Where do you buy your phones from?

GGizmo

GGizmo

GGizmo

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I'm looking to buy a new phone. But apart from buying it on the network site, Three, where else do people buy phones from?

I only know of the Carphone Warehouse and Amazon.

What other sites do you guys buy phones from?
 
Whoever offers the cheapets option through a comparison site, direct from a network is almost always a rip off.

End of the day, once you have your phone you never have to deal with the reseller anyway so they just need to deliver to you.

In fact some resellers are actually better than networks, remember having a bit of a nightmare with O2 with both ordering and returning the Xperia I which was a stark contrast to someone like Fonehouse who were brilliant thorughout.
 
The Apple store.

I'd rather use a 0% credit card and pay outright than pay a hefty network markup and get a locked phone.
 
i got one from majormobiles, it went faulty, i sent it back now they will not answer emails or their phone, so they stole my phone... that was 7 months ago
 
MagicBoy said:
The Apple store.

I'd rather use a 0% credit card and pay outright than pay a hefty network markup and get a locked phone.
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Is this cheaper than something like mobiles.co.uk?

I don't swim in the iphone end of the market, but you can get a iphone 12 with a 2-year 54gb (5G) contract for total cost of £1054. So that's effectively £799 for the phone and then £10.60/month for the 54gb contract. Which seems hard to beat, at a glance. And it's unlocked.
 
cheesyboy said:
Is this cheaper than something like mobiles.co.uk?

I don't swim in the iphone end of the market, but you can get a iphone 12 with a 2-year 54gb (5G) contract for total cost of £1054. So that's effectively £799 for the phone and then £10.60/month for the 54gb contract. Which seems hard to beat, at a glance. And it's unlocked.
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Just do the maths with what you're expecting to pay for the SIM only and go for the cheaper option. Of course does depend if you can get the interest free option or afford large upfront, hence why most people just mindlessly go for contracts despite them being more expensive.
 
MagicBoy said:
Dunno, do mobile.co.uk have a catch? Seem to recall a number of sites a while back that had cash back schemes they made it purposely difficult to use...
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They used to do a lot of cashback schemes, which weren't difficult as such, but were something you needed to remember to do. Now, most of their contracts don't involve cashback claims - that one I quoted doesn't.
neoboy said:
Just do the maths with what you're expecting to pay for the SIM only and go for the cheaper option. Of course does depend if you can get the interest free option or afford large upfront, hence why most people just mindlessly go for contracts despite them being more expensive.
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Well yes. That's what I was asking: is it really cheaper to buy direct from Apple?

I've seen the whole "buy the handset and get a sim only deal: it's cheaper" thing for years and just assumed it was true of top end phones, as I always found mid-range handsets cheaper on contracts. But looking at it now, I'm not so sure it holds true for high-end either, really.

An exception, for me: couple of years ago I got a Xperia XZ1 on contract for £21/month (£504) and a couple of months later it was cheap on Amazon for the handset at £220, so I got one for my wife and a £8/month sim only contract (£412 total). But that's the only time I've really seen that when shopping.
 
To be fair with Apple products, it can be cheaper to buy directly most of the time because contracts just aren't as heavily discounted as those with equivalent Android handsets. As you pointed out though, there are exceptions but it also depends on the model.

More vanilla base models from Apple do tend to go on sale from time to time, but Pro and Max handsets don't seem to get any real discounts. 11 Pro Max for example is basically same price as 12 Pro Max now for a brand new handset on a contract.

Also if you're talking pre-ordering a new handset, it can also be cheaper to buy outright and go SIM only but generally if you wait a few months better contract deals tend to pop up.

End of the day, when you decide to get a phone it's best way is to just have a quick look on a comparison site to see how contract vs outright options compare.
 
cheesyboy said:
I don't swim in the iphone end of the market, but you can get a iphone 12 with a 2-year 54gb (5G) contract for total cost of £1054. So that's effectively £799 for the phone and then £10.60/month for the 54gb contract. Which seems hard to beat, at a glance. And it's unlocked.
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If you bought now, there's a chance you'll get stung with two in-contract price rises, adding another £100 to the term cost and making the sim-only element closer to £15. To be fair the contract price you've found isn't terrible as far as iPhone contracts go - you see some absolute stinkers at £70+ a month, with the same in-contract price rises.
 
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'll have a look around the places you recommend.

I'm probably going to go for a Samsung. My last phone was the Samsung S4, which doesn't come up in some searches these days lol.
 
Either eBay or forum classifieds. I don't really care if it's second hand or not, as long as it's only been used for a few weeks at most and still looks new. Usually get some goodies like cases and such too, which means I don't have to bother with buying them separately.

Only time I sort of got stung was buying a Note 4, and it had slight screen burn in.
 
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