Top Deals From the Weekly Email
Cheapest iPhone
Read the email this appeared inApple's latest iPhone's a tempting proposition for gadget-lovers, businesspeople and fashionistas alike. Yet it certainly isn’t MoneySaving, you need a £45/month contract to get it free, when other networks'll give away handsets and much cheaper contracts.
Surprisingly, as it's only available on the o2 network, there are still ways to cut the cost, so if you want to go iPhone, all the info’s right here. Of course to really cut costs, forget it and just read the Cheap Mobiles guide to get a much better value tariff.
Like all providers, o2 operates a number of tariff levels; in this case, if you buy a cheaper contract, you'll pay more for the phone, whereas if you plump for a higher monthly cost you can get it for free.
Get double the minutes for less cash.
While the contract is for eighteen months, the trick to this is that o2 will let you downgrade your tariff after 9 months, opening up a tidy loophole for those that are organised. As the tables below show (in red), it works out £9 or £10 cheaper overall to take out the £45/month tariff and then switch down to £35 at the 9 month mark. In the meantime, you benefit from 1200 free minutes per month.
Cost of an 8GB iPhone (18 month contract)
Monthly |
Included mins (1) |
Included texts |
Phone cost |
Cost after 9 months |
Cost over 18 months |
£30 |
75 |
125 |
£99 |
£369 |
£639 |
£35 |
600 |
500 |
£99 |
£414 |
£729 |
£45 |
1200 |
500 |
Free |
£405 |
£810 |
£75 |
3000 |
500 |
Free |
£675 |
£1350 |
(1) All iPhone tariffs also include unlimited 3G data (subject to fair usage policy) and unlimited wireless access at The Cloud hotspots. |
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Cost of a 16GB iPhone (18 month contract)
Monthly |
Included mins (1) |
Included texts |
Phone cost |
Cost after 9 months |
Cost over 18 months |
£30 |
75 |
125 |
£159 |
£429 |
£699 |
£35 |
600 |
500 |
£159 |
£474 |
£789 |
£45 |
1200 |
500 |
£59 |
£464 |
£869 |
£75 |
3000 |
500 |
Free |
£675 |
£1350 |
(1) All iPhone tariffs also include unlimited 3G data (subject to fair usage policy) and unlimited wireless access at The Cloud hotspots. |
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Whilst over 9 months you'll spend £90 more on the contract than you would have on the £35 tariff, the phone costs £99/£100 less, so you'll still save £9/ £10 overall, and that's before cashback.
It's a nice loophole, but o2 may well be calling your bluff; it hopes you'll take out the £45 contract then forget to downgrade in time.
So, set some reminders.
The iPhone's calendar's a good place to start; skip 8 months ahead and write your future self a note about arranging the downgrade. To be doubly sure, use our Tart Alert. Just tell it when the 9 months'll be up, and it'll text you a reminder 6 weeks in advance, giving you plenty of time to make the switch.
Buy online and get £35 cashback.
Buy the contract at o2 or the Carphone Warehouse online, via TopCashback or Quidco and you can get £35 cashback too. If you don't already have a Quidco account, it's better to use TopCashback, as it doesn't take a cut of your cash (Quidco takes the first £5 you earn). Unfortunately this cash is never guaranteed, as sometimes cashback sites don't 'track' deals in progress. To find out more about how they work, read the full Cashback Sites article.
Also, bear in mind that both o2 and the Carphone Warehouse have recently had stock shortages, and while they seem to be getting a handle on it now, stock of 16GB iPhones is still very limited nationwide.
Get a Pay As You Go 2G iPhone.
The release of the 3G iPhone means you can get the older 2G one (slower internet and no GPS system) for £200 on eBay. So you could buy this and plonk a free o2 SIM in to sidestep line rental entirely (though do watch out for data costs, which can be high on Pay-As-You-Go tariffs).
Plus to soup it up, the 3G's software (version 2.0) is free to download to owners of the 2G phone. With this it’ll have all the latest features, including access to Apple's app store, which offers hundreds of productive programs and unproductive games.
Grabbing last year's model's a great alternative; while the 3G iPhone's slated to come out on Pay-As-You-Go by the year's end, it's likely to cost a big whack.
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Will it come out on other networks?
A rumour surfaced recently that the iPhone 3G will also be available on Orange as of this October. However, as Monkey_Tennis has helpfully pointed out in the discussion thread, o2 has stated that its exclusive deal lasts a full year, so short of vast sums of money changing hands, this may not be possible. Which is a shame, since increased competition could bring some better prices. And even if not, it'll at least allow current Orange users to get a 3G iPhone without paying off their contract first.
Can I unlock it?
Most modern mobiles are tied to the network you buy them on, so you can't grab a cheapie subsidised phone then whack just any SIM in it. Yet it's possible 'unlock' many of them, making them work on any network, and it usually just requires a code. Read the Mobile Unlocking guide for full details.
However, since iPhones are more like mini-computers than plain mobiles, unlocking them to work on other networks is complicated. There are also a couple of serious things to bear in mind before going down this route: first, unlocking, or 'jailbreaking' the phone voids its warranty, so Apple won't help you out should there be a problem.
Second, you'll be engaged in a constant game of cat and mouse; each time Apple releases a new software update it'll likely undo your hard work unlocking the phone, so you'll have to either avoid updates like the plague, or search the net for workarounds. Since Apple releases these updates quite regularly, this can quickly get tedious.
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