Paying around £40 for a monthly contract - is this overly expensive?

Theresonly1

I'm in the stage where i'm looking for a new contract/upgrade.

Most of the new phones atm (Iphone5, Samsung S4 etc...) involves paying around £37+ to £45 for a 24 month contract. I feel this is quite unreasonably expensive. What you guys reckon?

Currently i'm paying £25 for a contract and in the past few years when i look at new contracts or upgrades, we can easily get one paying just around £20 - £30 max (with a new handset free as well).

Has times changed?

ZhugeEX

Times have changed a bit, Networks themselves charge a fortune now for top tier plans and have no real low end plans on high end phones.

However, third parties and other MVNO's still charge prices like £26pm for a HTC One or iPhone 5 etc...

But to be honest what i said above applies to high end users. If your usage is low then you can get some great deals.

grumbler

Theresonly1 wrote: »

...I feel this is quite unreasonably expensive. What you guys reckon?...

If you feel so, then it surely is unreasonably expensive for you. However, what is unreasonable for you can be reasonable for other people.
Personally, I would never pay more than £10-15 for a mobile toy. Now I am paying £0.

Going4TheDream

It depends what you are going to use the phone for? I dont use the web on the phone, am not in need of being constantly in touch with FB or twitter or that kind of thing and rarely use pic messages, so am all singing and dancing phone wasn't really something that I needed to be paying over the odds for. I literally use my phone for calls and texts. If I were to need the web in an emergency once is a while then I would pay for it on an adhoc basis.

I opted for my daughters old blackberry (as I unfortunatley sent my phone swimming in the washing machine) and a sim only deal...300 mins and 5000 texts a month. With my for life discount it works out about £4.68 a month....

Its horses for courses really but to me paying any where near £40 a month for a phone contract for 24 months just to have a high end phone would be insanity.

DUTR

Theresonly1 wrote: »

I'm in the stage where i'm looking for a new contract/upgrade.

Most of the new phones atm (Iphone5, Samsung S4 etc...) involves paying around £37+ to £45 for a 24 month contract. I feel this is quite unreasonably expensive. What you guys reckon?

Currently i'm paying £25 for a contract and in the past few years when i look at new contracts or upgrades, we can easily get one paying just around £20 - £30 max (with a new handset free as well).

Has times changed?

Times have changed, but your logic is still flawed, the handset is not free (perhaps you mean no upfront costs) the handsets you have your eyes on are around £500 sim free, so of your £37-45 per month it it reasonable to assume £21 per month is going to the cost of the handset, the rest is for your airtime, 12 month contract with a higher upfront fee is also 'better', 24 months is along time in the mobile world, and besides things like 4G and NFC are still in their infancy, so you are paying a premium to beta test if at all useable.
It would be very nice if NFC payments were main stream but it looks like it will be 2014 at the earliest subject to EU authority. Mid range phones are as much as many will use at present.

jbainbridge

Check out the mobiles section on the main site for details of how to get a better deal. Also look at the retentions thread for your network to see what deals others are getting.

J_B

Mrs B purchased the Huwaie G300 for sub £100 which is well mentioned on here
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4165069
and then we got am orange sim only deal which is rather expensive at £7 per month!!

NFH

I pay £9/month to Orange for 325 minutes, 150 texts, 800MB and unlimited calls to Orange numbers. I don't see any reason to pay more.

You're probably talking about monthly charges which include the price of a new handset. I would like to see an end to the up-front cost of mobile phones being subsidised by inflated monthly charges because it

• Encourages consumers to acquire handsets they cannot truly afford through an unhealthy "buy now pay later" consumer debt culture.
• Distorts competition by disguising the true price of the handset and of the service, as opposed to a SIM-free handset and SIM-only service.
• Encourages wasteful acquisition of new handsets because consumers mistakenly believe they are receiving the handset for free or for very little.
• Necessitates long contract durations in order to spread the cost of the handset, which inhibits competition by preventing consumers from switching networks.
• Causes consumers to continue paying the inflated monthly charge even after they have paid off the subsidy of the handset, unless they remember to take action at the end of the minimum contract period.

Subsidised handsets are usually SIM-locked which:

• Inhibits competition as it makes it more difficult to switch networks.
• Prevents consumers from using local SIM cards abroad, allowing UK networks to impose unreasonably high roaming charges by excluding foreign competition.

For these reasons, Ofcom should encourage unsubsidised SIM-free handsets and competitive SIM-only contracts to become the norm, as is the norm in many other countries. At the very least, networks should be forced to unbundle the monthly handset subsidy repayment and the monthly charge for service, itemising the two separately with independent contract durations. The monthly handset subsidy repayment should not be allowed to continue after the cost of the handset has been paid off.

MillicentBystander

I'm a complete convert to the 'no more long term contract, buy the mobile upfront' brigade. You live and learn, I guess, but once my current 2 year deal ends (have an interminable 12 months to go!) I will be going SIM only, 30 day commitment and if i need a phone I will buy it upfront. And if I can't afford/don't wish to pay a lot of money for a phone I want that means I can't really afford/don't wish to have it on a contract, basically. You know it makes sense...;)

Guys_Dad

I have been sim-only for my main mobile phone for 3 years and am reasonably happy. £11 per month 600 minutes, unlimited texts and 500mb with Vodafone. Good reception, 12-month contract, got my own Android.

Makes sense to me. Am also running out a 24-month Orange contract which I used for work at £10 per month until the recent price increase which was my last handset deal, as it was actually cheaper than the sim-only at the time! Finished this month and got the PAC.

I am now going to retain the Orange number on Ovivo for a one-off £15 and use it as a spare, but the current O2 Samsung Galaxy III mini deal at mobiles.co.uk for £12.50 per month, less Topcashback £27 looks like I could be persuaded to go for that in July if it is still around - or any one like it - when my Voda contract ends as it looks like better value.

Other than that, I will be sim-only or one of the cheap sub £10, 250 minutes plus Talkmobile packages with a free Android bottom of range handset thet I keep as a spare.

The main point is that paying £40 or more for a phone contract is not good value for me. It is an almost £1000 commitment and I can do what I want cheaper and quite acceptably for less than a quarter of that - and I have a tablet if I need the fancy apps.

cgk1

I went Sim Only a few years ago, I'd never go back to long-term contracts.