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How many people have, or are going to pay full price
- Thread starter Steveo47
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I paid the $299 price on launch last month. That same line is already eligible after one month, but now at the $399/$499 price. I plan on using it again soon but I'll replace one of my other lines with the upgrade.
People can't haggle for toffee (the Brits know what I mean =o)
Stay off the iPhone contracts, haggle with your network provider for every new contract and if you want an iPhone, buy one outright. You'll save a fortune.
My total cost of ownership over my 2 year contract is <£700 - that includes >750mins, >1,000txt, unlimited internet and a brand new 32GB iPhone 4 (and other extras like unlimited landline calls, free broadband etc)
Cost for a deal like that on a 24mth iPhone contract (picking the closest iphone contract and 'rounding down' - also ignoring any of my extras):
600mins, unlimited txt, 500GB - £35/mth
iP4 32GB - £209
Total cost: £1049
That's >£350 saving and gets a better deal too.
Stay off the iPhone contracts, haggle with your network provider for every new contract and if you want an iPhone, buy one outright. You'll save a fortune.
My total cost of ownership over my 2 year contract is <£700 - that includes >750mins, >1,000txt, unlimited internet and a brand new 32GB iPhone 4 (and other extras like unlimited landline calls, free broadband etc)
Cost for a deal like that on a 24mth iPhone contract (picking the closest iphone contract and 'rounding down' - also ignoring any of my extras):
600mins, unlimited txt, 500GB - £35/mth
iP4 32GB - £209
Total cost: £1049
That's >£350 saving and gets a better deal too.
I will pay full price by choice. I'm on my second year of a 3 year contract, and I can't stand Fido anymore. Besides that, Fido stacks the years, so I don't want to stay with them for 4 long more years... Specially knowing I'll change my iPhone in 2 years from now.
Is there anyway to get around paying full price?
I was thinking about opening a second AT&T account and buying an iP4 subsidized, then simply merging that account with my existing account....
I'm guessing I'd still have to pay the termination fee of a single line though?
I was thinking about opening a second AT&T account and buying an iP4 subsidized, then simply merging that account with my existing account....
I'm guessing I'd still have to pay the termination fee of a single line though?
In the US it isn't worth it, no matter what. Subsidized price + ETF on AT&T is less than an iPhone outright. If they sold the phone unlocked for the full price we'd be looking at a different story, but for US buyers I see no reason to not get the subsidy unless it isn't available to you (ie you upgraded to another device too recently to get any kind of subsidy).
This is why we have the atrocious carrier situation in the US.
The prices work out to be very similar once you have a prorated monthly bill, activation fee 375$ tax etc.
Nope.
Its $325 now BTW.
You can add a line to your account if you have a family plan and then transfer the new iphone to your old simcards phone number.
Lolpeople don't realize how much it costs them after 2 years
Well, you're paying for the same plan anyway. Might as well get the subsidized version unless you plan on jumping between carriers.
By the way, I'm eligible for a $400 upgrade. I may do it if I sell my 3GS. If not, I'll try avoiding looking at the iPhone's Retina display, as I hear once you see it, the 3GS looks like crap.
Exactly.
European carriers give you guys a LOT more options to mix and match for your service.
Here in America our carriers structure the bolt-ons to discourage us from getting anything besides the maximum. ex;
For Data we have 200mb for $15 or $25 for 2GB
For Texts we have 200 for $5, 1500 for $15 and unlimited for $20
For Voice it's 450min for 40, 900min for 60 and unlimited for 70
So for the average users , minimal calling and moderate data + texting you are looking at 40 + 15 + 25 + taxes & fees every month. You can try to haggle aka find old forgotten codes but you are only going to save yourself a few dollars on the text side because you are still locked into the data and voice plan.
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The most I've ever paid for a phone was $500. Once for the Razr when it was brand new, & once for the first gen iPhone. Ever since then I've gotten the early upgrade pricing for the newer iPhones.
I don't mind paying a pretty penny for my phones. I get tons of use out of my Apple products, & they're my hobby. It's the same as someone purchasing season tickets every year for their favorite MLB team.
The most I've ever paid for a phone was $500. Once for the Razr when it was brand new, & once for the first gen iPhone. Ever since then I've gotten the early upgrade pricing for the newer iPhones.
I don't mind paying a pretty penny for my phones. I get tons of use out of my Apple products, & they're my hobby. It's the same as someone purchasing season tickets every year for their favorite MLB team.
iPhone 4
Just paid 599 for the sim-free one on the Irish Apple site because my network doesn't do the iPhone and after looking at the new contracts the other companies released for the iPhone 4 they are worse than the previous deals. Hopefully after selling my 3GS and the HTC Desire i got as part of my upgrade on my network the new iPhone 4 won't have cost me anything to buy.
Just paid 599 for the sim-free one on the Irish Apple site because my network doesn't do the iPhone and after looking at the new contracts the other companies released for the iPhone 4 they are worse than the previous deals. Hopefully after selling my 3GS and the HTC Desire i got as part of my upgrade on my network the new iPhone 4 won't have cost me anything to buy.
The mobile phone industry is a weird one. Europe has been way ahead in terms of networks for years - competition and better mobile infrastructure I'd guess.
Things haven't gone as standard with the west leading the way in mobile comms. I remember just before mobile phones became the norm, I went to Lebanon - they were miles ahead of the UK back then. The reason for it was that their landline infrastructure was awful, so the country bypassed some of the latter fixed line technology (eg optical) and chose to become very early adopters of the new mobile phone technology. This was common in other less developed countries too. The UK and the west had a very solid fixed line infrastructure to protect and fall back on in the early mobile comms days.
Things are beginning to change, but for many years friends in the US used to be surprised by how good the mobile technology was over here. Nobody used txts for years over there... we've had 'facetime' on 3G mobile phones since 2003!!! - hasn't been the most popular of services though. As for Japan... I remember them emailing from their phones as standard 6-7 years ago, and they had tiny colour handsets when we were all using bricks with a black and white screen.
This is why I laugh sometimes when I see Steve Jobs spinning his lines on stage that 'apple is the first to bring x to the world', when outside the US the 'world' has had it for almost a decade... but how many of his biggest market would know that?
Anyway, competition is good, and carriers sharing networks is good... and is long over due for the USA. I remember Oz standardising their infrastructure a couple of years ago and totally getting rid of CDMA coverage. The EU have done well in encouraging healthy competition and a healthy mobile infrastructure for member states.
I think we've acknowledged that buying a full price phone in the US is very silly? as there is only 1 real carrier that supports the iPhone at the moment, whereas internationally - specifically in the UK, we have about 7 carriers that can support the iPhone and some deals make the paying upfront and over 18-24months, make it cheaper and allow you to switch/cancel at any time.
I'd say it's mostly land mass. Europe on a whole is less then half the size of America. So because of that you have less operating expenses and can pass on that savings to the consumer. It also means you can upgrade your network faster because you need less towers and that also mean's it's cheaper to do so (operating expenses again) which probably explains why the network was a few years ahead; Although it's basically at the same point right now since LTE isn't out yet.
I paid the full price for the phone (UK).
This lets me get cheaper call plans and overtime doing this saves me money over getting a subsidised phone from a carrier. I also have the bonuses of i. not being tied into a contract ii. my phone is unlocked allowing complete freedom to shop for call plans.
Only bad thing about getting a iPhone straight from apple is that you have to fork over a lot of cash initially and thus it takes 8 months ish before you start to see savings.
This lets me get cheaper call plans and overtime doing this saves me money over getting a subsidised phone from a carrier. I also have the bonuses of i. not being tied into a contract ii. my phone is unlocked allowing complete freedom to shop for call plans.
Only bad thing about getting a iPhone straight from apple is that you have to fork over a lot of cash initially and thus it takes 8 months ish before you start to see savings.