Apple I phone advice needed please !

maxfactor_3

Hi My 15 year old son bought an i phone yesterday for £269 but he,s debating if to have it unlocked,he has a part time job but were worried about it getting bricked when they send the downloads.

£35 a month minimum for 200 minutes is a lot of money for a contract with O2,thinking of opting for the 600 mins for £45.

A fortune for a 15 year old,he,s worked so hard to buy this phone and I personally dont want to take the risk of having it unlocked but will value other peoples opinions about the pro,s and cons.
Im not technical minded,I have pay as you go and pay about £5 a month.
I just think this i phone is over rated and a hell of a lot of money.
I think having this phone on contract without the option of pay as you go is unfair particularly as the contract has to go through my bank.
My son earns about £35 a week,and I know I can trust my son provided he keep up the good work.but surely their must be an easier way.

Please dont say take the phone back,my son has an arcos and inteds to sell it and that will cover the cost of the phone.

Thanks for listening MF

maxfactor_3

I just found a link to a mobile phone forum !.It seems like this subject is being heavily debated already.
Just read a story about a guy on contract had his stolen but still had to pay for the airtime,seems like theirs a lot of issues.
I asked Apple can I have insurance but they dont do it,People think their clever unlocking the damn phones but seems you cant win either way.
It must be a sense of sense acconpishment to unlock them, but what when it gets bricked.
I do hope o2 offer insurance

tillson

I don't know an awful lot about these phones, but I thought when you purchase them you also have to take out the £35 / month O2 contract. Please correct me if I am wrong about this.

So if he is on a contract, I don't see the point in unlocking the phone as he is tied to O2 for 12 to 18 months. Why take the risk of unlocking it? I would forget about unlocking until he is out of contract and in a position to change to another network or tariff.

Revex

With the iphone you just go into the shop and pay £269 for the phone as you would a pay as you go phone. However to use the phone you have to connect it to your computer and sign up to an o2 contract. If you dont do this you essentially have a £269 phone that you cant do anything with. Unless you unlock it which is far more complex than unlocking other makes of phone it seems.

Its not like a normal phone contract where you sign up the to contract in the shop. The shop just sells you the phone. Its then up to you if you want to get a contract with it (if you don't want a contract and don't unlock it though you have a useless phone).

RaihanT

Hi, if its a UK Iphone it cannot be unlocked yet as it has a different 'bootloader' to that of the US version. It can be 'jailbreaked' however to run 3rd party apps if that is what u mean. If jailbreaked, it can be restored back to the factory state

Zebedee69

Wait and get it unlocked then I guess........

maxfactor_3

Raihan T that seems to make sense I heard somewhere that you can restore it to factory settings but the phone part of it wont work (I could be wrong).They seem to have had all this palava in the USA already but I dont know enough about the subject.
There is a company offering to unlock them for £40 to do it yourself(when they have the imformation or £70 if they do it with a full back up service but if it wont happen they wont be held responsible and will just give your fee back.
The sensible thing would be possibly to go for the £35 month plus insurance at between £5 to £8 a month.
Unlocking it would also invalidate the warranty plus insurance.
I,ve not done anything yet! just hope my son hasnt jailbreaked the phone,must ring him and check.;)

[Deleted User]

I bought mine from Carphone warehouse, they requested a copy of my drivers license, not sure why but since its a contract you have to be 18.

Where did your son buy the phone?

Its a great phone and i am absolutely stunned by the many people that slate it, i am guessing its because they are already tied into another contract and cant get it.

Anyway, CPW offer insurance which covers everything and you can cancel the contract after 9 months if you want. I would highly advise getting insurance since your sons only 15.

benbranson

The iPhone can be unlocked but there is a lot of debate in the industry whether it is a good thing or not. It basically means loading the iPhone with an older software version (1.12 if I remember correctly but don't quote me!) and then unlocking it.

Once it's been done you won't be able to upgrade the firmware if apple release a new version, otherwise it'll be locked again (and apparently, may never work again) but it should work fine on any other network (including pay as you go) as long as you don't try to upgrade the firmware.

Have a look at www.iphoneunlockuk.com for a bit more info or google unlock iphone.

All in all, I think it should be ok to unlock but try and get it done by someone who will give a warranty on the unlock in case it does go wrong (not sure if you'll find anyone but it's worth a try).

HTH

maxfactor_3

Well the good news is my son hasnt jaibreaked the phone,but he had me going for a while;) .

We,ve done the responsible thing and joined for the £35 monthly tariff and took out o2,s insurance for the iphone at £7.50 a month.

A job well done I,d say Peace of mind. Much easier.

maxfactor_3

PS:I strongly advise insurance if you lose this phone I phink O2 will probably replace the sim ?,but then it may be difficult to get hold of a sim free iphone and apparently will cost a lot more than £269 to replace as it is only this price because it has been subsided by the contract,so I was told by an insurance rep at another company!

They like to insure the actual phone for up to £1000 but if any one misuses it the calls are covered up to £3000 if its stolen.

I couldnt download rhe full insurance criteria because my computer wouldnt open the pdf download for the insurance so I,ll have to wait for the details in the post.

If anyone is up to date with knowledge of insurance the phone is all in my name but my son bought it so I dont know if its still going to be insured if I tell them its for a childs use.would be interested to know if poss.Thanks