Apple iphone, have you been able to get a better deal?

timberflake

I've been with O2 for 7 years and am currently on a 12 months contract which gives me 1000 texts and 600 mins for £35 a month. My contracts up for renewal in December and I'm thinking about going for an Apple iphone, however, on a £45 contract I'd only get 500 texts and 600 mins and I'd be locked in for 18 months. So, I'll be paying £10 more a month and losing 400 texts, plus I'll be tied into my contact for an addditional 6 months, my questions are:

1. Has anyone managed to negotiate a better deal than the ones advertised when upgrading to an iphone?
2. If I do go for an iphone on an 18 month contract, at the end of it can I choose to go back to a 12 month or will I forever have to stay on 18 month as they no longer offer 12 month contracts.

I understand that O2 is the only network to offer the iphone so they do have more power than normal in an upgrade situation as I can't switch to another network, but surely that must be able to at least keep my allowance as is??

Would appreciate anyones input on this.

Ste_uk

Hiya,

On the £45 tarif you will get 1200 mins, its on the £35 that yo get 600 mins

On the O2 retentions thread it has been hinted that O2 might change the iphone tariffs in the new month

timberflake

Ste_uk wrote: »

Hiya,

On the £45 tarif you will get 1200 mins, its on the £35 that yo get 600 mins

On the O2 retentions thread it has been hinted that O2 might change the iphone tariffs in the new month

I'll sit tight and wait to see if they change the tariffs then. If I'm paying £10 extra a month (to enable to get the iphone for free) and being tied into a contract for an additional 6 months I would expect then to beat my current deal of 1000 texts/600mins or at the very least match it.

Anyone have any info on whether I would be able to revert to a 12month contract in the future?

Gooding

I believe O2 have dropped 12 month contracts. But it's a curious thing, you could buy a PAYG iPhone for £350 and get a SIM only deal with O2 - 600 Mins / 1000 Texts and a free bolt (say for eg free web bolt on for unlimited* 3G) - for £20 a month, it's a rolling monthly contract so no term limits. That would still only add up to £360 + £350 = £710. Compare that with the £630 + £99 for cost of iphone, which is £730!!

Having said all that you must surely be able to get something out of them for your loyalty.

If 2G access isn't an issue, you could pick up the PAYG iPhone and go to somewhere like Vodafonae where for £20 you could get 600 Min / Unlimited texts for a sim only. Plus you could get £90 quidco. So 12 months at £20, minus the £90, would equal £150 a year or £17.50 a month.

These all require stumping up for the IPhone though, and you don't get visual voicemail.

sarahroo

I asked about the iPhone yesterday as I am trying to get an upgrade to another phone (just looking about at the moment)
I was told *it doesn't support photo-messaging
* it doesn't support bluetooth file sharing
So I am now thinking about phones that do do this.

Just wanted to give you my 2 pence!
Sarah

Sazbo

Gooding wrote: »

I believe O2 have dropped 12 month contracts. But it's a curious thing, you could buy a PAYG iPhone for £350 and get a SIM only deal with O2 - 600 Mins / 1000 Texts and a free bolt (say for eg free web bolt on for unlimited* 3G) - for £20 a month, it's a rolling monthly contract so no term limits. That would still only add up to £360 + £350 = £710. Compare that with the £630 + £99 for cost of iphone, which is £730!!

Having said all that you must surely be able to get something out of them for your loyalty.

If 2G access isn't an issue, you could pick up the PAYG iPhone and go to somewhere like Vodafonae where for £20 you could get 600 Min / Unlimited texts for a sim only. Plus you could get £90 quidco. So 12 months at £20, minus the £90, would equal £150 a year or £17.50 a month.

These all require stumping up for the IPhone though, and you don't get visual voicemail.

Thanks for this very helpful post. I am now trying to decide between the sim-only simplicity tariff for £20 a month - which you mention - that can include a free web bolt till the end of the month, and the sim which comes with the PAYG iPhone, which for a £10 monthly top-up would give me 500 minutes (and 100 texts if I use the topup for texts), plus free browsing and wifi for 12 months (£10 a month after that).

I guess I don't need the 1,000 texts that comes with the simplicity tariff, so the other deal for £10 a month seems quite good?

S

Gooding

Yes, yes indeed. It's tempting to go for something which appears to be cheaper upfront, but by working out the overall cost it doesn't take long to work out the best value. I personally just hate the idea of being caught in an 18 month deal, being locked in for son long annoys me...

mxxx

Gooding wrote: »

I believe O2 have dropped 12 month contracts. But it's a curious thing, you could buy a PAYG iPhone for £350 and get a SIM only deal with O2 - 600 Mins / 1000 Texts and a free bolt (say for eg free web bolt on for unlimited* 3G) - for £20 a month, it's a rolling monthly contract so no term limits. That would still only add up to £360 + £350 = £710. Compare that with the £630 + £99 for cost of iphone, which is £730!!

Curious, however the deals with iphone (contract and payg) all come with unlimited 3g data AND unlimited WiFi minutes at cloud and bt openzone hotspots. The latter of these must be worth a few bob and certainly ideal for an iphone, this seems to explain why the contract deals aren't as good as their normal contract. Trouble is, i'm looking to get one of these for my gf for christmas and I dont want her to have a big contract (even £30 a month seems a bit much to me and the included minutes on this tariff are a joke!). She's on Vodafone at the mo but from what i've read, unlocking an iphone is more trouble than its worth. I suspect getting a payg deal with 02 would be the most appropriate deal but anyone got any idea if 02 could be pushed to offer a better contract deal?

Sazbo

Gooding wrote: »

Yes, yes indeed. It's tempting to go for something which appears to be cheaper upfront, but by working out the overall cost it doesn't take long to work out the best value. I personally just hate the idea of being caught in an 18 month deal, being locked in for son long annoys me...

Thanks for this. It was the iPhone's default payg tariff I was looking at, which includes the 12 months free web and wifi - so I assumed this meant not being locked into a contract? (Which I hate too...) But then again I'm a bit dense so I could well have got that wrong:o

S

philnicandamy

from here

PAYG unlimited browsing and Wi-Fi for the first 12 months after you activate your iPhone 3G*. At the end of the 12 months you can continue to receive unlimited browsing and Wi-Fi for just £10 per month. We'll notify you before the end of the 12 month period by text and you can easily unsubscribe if you choose to do so.

I cant see any mention of a contract....

lufcgirl

Unfortunately, o2 designed the tariffs to get the most out of the customer, knowing full well no other network would be able to offer the iPhone.
I've not heard anything about the tariffs being changed anytime soon, and they need Apple's approval before this will happen. When the tariff gets changed or a new product is released, staff find out exactly the same time as the customer.
The iPhone itself doesn't have a lot of features that normal phones have.
For instance
-No MMS
-No forwarding of text messages
-Bluetooth is for headsets only, upgrading software loses ability to connect to any sort of car kit

Unlocking will basically break your phone, if ever it crashes and you need to do a restore through iTunes or reset, your phone packs up so it's not worth it.
If your not bothered about internet being too fast, you can pick up a second hand iPhone 1st gen for about £200 on ebay...does practically everything the same except no 3g