Each time Apple releases a new iPhone I ask myself is buying it on contract the wise thing to do? If you are in the USA you have no choice it is AT&T signing your life away for 2 years: End Of! It used to be like that in the UK too, but with the [...]
iPhone 4 price comparisons
Each time Apple releases a new iPhone I ask myself is buying it on contract the wise thing to do? If you are in the USA you have no choice it is AT&T signing your life away for 2 years: End Of!
It used to be like that in the UK too, but with the iPhone 3GS PAYG was introduced and that changed the game. Still on O2 and the iPhone was locked to the O2 network. But then O2 lost its monopoly and other carriers got in on the act. The result is that with the launch of the iPhone 4 we will have 4 carriers available and the iPhone will be available both on contract and SIM free.
So with all these options available what is the best way to own an iPhone 4? Read on to find out…
Well firstly you have to make a decision about how long you want to own it! That may sound a bit silly, but if you are like me you will be wanting the iPhone 5 (or whatever) in 12 months time. This means that I will have to suffer a penalty for early upgrade (if they will allow it) or as I did last year take the hit and have another contract until the old one expires.
I have costed out the options below for the full term of the contract on the assumption that you will have to pay them. Ownership for more than one year will change the costings, but even so the SIM free option would still be just £679 with no ties for 18 months.
As you can see it gets complicated and there are quite a few decisions to be made. So lets start looking at a comparison of Contract and PAYG iPhones. I make the assumption that you will select the lowest voice tariff, as nobody buys an iPhone to make voice calls…
The table below is based on the 16Gb iPhone 4:
| Contract | Phone Cost | Airtime cost | Total airtime | Total cost |
| O2 PAYG | £499 | £10/month 12 months 300 Text 500Mb data |
£120 | £619 |
| O2 | £209 | £30/month 18 months 100mins calls Unlimited texts 500Mb data |
£540 | £749 |
| Orange | £239 | £35/month 18 months 600mins calls 500 texts Unlimited (750Mb) data |
£630 | £859 |
| Vodafone (Updated 21June) |
£219 | £30/month 18 months 75mins calls 250 texts 1Gb data |
£540 | £759 |
T-Mobile and 3 are yet to declare, but from the looks of things if you want an iPhone 5 then getting an iPhone 4 SIM FREE is the way to go.
In my case things are slightly more complicated.
I still have 6 months to go on my current O2 contract. I can get an early upgrade, but that will cost me £100 and I will then still have to pay £209 for the new phone on an 18 month contract. Then I have to pay for the airtime £540 total cost for me to upgrade to iPhone 4 is £849.
So what if I let my existing contract continue: SIM Free iPhone 4 £499, £30 a month for 12 months (with unlimited data as I am not changing the contract) Total cost £859 and I get to keep unlimited data and can upgrade to iPhone 5 for no penalty…
Or alternatively I can let my existing contract run out then switch to PAYG. SIM Free iPhone 4 £499, £30 a month for 6 months £180, £10 for 6 months £60 Total cost £739 and no ties.
Conclusion:
If you are looking to get an iPhone 5 next year and you dont talk a lot on the phone then which ever way you look at it PAYG works out best. If you have an existing iPhone 3GS contract with 6 months or more to go then things get more marginal. I suspect that I will be opting for the SIM Free and letting my contract run out.
Well, if they are identical price on PAYG as Apple Unlocked, why would anyone get the PAYG one?
I dont know what the difference between PAYG and SIM FREE is in the Apple Store. I suspect that the PAYG comes with an O2 (or other carrier) SIM and the SIM FREE is just the phone.
Well, Direct from Apple is Unlocked, any network, any sim card, PAYG will be locked to the provider, so unless they are at least 50 less, go Sim Free all the way, and enjoy the vastly superior service of Apple!
I wouldn’t be so sure that PAYG means SIM locked this time around.
No mention of the three network there, my previous checks (for around 3 minutes until they took the page down) seemed to indicate that the data was actually unlimited. Please don’t take my word for it however. I’m known to talk complete crap.
I have been unable to confirm Three’s pricing at the moment. I do realise there has been something going on today as I was unable to get to the site earlier, but when it did load it was still the same as before.
Our original pricing for Vodafone was way out based on the leaked iPhone site, which actually put Vodafone as the cheapest contract when in fact it is more expensive than O2.