Iphone contract or PAYG with £150 credit?

[Anonymous]

Just at the end of an 18 month with an N95 8GB, costs me £35 a month for 600 mins, 500 texts unlimited o2 to o2 calls and the data bolt on.



If I sign up again without taking a phone they will give me £150 account credit.



So, do I buy an iphone 3GS 16GB PAYG, put my exisiting sim it it, have a £150 contribution from o2 towards the iphone cost instead of buying an iphone on contract?



I think the only downside would be no wireless hotspots unless I buy the bolt on, on the plus side I keep getting free o2 to o2 calls.



Anything else I should be aware of?



Thanks



Rich

[Anonymous]

I think the only downside would be no wireless hotspots unless I buy the bolt on, on the plus side I keep getting free o2 to o2 calls.
Anything else I should be aware of?

The wifi bolt-on is just for BT Openzone and The Cloud, because o2 have a charging agreement with them. You can connect to your router and free wifi hotspots for nothing. I do.

Without a specific iPhone contract you won't have visual voicemail, call merging or the option to buy the tethering bolt-on. If you don't need these you'll be fine.

You'll certainly need the web bolt-on though.

SV

[Anonymous]

Not a great deal.

The credit of £150 is a quite a con...

The £35 a month you were paying was subsidsing the handset by about £15-£20 a month. If you keep the handset, they give the £150 as a payoff. Not a very good payoff...The N95 was probably £300 to £350 of that total 18 month deal at £35

The real cost of the 'airtime' and texts is seen in their Simiplcity tariffs, I think which is about £15 a month.

Better off buying the PAYG Iphone, buying a simiplcity contract.

Simples!

[Anonymous]

I'm in exactly the same position with the same phone and tariff,

I thought i'd work it out properly with some numbers...

On your current phone, youve paid £35 x 18 months, equalling £630
which gave you 600mins and 500 texts a month.

A currently available simplicity SIMonly deal offers 800 mins and
a whopping 1600 texts, with the Webbolt on selected for £19.58 a
month if you choose the 12 month option. Slightly fewer on the
1 month no commitment Simplicity SIM.

http://shop.o2.co.uk/simplicity-12

Now, the price of the phone in your current £35 a month deal is
therefore costing you £15 a month, so over 18 months of your current
contract, so I work that out at £270 of the £630 you've paid...

I got my N95 for Free, but at one time I'm sure it was a chargeable
phone, in he early days it was £150 or thereabouts, so factor that
in if you had to pay for it. I might have been lucky as an existing
retentions customer, I dont know...

So...the £150 credit isn't looking so rosy now. Tempting, but the
numbers dont work in your favour.

If you buy a PAYG iPhone 3GS at £440, and if you chose to keep your
existing contract going at £35 a month, over 18 more months, that
Iphone would have cost you a whopping £1070, less the £150 credit
so thats now just £920.

You could get the same PAYG iPhone 3GS at £440, buy the Simplicity
SIM for £19.58 (which is more texts and mins) thats now £792.44 over
the same 18 month period. A saving of £127.56

Going onto a new 18 month Contract 3GS will cost £184, and at £34.26
a month, this will come out at £800.68, so thats £8.24 more than
the SIM only deal, but you'd be tied in to an 18 month hard contract
whereas the Simplicty deal would allow flexibility to get a new phone
maybe in a year if the 12 month product cycle appears to stay...

http://www.allaboutiphone.net/2009/06/t ... -on-o2-uk/

A lot of maths and calculation work like mine is listed on the link
above. Hope that helps!

Enjoy!

[Anonymous]

Agree with the post above pretty much.

The PAYG option is quite an 'ouch' to start with, having to fork out the best part of £440 up front
where as the contract options is, as you say, effectlvely a 'in-store finance, so for the small
difference in cost, its a close call. It boils down t flexibility in the end. Whether you want tied into
a 18 month deal or not, and if youre bothered about being locked into a cycl which exceeds
what appears to be a 12 month product life...

Referring to the original poster, the maths show that the offer proposed is not very good...