What happened to phone prices over the last few years??

Ksanti

Ksanti

Ksanti

Soldato
Joined
10 Feb 2010
Posts
3,248
I've been on a Three contract last couple years, Lumia 925 500 mins/ultd/ultd data for £27 a month. Now I realise that prices will go up over that time and I got a fairly good deal but that was the Windows flagship at that time (admittedly only a short time) but looking at my upgrade options three are suggesting rubbish like a Galaxy S3 Mini (yes 3) if I want anything approaching that contract/price now. Have Three just gotten rubbish about their (online) pricing lately or are phones in general that inflated?

Just seems almost insulting considering I had an actual S3 for about a year before the Lumia 925 and we're now three years down the line!

When I got my Lumia loads of people were buying phones sim free then using Gifgaff for their sims, is that still what people do?
 
Ksanti said:
I've been on a Three contract last couple years, Lumia 925 500 mins/ultd/ultd data for £27 a month. Now I realise that prices will go up over that time and I got a fairly good deal but that was the Windows flagship at that time (admittedly only a short time) but looking at my upgrade options three are suggesting rubbish like a Galaxy S3 Mini (yes 3) if I want anything approaching that contract/price now. Have Three just gotten rubbish about their (online) pricing lately or are phones in general that inflated?

Just seems almost insulting considering I had an actual S3 for about a year before the Lumia 925 and we're now three years down the line!

When I got my Lumia loads of people were buying phones sim free then using Gifgaff for their sims, is that still what people do?
Click to expand...

Phone prices are about the same, but networks are definitely charging more, especially for 4G.

Haze said:
i buy sim free, then take the sim out my phone and put it in the new one??
Click to expand...

Prices have gone up for contract and sim free users, makes no difference which you use.
 
Last edited:
Yes prices are now much higher than before. In 2012 I got unlimited everything on One Plan with 3 for £33 a month + Galaxy S3. No up front cost.

Now it'd cost around double if that deal was even available.
 
I just ordered a Samsung S6 Edge 32GB Gold on EE with unlimited mins, texts + 5GB 4G data for £31.99 a month with £24.50 upfront. Seems like a good deal to me anyway man.
 
RE GiffGaff - these days they don't seem to be the best choice for data - though they use the O2 network I get 1/10th of the throughput any time of day or night at best on GG compared to sticking an O2 sim in the same phone in the same place.
 
I remember having 2 exactly same contracts back in the day. I renewed one - got the phone for free (even had to wait 2 weeks, as it was just released), fast forward 6 months later when I wanted to renew the 2nd contract, they wanted to charge me 200 for it. No logic there. This was T-Mobile.

at around that time I started using SIM only contracts and buying phones for cash.
 
Rroff said:
RE GiffGaff - these days they don't seem to be the best choice for data - though they use the O2 network I get 1/10th of the throughput any time of day or night at best on GG compared to sticking an O2 sim in the same phone in the same place.
Click to expand...

Pretty much the sole reason I've just signed a new contract as I couldn't even stream Twitch at low quality whilst on my breaks at work. My Nexus 4 doesn't support 4G so a sim only deal wasn't suitable. I did price up buying a sim free phone + sim only deal and it was the same price or more expensive than just getting a contract phone.
 
Yeah man it's here http://www.moneysupermarket.com/mobile-phones/brands/samsung/galaxy-s6-edge-32gb-gold/

Just change to EE and 5GB data, it's the top one from directmobiles.co.uk. They have decent reviews online although they did try hard sell me phone insurance earlier on but managed to evade that one eventually :P

If you go direct through EE it's like £51.99 a month + £9.99 upfront. Have no idea how they offer such cheap rates but not complaining, my phone is sat in my local post office waiting to be collected, only ordered 2 days ago :)

Oh yeah and don't worry about service, they only provide the phone but the contract is just standard through EE so you'll deal with them re queries/payments etc
 
Last edited:
I was in an almost identical situation. Took out a 925 contract with 3, 18 months ago with 600 mins, AYCE data, AYCE texts and a 2GB tethering add-on for £30/month.

Couldn't come close to that with any "upgrade" (even worse considering I've bought a 930 since, and have an iPhone 5S on my work SIM). I ended up swapping to a 12-month SIM only tariff, AYCE data, AYCE texts, 600 minutes and 8GB tethering for £22/month.
 
Inflation, handset subsidies are down, device costs are up, network costs are up. The 925 was subsidised to hell and back as Nokia couldn't shift their stock so the device is a bit of an anomaly but within tolerances. Indirect sales like CPW involve the networks giving a chunk of money to the indirect seller which is bad for business if you're a network so that's more money walking out the door too.
 
Kalexuz, any idea if that includes stuff like a deezer subscription? Used to get one on my same priced orange contract and if that was the case I'd probably go for it
 
Device costs are only up as they've been artificially inflated by the manufacturers - Samsung want to be like Apple with huge profit margins whereas you've got manufacturers like One Plus or whatever selling the same hardware half the price.
Hopefully one day it'll burst when people stop being muppets and paying the prices.
 
The trend all around the world is to reduce, and ultimately end, handset subsidises.

I prefer buying phones outright. The upfront cost can be painful but it means that I can upgrade when I want and easily switch networks for a better deal.
 
Tunney said:
Most handset manufacturers barely break even. I wouldn't call this 'artificial' inflation.
Click to expand...
Evidence of this? The BOM of most modern phones is around $60USD, factor in another $10-per-device to cover one-time manufacturing costs (like molds) and $30-per-device to cover R&D per model, that comes to around $100 per phone, which will then retail for $650/£500.


Even if you double these cost estimates, that still puts the manufacturers in a healthy profit, considering the cost-price of these handsets is usually about 1/2 of retail.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom