well, guess what, i dont need a new device every year, i'm really comfortable with the two-year program.
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AT&T Rolls Out New 'AT&T Next' Smartphone and Tablet Upgrade Program
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Every 12 months at the 2 year price + $100 or regular price at every 18 months would be awesome
Yes and no.
Att requires data on all smartphones regardless if its paid for or not on contract.
That's means if I pay $650 full price for smartphone they will add data regardless if I want it or not.
Tmobile used to require data for 24 months on contract phones but if u paid full price data wasn't required.
By making data mandatory on all smartphones att can't have their cake and eat it also. Same with verizon.
Verizon and att know they cannot force mandatory data on the actual phone purchased. That is why if u aren't using a smartphone on the upgraded line they cannot force u to carry data if u have a dumb phone on that line.
After doing the math, the cheapest option is to just get the subsidized phone every two years. However, if you do have to have a new phone every year then the cheapest option is to get the subsidized phone the first year then buy the retail version the next year and sell your first phone, leaving you the ability of obtaining a fully subsidized phone the next year. This is assuming that the only charge you will get from ATT at the end of the first year is the activation of the phone and that you can sell your locked phone at the same price as an unlocked year-old phone. Also if you go with the "Next" plan if you choose to get a new phone every year, your out-of-pocket expense will end up being almost three times what it will be if you just subsidize->buy->subsidize. That's just insane.
That would be a really bad deal, since you are paying more up front....then when you turn it back in you get nothing but the right to get the next phone. If you want to go with the Next plan you're best off paying that phone off as slowly as possible.
But I'm sure AT&T will love your idea! They'll probably call it the Next Plan Plus!
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After doing the math, the cheapest option is to just get the subsidized phone every two years. However, if you do have to have a new phone every year then the cheapest option is to get the subsidized phone the first year then buy the retail version the next year and sell your first phone, leaving you the ability of obtaining a fully subsidized phone the next year. This is assuming that the only charge you will get from ATT at the end of the first year is the activation of the phone and that you can sell your locked phone at the same price as an unlocked year-old phone. Also if you go with the "Next" plan if you choose to get a new phone every year, your out-of-pocket expense will end up being almost three times what it will be if you just subsidize->buy->subsidize. That's just insane.
The cheapest option is to buy outright and then use T-mobile or one of the bring your own MVNO's that are tied to ATT or VZ if you need the better network. Then you can upgrade whenever you want. If you upgrade sooner, your previous phone will have less depreciation. If you hold on longer you'll save money but will have slightly older technology. The key is to find the sweet spot before the phone becomes obsolete and the resale value plummets. I'd say the iPhone 4 hits that point when the 5S comes out. You can still get iOS7 on it, but just a watered down version of it, so that model will really start to slip. Also the low price iPhone will even make a used 4S less attractive on this cycle.
Actually your right I used to get the subsidized phone with AT&T early upgrade then sell my old model and still walk away with $50. So $400 out of pocket every year is a bad deal lol. Ill have to rethink my plan
The phone is a mean to receive the services, we should not pay for it...or should we be able to charge them for making money with all the data collected from us??? Or really be able to stop them from gathering all that data behind the scenes all together??
Crappy monopoly they have...what is next? Pay a toll for every look we do at the device? Pay for every Photo we capture?
Crappy monopoly they have...what is next? Pay a toll for every look we do at the device? Pay for every Photo we capture?
.
Aiming at people that think payday loans and rent to
own is good idea way to buy and pay for things.
actually thats the second worst option if you're going to stick with ATT, i haven't crunched the numbers for T-Mobile so i'll concede to you on that point. assuming that you're going to keep your phone for at least a year until the next model is released, all of my calculations are based on being able to sell your iPhone at 63% of the retail value one year after its release, http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/08/iphone-android-resale-value/, again this is just if you have to have a new phone every year.
This smells nothing more than a shell game because they're going to charge an additional fee on top of the built-in contract price.
I can't wait to ditch AT&T when my contract ends in October 2014.
I can't wait to ditch AT&T when my contract ends in October 2014.
I have mobile share which makes it even more confusing. $120 for data and $30 for unlimited call and text for 4 lines. So realistically I'm paying $60 per line. I wonder how much per line I'm paying extra for the subsidy? $10? $15? Plus I have a $20 discount for being tied to my companies FAN number.
So $120+($30 x 4)-$20.... so $220 before taxes. I wonder how much of that $220 would be considered overpaying with the ATT Next deal?
So $120+($30 x 4)-$20.... so $220 before taxes. I wonder how much of that $220 would be considered overpaying with the ATT Next deal?
People need to get a clue. All of the "wah wah wah I am going to Tmobile" people need to realize why they are cheap. I had Tmobile a couple years ago and unless you live in a major city, your service sucks. In michigan they are the worst provider for coverage. AT&T has an early upgrade policy that is a 250 premium on the 2yr price to upgrade before your contract expires. So for a 16gb iphone I pay 450 for an early upgrade and can easily get 300 of that back when the next iphone launches and I sell on craigslist or ebay, even more than 300 if I unlock it which AT&T will do for free. I won't be doing the AT&T next if the prices don't drop to an amount that would make sense to do it because at 450 each year minus what I sell my old iphone for, I only end up paying 150ish out of pocket to upgrade my phone which isn't bad at all. And at the moment I get to keep my unlimited data which big red isn't doing so I am pretty much good to go. Don't get me wrong, if tmobile had the coverage that AT&T has, I would switch in a heartbeat. But if they did have that much coverage i'm sure they wouldn't stay that cheap. You get what you pay for.
At this point a lot of people won't care about upgrading every year. Tmobile is awesome if you want to keep a phone for three or four years
http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/16/4528404/att-next-phone-upgrade-plans-a-huge-ripoff
AT&T's Next phone upgrade plans are a huge ripoff
Let's do the math: AT&T says that the Samsung Galaxy S4 will have a monthly installment fee of $32, on top of your existing AT&T service fees, which already include a device subsidy. The exact amount of that subsidy is unknown — AT&T declined to comment when I asked — but most industry estimates have put it at something like $20 per month. That's how you can get a GS4 for $199 with a new two-year contract, even though it costs $620 at retail: after two years, AT&T will have collected $680 in total device payments from you, and you get to keep the phone.
But the balance tips entirely towards AT&T with Next. Assuming that same $20 subsidy, after 12 months of Next you will have paid AT&T $384 in Next monthly installments and $240 in device subsidies, for a grand total of $620. Again, that's exactly the full retail cost of an unlocked Galaxy S4 — but you don't get to keep that phone, even though you just paid full price for it. You have to trade it in to get a new phone — effectively giving AT&T a free GS4 to refurbish and resell to its next unwitting customer.
Now, you do get to keep your Next phone if you pay 20 monthly installments, which will cost you a whopping $1,040 if you assume a $20 subsidy: $640 in Next payments, plus $400 in subsidies built into your AT&T plan. That's $420 in pure profit for AT&T, which just made you pay full price for a phone while charging you inflated service prices that include a subsidy specifically designed to lower the upfront cost of that phone.
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AT&T has separated the cost of the phone and the rate plan, but they forgot to pass on the monthly service plan savings to the customer. Instead, customers are paying the same high monthly service bill, but with no device subsidy. That means customers in this program will essentially pay for their phone twice!
At AT&T, customers pay more and get less than at T-Mobile where customers arent charged overages and can save over $50 per month versus AT&T. Americans deserve better than the confusing, complicated deals offered by our competitors. They deserve an Un-carrier they can trust. And they get it at T-Mobile. T-Mobile spokesperson
AT&T's Next phone upgrade plans are a huge ripoff
Let's do the math: AT&T says that the Samsung Galaxy S4 will have a monthly installment fee of $32, on top of your existing AT&T service fees, which already include a device subsidy. The exact amount of that subsidy is unknown — AT&T declined to comment when I asked — but most industry estimates have put it at something like $20 per month. That's how you can get a GS4 for $199 with a new two-year contract, even though it costs $620 at retail: after two years, AT&T will have collected $680 in total device payments from you, and you get to keep the phone.
But the balance tips entirely towards AT&T with Next. Assuming that same $20 subsidy, after 12 months of Next you will have paid AT&T $384 in Next monthly installments and $240 in device subsidies, for a grand total of $620. Again, that's exactly the full retail cost of an unlocked Galaxy S4 — but you don't get to keep that phone, even though you just paid full price for it. You have to trade it in to get a new phone — effectively giving AT&T a free GS4 to refurbish and resell to its next unwitting customer.
Now, you do get to keep your Next phone if you pay 20 monthly installments, which will cost you a whopping $1,040 if you assume a $20 subsidy: $640 in Next payments, plus $400 in subsidies built into your AT&T plan. That's $420 in pure profit for AT&T, which just made you pay full price for a phone while charging you inflated service prices that include a subsidy specifically designed to lower the upfront cost of that phone.
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AT&T has separated the cost of the phone and the rate plan, but they forgot to pass on the monthly service plan savings to the customer. Instead, customers are paying the same high monthly service bill, but with no device subsidy. That means customers in this program will essentially pay for their phone twice!
At AT&T, customers pay more and get less than at T-Mobile where customers arent charged overages and can save over $50 per month versus AT&T. Americans deserve better than the confusing, complicated deals offered by our competitors. They deserve an Un-carrier they can trust. And they get it at T-Mobile. T-Mobile spokesperson
Yeah, this exactly the opposite of what T-Mobile has done. What a ripoff. For this type of plan to make sense for the consumer they would not only have to lower their plan prices by $20/line, but they would have to amortize the phone payment over 24 months, with the option to trade in after 12 for no fees.
Sorry if this has been addressed already, but I was wondering how this works..
So I am an AT&T user, who plans on getting an iPhone 5S this fall, and I am wondering if I need to use this new "Next" program, or can I stick with paying the $299 price tag and just worry about my monthly payments for 24mos?
So I am an AT&T user, who plans on getting an iPhone 5S this fall, and I am wondering if I need to use this new "Next" program, or can I stick with paying the $299 price tag and just worry about my monthly payments for 24mos?
The article isn't entirely clear. If you prepay the full price to unlock your phone, you would normally pay $650. In this deal you pay $390, then turn in your phone and not pay $260 to hit the $650. It's a way to get a new phone every year with no money down, but it's obviously for folks who have money to burn, or who cannot do math. Alas, the best deal is to indeed hold onto a phone for 2 years and only pay $199. Many families leapfrog 1st person gets the new phone, next person gets added a year later and hand-me-down at a cost of $199 per year.
The problem is this is for iphones only. They do not let you upgrade to any other device using the $250 upgrade fee + subsidized price. If you are an iphone user that is by far the best thing to do for the reason you mentioned. I have been doing that the last 2 years.
Agreed, vehicle leases work better than this ATT nonsense. If you don't exceed the mileage and always want a relatively new car at a lower monthly payment than purchasing a car lease can work well. You just factor in paying a car note forever as the cost of having a new vehicle every 2-3 years.
Cheers,
Car leases can get you too, especially if you don't negotiate them right and don't read the fine print. Residual value of the car when you trade it in, even if it's under the miles, can really bite you for example.
And this is why I never understood why anyone would ever pay full price for an iPhone unless they had some major requirement for an unlocked model. But people seem compelled to do so for some sort of satisfaction...makes no sense.
Ugh...no. With good credit you can get a low interest rate and then invest that cash and earn interest on it than the interest you pay on the car. NEVER pay cash for a car if you can get a good interest rate. If for no other reason, that cash is worth more today than it is 5 years from now. Now if your credit sucks, then it's likely you don't have the cash anyway.
Edit: Just re-read your post....I'm ignoring the fact that it is tougher to get a good interest rate on a used car.Back OT, this "deal" sucks unless we see some lowered rates that remove the subsidy overhead. But so many suckers are going to fall for it anyway because most people won't think it through.