Breakdown of VZW Phone Pricing.

[XprtCop]

The way it works is this:

Retail price of the phones are from $200 and up.
When you go to a VZW Store or a radioshack you see that all the phones have a certain price "with activation" if you look closer at the price tag it also includes an "unactivated price".
By becoming a VZW Customer you get a price break of $200 meaning that Verizon eats that from the cost of the phone and then you only pay whatever price is left on the phone, for example:

The Motorola T 720 retails at $449.99
The phone is on sale for $349.99
You become a new or upgrade VZW customer, they eat $200 off the phone as an incentive.
The Price of the phone is now $149.99
There is a $70 Instant rebate.
Your final price becomes $79.99(considering youre signing a 2 year contract otherwise add $30) PLUS tax on the original price of the phone which in this case was the sale price of $349.99 totaling to $115.46 using the SF CA tax of 8.25%

Therefore whenever you see VZW giving away phones or selling the $.01 cent phones theyre actually eating the $200 retail cost of it. So look at it on the bright side when you buy your first phone or upgrade to a "free" phone, youre actually getting a $200 paperweight ^_^

When it comes to the lenght of the contract youre signing as a new customer there are some perks:
You get $30 off the sale price of phone if you sign up for a 2 year contract.
No Activation Fee
New Every Two phone replacement program

Now if you think about it, If you lose your phone or break it and its not insured before your contract ends dont expect to get a price break because the lowest price youll end up paying for a replacement phone is $200 unless you kept a spare one somewhere.

For all those sprint users who complain about the price of the phones for SPCS, rather you should be jumping for joy because SPCS eats the price of the phone before it reaches the stores so if you see a phone for $100, you buy it, then you lose it, you only pay $100 to get that replacement phone ^_^

-Cop-

[AnthroMatt]

Is that only at RS?

Here you can get a v120e for $179 full retail, Nokia 3285 for $149, and the VX2000 for $169 at a Verizon-owned store.

[XprtCop]

the pricing table is true for both RS and the VZW Retail store.
each account is authorized for certain deals and discounts and they will not always be the same thats why you saw those phones at such price for their retail value, note that the VZW store is owned by VZW and thats probably why they're able to lower the price of the phones, they can afford to eat the price and be more flexible about what they do there. Radioshack is a whole other account and doesnt have the same flexibility.