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Buy clearance iPhone 5 or wait for 5S?

W

wellingtonwimpy

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 21, 2010
35
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Are any 4/4S users considering buying one of the $99 starting to crop up at carriers and retailers like Walmart? I'm trying to decide if it would be a steal or just foolish.

I use my phone mostly for e-mailing, browsing and casual snapshots (no gaming beyond sudoku), and wouldn't use the fingerprint ID function even if I had it. I also don't want a phone that looks like it came from a claw crane machine (i.e., the 5C). Seems like a discount 5 might be the best bet, unless I'm missing something.
 
wellingtonwimpy said:
Are any 4/4S users considering buying one of the $99 starting to crop up at carriers and retailers like Walmart? I'm trying to decide if it would be a steal or just foolish.

I use my phone mostly for e-mailing, browsing and casual snapshots (no gaming beyond sudoku), and wouldn't use the fingerprint ID function even if I had it. I also don't want a phone that looks like it came from a claw crane machine (i.e., the 5C). Seems like a discount 5 might be the best bet, unless I'm missing something.
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Remember if you are not into selling your phone on ebay or craigs list, you can bring in your old phone to an apple store and get credit towards a new one. My 4S is worth $200 so that really helps if you are already due for a new phone at the lower price.
 
wellingtonwimpy said:
Are any 4/4S users considering buying one of the $99 starting to crop up at carriers and retailers like Walmart? I'm trying to decide if it would be a steal or just foolish.

I use my phone mostly for e-mailing, browsing and casual snapshots (no gaming beyond sudoku), and wouldn't use the fingerprint ID function even if I had it. I also don't want a phone that looks like it came from a claw crane machine (i.e., the 5C). Seems like a discount 5 might be the best bet, unless I'm missing something.
Click to expand...
Where are you going to get a discount iPhone 5 from?
 
I say get the 5 especially that you've stated you won't use the fingerprint scanner. The 5 is super fast and since you dont play games, I doubt you'll see a big difference in performance. The 5 for $100 is a steal imo since for the same money now you'll getting the 5c. I've had every iphone since the beginning and just got the 5 for $100 at the AT&T store. Sure I can pay another 100 and get the 5s but the 5 is a FAST phone.
 
Anyone think that some places will make the 5 lower than 100 once the 5c and 5s are ofically out?

I cant see them trying to sell it side by side with a 5c for the same price...
 
The 5s does offer hardware improvement such as improved lte bands, new processor with the m7 chip, much better graphics performance and 64bit architecture, slightly bigger battery. the iPhone 5 is still a great phone too
 
Paintballguy said:
Anyone think that some places will make the 5 lower than 100 once the 5c and 5s are ofically out?

I cant see them trying to sell it side by side with a 5c for the same price...
Click to expand...

Given how tightly Apply controls these things, I doubt the retailer contracts allow those stores to sell an officially discontinued product. My guess is they'll sell as many as they can by next Friday for whatever they can get, then Apple will buy them back at the wholesale price and disassemble them for parts to use on refurbs.
 
wellingtonwimpy said:
Given how tightly Apply controls these things, I doubt the retailer contracts allow those stores to sell an officially discontinued product. My guess is they'll sell as many as they can by next Friday for whatever they can get, then Apple will buy them back at the wholesale price and disassemble them for parts to use on refurbs.
Click to expand...

I plead ignorance, but WHY would a company take a sunk cost (manufacturing/packaging/shipping) and compound it (buying a product back/having it shipped back/disassemble it)?

They could sell it "cheap" and not compound a loss.
 
billycuth said:
I plead ignorance, but WHY would a company take a sunk cost (manufacturing/packaging/shipping) and compound it (buying a product back/having it shipped back/disassemble it)?

They could sell it "cheap" and not compound a loss.
Click to expand...

That's what a normal company would do, and that's essentially what Apple always has done in the past by just knocking $100 off the previous model. But Apple is notoriously controlling and made it a point this time to discontinue the iPhone 5 in favor of its new high-end/lower-end scheme. I'm speculating, but I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a concerted effort to get iPhone 5s out of the marketplace and push the new stuff, at least in primary markets. You certainly won't be able to find an iPhone 5 in an Apple store.
 
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