Puchasing an iphone without the contract

tonym_dj · 19 November 2007 at 12:00PM

Hi,

I'm currently looking at buying an Apple Iphone for Christmas, however, I would like to buy the phone on it's own without the contract, I'm aware to use the phone properly I have to take out an O2 contract, however, I intend to unlock the phone (once a solution has been confirmed) and use on my existing O2 tariff which is much better value for money.

I have read on other forums that people trying to buy just the phone on it's own from either the Carphone Warehouse or O2 have had issues as they will not allow you to buy the phone on it's own and you must buy the contract at the same time as the phone.

As the phone is advertised as a separate purchase to the contract I would imagine that this would be illegal to do this as surely they would have had to have the advertised price at over £900 if it was a mandatory purchase as one couldn't be bought without the other?

Maybe the posters I came across got their wires crossed or maybe the sales guy was feeding them false info? Either way some advise would be much appreciated so when I get my phone from CPW I can read them the riot act if they try to pull a fast one.

Many thanks in advance

Browntoa · 19 November 2007 at 12:07PM

I v'e got the feeling that getting the phone is conditional on taking out the contract , much like the "free" phone offers that you normally take out for signing a 12 or 18 month contract

the phone is yours to do with as you wish afterwards , but you must take out the contract to get it

you can get an unlocked one in France when they release it

tonym_dj · 19 November 2007 at 12:28PM

That makes sense but I do think if nothing else the whole thing is very misleading, from previous experience buying a phone the tariff has always been the main product with a range of different priced phone options coming in second, whereas for the iphone the cost of the phone is big and bold and in your face and the tariff and tariff charges are really in the small print.

Apple are releasing both a locked and unlocked version in France, however, it's expected the unlocked version will be very expensive with reports I've read guessing in the region of £600, I guess I will have to wait and see.

I can always purchase the phone from Apple who do not sell the contracts and from what I've read so far you just activate it through itunes and take out the contact online, I was hoping CPW and O2 activated and sold the contract in the same way, as CPW are only 1/2 a mile up the road from me.

Thanks for your advise

warrend · 19 November 2007 at 3:36PM

careful.

I've seen allot of people complaining about the price of the I-phone + contract. In my opinion the stand out feature of the I-phone is its web integration. The O2 I-phone tariffs include both unlimited data and a cloud wifi subscription. Using the I-phone without these would be suicide for £3 per Meg standard tariff. As far as I have seen there is no way to tell the I-phone not to connect - although it will connect to wifi as a primary. Also you wont have access to Visual voicemail (unless your on an o2 I-phone tariff) which is pretty cool.

Basically add £15 per month to your current tariff to cover these features and I'd be suppressed if it comes out better.

tonym_dj · 19 November 2007 at 4:11PM

Absolutely, if using the on-line features then it's definitely cheaper to use the O2 iphone tariff, I have heard some ridiculous tales of call charges mainly from US visitors using their phone whilst roaming and have had to cough out hundreds if not thousands of dollars, however, I currently have an O2 tariff which gives me lots more talk minutes and texts so I can use the visual voicemail but to be honest I just want it because it's an ipod-in-a-phone and it looks cool and at the moment the online features are not important.

I'm sure that once the phone is unlocked that someone somewhere will develop a 3rd party app to stop the phone trying to connect to the web if they haven't done it already.

I wouldn't have had an issue taking out a new contract if it wasn't for the fact that Apple are taking a massive 40% of all call charges. Apple are not adding value by hiking up charges, O2 are the ones having to invest heavily in upgrading (or downgrading as the case may be to support Edge) and we are having to buy the phone outright. If the phone was free it would be justifiable to make money from the call charges but as someone that has purchased many mac products over the years including desktop machines, laptops and even the very first ipod I feel Apple has become very greedy with this device and as much as I want an iphone I refuse to line their pockets for call charges.

I guess I will either have to wait for an unlock solution or wait for the unlocked French iphone depending on cost or heaven forbid maybe even wait for Nokia, LG or even Blackberry to produce something similar.

scorpio13 · 12 February 2008 at 7:32PM

Hi, have just purchased an Apple iphone off Ebay.

The Seller said it was locked but it was on the 02 network (as opposed to AT& T USA).

I thought fine, i'll just use my existing 02 sim card and that would be fine.

But i received the phone today & haven't got a clue how to activate it. (All i've managed to do so far is swap sims

).

Is it possible for the phone to work with my existing '02 contract sim'......or do i still have to get the phone 'unlocked' in order to use my existing 02 sim?

Thanks for all replies & advice in advance.

tonym_dj · 12 February 2008 at 8:08PM

Umm, if the phone is truly unlocked then your sim should work absolutely fine. All you should need to do is turn it on.

Whatever you do, if you connect it up to itunes on your mac or pc do not allow it to upgrade to the latest firmwire, it will be locked again and there is no unlock available for the new firmware at this time.

For more info on unlocking visit http://www.hackint0sh.org/

Most of the stuff on that site is quite technical and not for the faint of heart!

scorpio13 · 12 February 2008 at 8:33PM

Thanks Tony, will check out the site you suggested.

Hopefully, i'll get it sorted.

SenorGroucho · 13 February 2008 at 12:24AM

The iphone part of the Macrumors site is pretty good also.
http://forums.macrumors.com/forumdisplay.php?f=99
Hopefully your phone will work with your O2 sim otherwise there was no point in buying one off ebay, you can just walk into any O2 shop and buy a new one without having to commit to a contract.

chocolatechipcookies · 13 February 2008 at 2:46PM

You have to take up the specific plans for the iPhone. It will not work with any other sim or any other company. If you unlock the phone and update the software, it will break the phone.

http://www.apple.com/uk/iphone/

SenorGroucho · 13 February 2008 at 7:57PM

You are not required to take out any contract. You can unlock the iphone to use any sim. Once unlocked a sensible person wouldn't update the firmware without first being sure that it wouldn't damage his iphone. Firmware updates are not obligatory.

Puchasing an iphone without the contract

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