available later, allowing device sales to continue at a steady rate. And yes, there are people out there who simply must own every single version of the latest flagship superphone, cost be damned.

Maybe it's a deliberate method of visually tracking device distribution once things trickle through middlemen and aftermarket vendors. If pink phones are only intended to be sold in China or India then the manufacturer will be interested in knowing how/why so many pink phones end up in Canada.

These days you can "re-skin" your phone anyhow. Just slap a case onto it which covers 99% of the chassis plastics with whatever colour/pattern you desire.

[softech]

yup true...

i guess generally speaking Canada and US are both behind in terms of colours selection.  Europe has more choices and definitely Asia has more colours.

but I think what we really behind is phone models.  even US has more different phones than us.  Similarly , Europe and Asia has the best selection.

[darlicious]

@rossputin 

That's what phone cases are for....

[Anonymous]

Retailing's a funny thing. The retailer would say well it doesn't sell...why would I take up space for a product that doesn't sell. To which I wonder, well when did you last try to sell such a thing? crickets. Canada is short-changed on a lot of products. Our puny, what, pushing 40mil people spread across a huge land but mostly in a few city centres just doesn't demand every product out there.