Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
Before the mass adoption of smartphones in the U.S., many fretted that the heavy subsidization model was feeding a free handset model that would keep Americans hopelessly addicted to basic voice plans and phones optimized for them. The price consumers paid in relation to the value of the handset, it was argued, was hopelessly out of whack. This year, a string of successful smartphones hae shown that an increasing percentage of U.S. consumers are willing to pay $200 for a flagship device. On the other hand, there;s still ample evidence that price and value can
