iPhone; Orange Vs o2

evvopaul

So, there is no iPhone price war but surely we can start one?

If I walk into Orange tomorrow and say I want an iPhone but I’m going to walk down the road to o2 (or vice versa), I’ll get something? Has anyone tried this yet?

I’m currently with Orange, I like Orange, I want to stay with Orange and I want an iPhone. I’m on PAYG so I won’t have too much punch with Orange if I threaten to walk to o2 but there must be something they can offer me to sweeten the deal?

Snakeeyes21

They wont give two hoots if you say you will be going down the road, theres thousands people behind you willing to pay what their asking.
If your hoping for some kind of discount, get that thought out of your head, it wont happen in a month of sundays.
The best you could hope for (if you get a sales assistant wanting to meet his targets) is a few accessories to go with it.

DarkConvict

If they are both charging the same price, i have to agree the odds of a price war is not likely, the demand is still to high for the prices to be lowered.

Jamey_2

DarkConvict wrote: »

If they are both charging the same price, i have to agree the odds of a price war is not likely...

But they're not charging the same for some things, as I explained in this post, yesterday:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=26545445&postcount=84

Sol00

Is Orange not offering an unlimited text bundle which O2 isn't?

Jamey_2

Sol00 wrote: »

Is Orange not offering an unlimited text bundle which O2 isn't?

Yes, it's £122 per month.

Good luck with that.

lufcgirl

o2 don't offer unlimited texts on top of the 500 you already recieve. You can pay an extra 7.50 for 500 extra texts with them, or with Orange you can pay the same and have unlimited texts on any of the price plans.

So Orange work better in that regard, but not with the data (750mb compared to unlimited).

Oh and Orange retentions (as I work in upgrades) would most likely do you a deal with regards to anything other than the iPhone, it's the pricing structure thats been set though and they can't offer discounts.

Jamey_2

it's worth noting that with the O2 text "bolt-on" the points I made about MMS messages using a 4:1 ratio do not apply - the free MMS messages can only come from your proper price plan bundled allowance, not from a bolt-on.

Still better than Orange though, who will charge you 25p for every picture message without even using your price plan bundled texts like O2 will.

lufcgirl

Then again, what about the people who don't use picture messaging? Because I'd be lucky to send one every couple of months. And international texts I don't use my iPhone for.

It's down to customer use and network preference. Personally I'm happy with o2 as my network, admittedly I'd be even happier if I had the unlimited texts bundle. The tariffs aren't really going to come into it for the average consumer, and I know as I work for Orange Upgrades and it's very very busy at the moment just with customers who want an iPhone on Orange. They don't care about the tariff at all....and Orange have a much better 3g coverage in the UK which is another selling point. I once did a train journey from Newcastle to Exeter and had coverage for about 30mins of a six and a half hour journey. That to me is not acceptable when my Orange K800i had 3g coverage for the majority of the journey.

Jamey_2

I never used to send picture (or video) messages before, partly because I used to be on Orange and they charge for each one and partly because the phones I've had in the past had very clumsy MMS implementation. The K800i you mention being one of them.

But when I switched to O2 and got an iPhone I thought that since it was free to send MMS I'd give it a go and I was very pleasantly surprised by how well the iPhone deals with MMS. It's basically just a seamless part of the threaded conversation view that you use for normal texting. A small version of the picture or video appears in the conversation view and you just tap on it to see it fullscreen and play the video.

It really is a joy to use and completely free on O2 (but not Orange).

As for 3G coverage then yes, i agree, that's the only real reason I can see to choose Orange over O2 for the iPhone. I live in London and don't travel too much within the UK so it's not an issue for me but obviously there will be plenty of people for who it's a much more important selling point.

The unlimited text bundle... Well I guess if you send more than 20 texts per day every single day of the month then yeah, it might be important to you but again that doesn't apply to me.

Jamey_2

Bitterwallet have now published a story based on the MMS/roaming info:
http://www.bitterwallet.com/iphone-on-orange-youll-pay-for-mms-and-texting-from-abroad/20848