Anyone else notice how bad the contract phone deals have become?

BisH0p

I hope I'm not the only one who's noticed this, but the deals out there have really gone downhill after Christmas. I've been waiting for the HTC Touch Cruise to be launched, so I've been keeping my eye on the contracts and mobiles with them.
Every single phone I have checked out is now more expensive on contract than before Christmas. The Nokia N95, for instance, was free on 12 month contract for £20pm after redemption. Now the best deal is at £30 pm. It might not sound like a lot, but this is the average increase on all phones.

Might it have to do with the release of the iPhone? It is so expensive on an 18 month contract that other manufacturers/retailers might have decided to increase the cost of competing mobiles?

velvetybubbles

the contracts deals r rubbish and all the extra charges now
extra for 08 numbers and 070 numbers and also 05 numbers have been added
they r trying to put every 1 onto 18 of 24 month contracts aswell,think im going to go to pay and go next time round at least u now wot u being charged after every phone call,
maybe all the real good deals we had a few years ago were just to reel us all in!!!!!

Alec_Eiffel_2

There are still some pretty fair tariffs out there - i'm not talking about cashback deals, i wouldn't touch one of those with a bargepole personally (i don't wanna become one the "cashback company x has ripped me off" unfortunates who get stitched up by dodgy t's and c's). There are plenty of reasonable standard tariffs about - mix n match on 3 is good value, flext with a fiver off is good value, o2 have just revamped their tariffs and are now good value. You never have and never will get the best phones on low end short period contracts, it won't make sense to the networks.