The Apple Premium

spudbynight

spudbynight

spudbynight

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Joined
8 Nov 2006
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I recently got an iPhone 6 Plus (64GB) on contract with Vodafone. I haggled hard with them and I managed to get £130 off the upfront cost. I still had to pay £50 (rather than £180) upfront and then £48.50 a month.

The iPhone 6 Plus I selected has a RRP of £699 and has only just been released. It was going to cost me £1214 over the length of the contract - less the £130 I haggled off it.

I decided this was too much to justify. I returned it and managed or order a Galaxy Note 4. This had a list price of £629. The contract price that Vodafone list for this with the same tariff as I had with the iPhone 6 Plus is the same - £48.50 per month. It has an upfront cost of £50 rather than the £180 listed for the iPhone 6 Plus. I would have thought I could have negotiated a similar level of discout on this device.

What I actually managed to get was an increased data tariff (7GB of data) which normally costs £53.50 per month with no upfront cost. At the price on the website this was going to work out at £1284 over the length of the contract. I actually managed to get this for £30 per month with no upfront cost. This gives me a total over the contract of £720.

Why is there a difference of £494 in contract cost over this term? I would have expected a difference of £70 to cover the difference in price between the handsets. Why, taking that away is there still a difference of £424 between them?
 
You answered your own question. Because people buy them.

If Apple products can be sold for £lol, then people will sell them for £lol.
 
People want an iPhone for the sake of having an iPhone, and the networks can get away with it as a result.

The smart money goes to buying off-contract (with or without some form of finance).
 
The smart money gets your hand me down on a payg and goes on holiday with the rest. Plus they take their phone to the beach, leave it on the pub table etc cos it's just a cheap phone to them.
 
You are paying 48 a month that's the answer to your question. People pay what ever these companies demand which is a shame
 
Em3bbs said:
I wouldn't have said it's the networks that are 'getting away' with anything to be honest.
Click to expand...

I have heard stories about Apple not allowing networks to negotiate much on tariffs. Don't know how much truth to it there is.

I received my iPhone 6+ and held it in my hand. I looked at it and thought, no, £48.50 a month is ludicrous.

With the Note 4 I also managed to get 24 months of their entertainment pack. (I got 6 months with the iPhone). That is something I do actually use. I pay for a Sky Entertainment Pass with NowTV as it is. That is 6.99 a month - £167.76 over the life of the contract. When I factor that in, the cost per month isn't an unreasonable amount over the cost of a sim only deal. I certainly would have paid more with a sim only deal and paying for the Note 4.
 
Sim only and 0% credit card.

5S cost me the phone, unlocked + £10 pm. No ties, and half the cost of those examples.

Still amazes me how people can take these top tier contracts and pay that sort of money.

Looking forward to getting a OnePlus One soon, £270 + £10pm 4G. Win.
 
Not sure if you are aware but the OnePlus One only supports band 3 on the Three network, which probably won't give you that good a 4G signal, especially indoors. I've just moved to Three and it's one thing putting me off getting a OPO.
 
Was aware the OPO had limited 4G support, but wasn't aware of that. Good to keep in mind.

I'm stuck between one of those and a Nexus 5 at the moment, but the 64gb on the OPO is winning me over.
 
To be honest Three's 3G network is pretty damn good where I normally am anyway (Thames Valley > London) so I might just give it a go anyway.
 
It's not bad here in Surrey, but indoors I struggle to get 1 bar on my 5S. I was hoping 4G would solve a lot of those problems, but I've had the text to say they've rolled the service out in the area and nothing has changed.

When I've got reception, the network is superb. I get 3 bars of 4G in Winnersh at work, and that is incredibly quick. Just would be nice to get a bit of voice coverage at home from time to time!
 
Have you tried their voice over wifi calling app? It's called 'Three InTouch'. Seems to work pretty well although doesn't work on rooted devices (or the OPO judging from reviews) and I'm not too keen on how it handles SMS messages on Android.
 
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