Upgrading to iPhone4 help!!

barrettefc

Hi all,

I'm currently with 02 and pay £35 a month for 600 minutes, unlimited data and unlimited texts. Thats with a Nokia N86 8MP.

My contract is up in 1 month and I'm now eligble to upgrade. I want an iPhone4 and want to pay no more than £35 - £40 a month.

Minutes arent too important, I only use around 150 a month.

What I was looking for is 150 - 200 minutes, unlimited texts and 500mb - 750mb of data. The more data the better really.

I have called 02 upgrade's department who say they cannot budge on reducing the monthly cost or the phone price (£203 or £141).

I really dont want to be paying that much for the handset or if I have to I'd like to be able to have a cheaper monthly cost.

I was put through to retentions when I called back later on and all they could offer was more minutes which I didnt want. They couldnt even offer more data.

Apparently 02 have an agreement with Apple that they cant reduce the cost of the phone or monthly contract. Is this true?

I've looked at Vodafone too but they aint much better either.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

gjchester

barrettefc wrote: »

Apparently 02 have an agreement with Apple that they cant reduce the cost of the phone or monthly contract. Is this true?

You'll never really get an answer to that. It's commonly believed thats the case, but you'll never see it in writing.

You also won't get any significant deal on an iPhone. You either pay the going rate or go without. Apple and the networks know it's a in demand product, and they won't discount it they don;t need to, it's not as if demand is falling for it. As you say looking across the networks they are all a muchness for the iPhone pricing, you may save a few tenners or so over the 18 month contract on a different network.

Tesco do a cheaper deal over the 12 months of a contract, You can get a iPhone for £25 a month but the phone is £342, so over 12 months thats =£642 over the first year, adding in sim only prices for year two at the cheapes possible to make it comparable that makes it £822 for 2 years. On Three it's £820 over the two years, On o2 a similar deal it's £940 so there are cheaper options, but they all come to al leat £800 over two years.

You could buy the iPhone 4 at £500 then put it on a sim only plan, they start at £15 a month but even so your looking at £680 in year one and on the same plan for comparison the two year cost is £859

AnnaV

You could wait until June, when the iPhone 5 is likely to be launched - iPhone 4 price should come down then.

barrettefc

Thanks for the advice guys, at least I now know I would be wasting my time trying to haggle down the phone cost or contract price.

A question I have though, is am I able to buy a refurbished iphone 4 from anywhere? Are there sspecialist websites who may offer this option?

kev.s

when i got mine when they were released, i initially went to tesco who were offering a 12 month deal, albeit they piggy back o2's network, anyhow after they gave me the deal i called voda and they matched the mins and texts' 600 mins, ultd texs, however as they could not do the 12 months they did up the data allowance to 1gb and reduce the 18month term to 15 month. result in my book. saying that, the novelty soon wears off with the iphone same as any other.

fiendishlyclever

AnnaV wrote: »

You could wait until June, when the iPhone 5 is likely to be launched - iPhone 4 price should come down then.

Excellent advice - it's what I was going to post. If you are so desperate for an iPhone that you will pay over the odds go out and buy one now!

If you have the cash upfront it is cheaper to buy one sim free from Apple and then buy sim only to go with it. You have the advantage of being able to change network whenever you want if the signal is bad.

gjchester

AnnaV wrote: »

You could wait until June, when the iPhone 5 is likely to be launched - iPhone 4 price should come down then.

Should but won't be much. Apple generally don't do big discounts on products to clear stock, Apple is a premium brand and they really don't do discounting it would tarnish the brand image.

When the 4 came out the 3GS got a reduction in price but also in memory as it went from the 16GB and 32GB variants to the 8GB variant. The excess stock was not sold off at reduced prices but simply returned to Apple and no doubt used for warranty replacements.

Compare it to the iPad, Ipad 2 has been announced and ipad 1 is being discounted to clear stock, it's now £329 where it was £399. When Ipad 2 is released Apple will simply withdraw ipad 1 stock.

deano72_2

3 seem to have the best deals,not sure if they tickle your fancy tho.iv been with them on ip4 for over a month & sofar so good

jayme1

have a look at buying the phone direct from apple sim free and then pairing it with a PAYG deal or a sim only deal (you will also be far more flexable if a better sim only deal/network comes along or if you want to sell your phone to upgrade to a different phone/model),
you never have to go direct to a network for a handset, and a lot of the time it works out cheaper to buy the phone yourself.

ie. 3 mobile PAYG for £10 a month will give you 100mins, 3000 texts and 500MB (use for anything) data over 18 months and £510 for the 16GB iphone 4 works out at £690 (if you want 300mins it is £15 a month so works out a total of £780 over 18 months)

the o2 deal 18 months at £35.74 and £203.23 works out at £869.32 and you only get 200more mins and what you can use your data for is restricted! (and your phone is network locked!!)

as you can see o2 is a blatant rip off as you will find with most 'contracts with phone'

gjchester

jayme1 wrote: »

as you can see o2 is a blatant rip off as you will find with most 'contracts with phone'

To be honest in my experience o2 and Voda have the best coverage for me. Three is patchy near me. No use saving money if you can't use the network at home.

kev.s

deano72 wrote: »

3 seem to have the best deals,not sure if they tickle your fancy tho.iv been with them on ip4 for over a month & sofar so good

ok i you never want to use your phone, 3 are the worst service provider EVER!!
google 3 complaints