Trying to get an iPhone on Orange without paying through the nose

simonrayjay

Hi! I am in an orange contract which is £25 a month for 600 mins, unlimited texts and unlimited internet. My handset is a decidedly knackered C902. To get onto this contract, I haggled at the end of my last one, and they gave me the free handset and lowered the price a bit.

I am now nearing the end of this contract and - having been informed by an orange shop that I could upgrade to an iPhone 3GS - I assumed it would be just as easy to ring up and upgrade my handset to the iPhone, perhaps get a bit more off the monthly payments. Like I did last time.

However after ringing up and threatening to leave, the woman said she couldn't just give me an iphone and keep me on the same contract... to get the phone you have to pay the £35+ a month, 2 year contracts!! So I would lose any kind of loyalty benefits.

She tried to persuade me that the iPhone is rubbish compared to all these android handsets which I could have for free... but I have experience with them and really want the 3GS! It's just.... better.

Anyway, I wanted to ask if anyone has actually managed to get a handset upgrade to an iPhone, and also what do you think I should do? I really can't afford to pay for the expensive iPhone plan.

I was thinking, perhaps I should take them up on their offer of either the LG optimus, Sony Ericsson X10 mini, or Samsung galaxy apollo, on a £17.50 p/ month contract, then sell the handset and buy an unlocked iphone. Would that work with my sim card?

Sorry if I rambled a bit. Thanks for reading

Jon_01

Apple set the price for the iPhone, the networks have very little say which is why you'll be very lucky to get anything other than the lasted plan price.

Your idea of getting a phone, selling it and getting an unlocked iPhone would work as long as you've a large data bundle on your acc as the iphone lives on line and steams through data. . .

drbesty

All the phones you've mentioned retail for less than £200 so you'd still have to fork out extra for an iPhone. If you want an iPhone on PAYM you have to pay for it, simple as that really, Apple set the price, it's a desirable handset so they don't really need to haggle

bingy_burge

So u want an iPhone a very expensive and popular handset and u want to stay on a low contract ? U can drop the tariff after 9 months I did from 40 to 20.

Have u tried getting a brand new range rover for 20k grand ? See if hopping up and down at the dealer? It's that daft

If u want it pay for it. Orange have sub the phone as an 8gb 3GS is 419 sim free. If u look at there deals they almost mirror o2 so they r competitive. What else do u get for nothing apart from benefits?

drbesty

I can tell you that even recently the 16GB iPhone 3GS was about £389 to the networks, so the chances of you getting it for cheap are pretty much zero

geordieracer82

Have Orang stopped doing to £60 a month one with the home broadband included, I quite fancied that one!

vicki83

i upgraded to the iphone 4 on orange last week and after threatening to leave they carried over my loyalty discount so i am paying £30 a month instead of £35 there are 18 and 24 month contracts available for iphone4 not sure about 3....it does depend who you speak to though i got a different price everytime i phoned up