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Torn between Iphone and Itouch

J

jbjints

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 15, 2009
10
0
Hello,
I am considering purchasing a 8gb black Iphone but I am currently under contract with Sprint. I am considering purchasing an Itouch and keeping my Instinct until my contract expires. My biggest problem with the Itouch would be that I would need wi-fi access and another drawback would be that I'd be carrying two devices, meanwhile with the Iphone I'd have an all in one device.

I could give my son my Instinct and purchase the Iphone but I'd then be paying 300 dollars in cell phone bills for my Sprint account and At&t account, unless I downgrade my Sprint account which might be my only solution.

I am so torn atm because the Iphone would be exactly what I need. As a nursing student I'd benefit because my drug guides and various other nursing type programs are Iphone compatible too!!

Sorry but I just had to vent.
 
I know the feeling.....I only have to wait until the end of July for my contract to be up with telus though. I personally decided to wait to get a new iPhone instead of getting a a touch.
 
I was in this situation last year. I was stuck in a 2yr tmobile plan so I got the 8gb touch in January. A few weeks before the launch of the iPhone 3g, tmobile increased their text messaging rates, that was my way out without having to pay the ETF. I immidiately sold my touch for 250 and waited for the iPhone.
 
eplchamps0304 said:
I was in this situation last year. I was stuck in a 2yr tmobile plan so I got the 8gb touch in January. A few weeks before the launch of the iPhone 3g, tmobile increased their text messaging rates, that was my way out without having to pay the ETF. I immidiately sold my touch for 250 and waited for the iPhone.
Click to expand...

Do surcharges count as a way to get out of contracts? I have noticed that my surcharges fluctuate every month but they do state in that section of the bill that the surcharges are subject to change.

I am going to have to buy the iPhone. I just spent an hour looking at the available apps and I have found at least 20 apps that I could use religiously. I hate paying for another phone with the economy in a state of flux but I may have to dip in to my entertainment budget for the month and explain to my wife that the IPhone is also considered entertainment hehe.

I am pissed that I went out and bought the Instinct. Instinct owners can say whatever they want but the iPhone blows it away, hands down.
 
I just don't think it is worth it for you to pay for the early termination fee AND pay for an Iphone.

If you can get out of your contract somehow without paying the ETF then do it now. Sell the Instinct to ease the burden of purchasing and iphone. Your phone contract will be higher on ATT than Sprint. however, you will most likely see a boost in coverage.

I was on the fence about purchasing the iphone as well. I was worried about not being able to keep most of my music from my 60GB ipod on the 16GB iphone. But I just carefully selected my playlists and just synced the music I listen to the most. It is also really convenient to carry only one device rather than 2 or 3.

It is a nice feature to be able to go online with 3G rather than having to rely strictly on wifi. Not every place has wifi and so far I have no complaints with ATT 3G coverage and 3G speed. Surprisingly fast.

See if you can get someone to buy your instinct to lessen the cost of purchasing the iPhone. It's still a good phone that most people on Sprint would want to have.
 
You could also try getting someone to take over your contract. I assume you can do that in the states like you can in Canada.
 
Don't underestimate the benefit of only having to carry around one device. To be honest, I think this is probably the single most compelling reason to get the iPhone.

That being said, I wouldn't run out to get an iPhone simply to avoid having to carry around two devices. I think you need to sit down and do a cost/benefit analysis. Other members can give you some things to add to both the costs and benefits of owning an iPhone, but at the end of the day it's a personal choice.

If truth be told, I think most people already have their minds made up before posting a "should I buy or not" thread and are only looking for justification. I have no idea whether or not that is the case with you, but you should keep that in mind when looking at similar threads.

Final thought: As a nursing student, there are many apps that you might find interesting and/or useful. Check out the medical section of the App Store on iTunes. As you probably know, most will work with either an iPhone or iPod Touch.
 
You guys don't have to be so literal. iTouch, iPod Touch, same thing :p

Anyway, the iPhone is incredible and the iPod touch is way overpriced IF you can get the iPhone for the subsidized price. Everyone seems to think it's a given a new iPhone will come out in June/July but I personally am not carving it in stone. If you truly want the all-in-one device you'll be pleasantly surprised what the iPhone can do and who knows if the new one will be what we all want it to be. I just think the 3G will be around another year but will get big FW updates until summer 2010 when the holy grail of iPhones will be released.
 
I called Sprint tonight to speak to them about early termination......$200 bucks per phone. What I spoke to them about was downgrading my plan and maybe that way I could offset the monthly cost of At&t's more expensive plan. One thing about At&t that is phenomenal is the rollover minutes, you just cannot beat that.

I was reviewing my monthly bills for the previous 5 months and I noticed that the tops anytime minutes I have ever used was 534 minutes and my plan is a 1500 minute plan. Sprint will not budge though on lowering my monthly rates because I need the "All data" plan because of the Instinct.

I am going to head over to Sprint tomorrow to attempt to downgrade my Instinct so I can downgrade my monthly plan to $79.99/month for 700 minutes and an extra $20.00 for unlimited text messaging. This way alone would shave $30.00 off of my monthly Sprint bill. I pay around $170.00 for three phones, unlimited text, free nights & weekends and 1500 anytime minutes which to me seems rather high.

How much does At&t charge you for extra lines? I should have asked this before.

If Sprint doesn't work with me, I am going to transfer all of my numbers to At&t and just outright not pay Sprint. I will wait two months and call them to settle, try to get them before they call the credit agencies. I know this is very shady but I should have done this long ago. Sprint has some shoddy service, between dropped calls and dead spots their service isn't very good at all. Is this the wrong thing to do? I do not want to be a deadbeat but Sprint has not worked with me once on anything.

I know someone who called Sprint and pretty much bitched and moaned until they canceled her contract hehe. She complained about their horrible service and would not stop and sure enough they canceled her account. Maybe I should try that?

How is At&t's service for non iPhone's? Do they have affordable family plans?
 
jbjints said:
I called Sprint tonight to speak to them about early termination......$200 bucks per phone. What I spoke to them about was downgrading my plan and maybe that way I could offset the monthly cost of At&t's more expensive plan. One thing about At&t that is phenomenal is the rollover minutes, you just cannot beat that.

I was reviewing my monthly bills for the previous 5 months and I noticed that the tops anytime minutes I have ever used was 534 minutes and my plan is a 1500 minute plan. Sprint will not budge though on lowering my monthly rates because I need the "All data" plan because of the Instinct.

I am going to head over to Sprint tomorrow to attempt to downgrade my Instinct so I can downgrade my monthly plan to $79.99/month for 700 minutes and an extra $20.00 for unlimited text messaging. This way alone would shave $30.00 off of my monthly Sprint bill. I pay around $170.00 for three phones, unlimited text, free nights & weekends and 1500 anytime minutes which to me seems rather high.

How much does At&t charge you for extra lines? I should have asked this before.

If Sprint doesn't work with me, I am going to transfer all of my numbers to At&t and just outright not pay Sprint. I will wait two months and call them to settle, try to get them before they call the credit agencies. I know this is very shady but I should have done this long ago. Sprint has some shoddy service, between dropped calls and dead spots their service isn't very good at all. Is this the wrong thing to do? I do not want to be a deadbeat but Sprint has not worked with me once on anything.

I know someone who called Sprint and pretty much bitched and moaned until they canceled her contract hehe. She complained about their horrible service and would not stop and sure enough they canceled her account. Maybe I should try that?

How is At&t's service for non iPhone's? Do they have affordable family plans?
Click to expand...

Why are you willing to ruin your credit because of a phone that is about to be upgraded anyway?
 
Origionaly I had an itouch but soon I found out that the iPhone came to Canada, so wanting more then just an itouch and debating on going dual device (itouch/cell) or just iphone I sold my itouch to a friend and bought an iPhone.

Thus no longer seeing a need for an itouch I say hold off on both the iphone and itouch and buy an iPhone your contract ends or make your kid pay for the downsized sprint bill.
 
jbjints said:
Hello,
I am considering purchasing a 8gb black Iphone but I am currently under contract with Sprint. I am considering purchasing an Itouch and keeping my Instinct until my contract expires. My biggest problem with the Itouch would be that I would need wi-fi access and another drawback would be that I'd be carrying two devices, meanwhile with the Iphone I'd have an all in one device.

I could give my son my Instinct and purchase the Iphone but I'd then be paying 300 dollars in cell phone bills for my Sprint account and At&t account, unless I downgrade my Sprint account which might be my only solution.

I am so torn atm because the Iphone would be exactly what I need. As a nursing student I'd benefit because my drug guides and various other nursing type programs are Iphone compatible too!!

Sorry but I just had to vent.
Click to expand...

Be careful if you downgrade your minute plan with Sprint. It could reset your contract if you change your minute plan. That was their policy when I was with them. I would make sure you have it in some kind of writing that if you lower your minute plan it won't reset your contract ;)
 
when does your contract expire?

$200 ETF per phone is ridiculously expensive. Not worth it in my opinion. Also don't ruin your credit just to get an iPhone. it will make things much more difficult in the future when you want to purchase something or take out loans.

Better to wait and probably by the time your contract expires, there will be newer and better iphones available. Just switch the entire family over and you can all share rollover minutes.
 
My contract expires in August of 2010. I could always maybe reduce my text messaging from unlimited to something less and sooner or later they will raise the cost per text and at that point I'd be able to cancel my contract.
 
Personally, I'd just wait until Sprint changes their contract. They do this fairly frequently, and it's an easy way to dodge the ETF.
 
Get the iPod Touch and wait for the next generation iPhone which MacRumors has recently posted on its site....
 
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