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Comparing the iPhone's 'true' price

Posted Jun 12 2008, 12:41 PM by Kim Peterson
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Oh, sure, Apple's new 3G iPhone sounds great at $199, but AT&T is going to pile on a two-year contract, a voice plan that starts at $39 a month and a data plan that adds $30 on top of that. And if you want text messaging, it'll cost you another $5 a month. It all adds up to $1,975 over two years, and Gizmodo takes a look at how that compares with other phones.

Turns out the price isn't that bad. The original iPhone costs $160 less, at $1,815 over two years. But three other 3G phones cost more. AT&T's HTC Tilt costs $2,075, Sprint's HTC Mogul costs $1,955 and the XV6800 by Verizon comes in at $2,175.

Gizmodo's takeaway? "If you don't need 3G at all (or GPS), you might not need to upgrade if you've got an old one. Otherwise, $160 is a small price to pay -- for us at least -- over the course of two years to drastically increase your email and browsing speeds." 

Apple shares are down more than 4% today to $173.06 at last check.

Mark Evans says: "The big flaw Gizmodo is missing is the economic model has changed with the carriers now having complete control over pricing, which means they can raise prices any time they like." 

Disclosures: I don't own shares of any companies mentioned in this post. And while Microsoft owns this blog, Microsoft does not control, censor or otherwise have any editorial influence over what I write.  

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Comments

 

A cell phone carrier wanting a 2 year contract? That's unheard of! Wait that's right they all do that. Let us not forget what the M in MSN stands for, not to mention who is slowly eating their market share away.

Print some more worthless opinions msn, please!

fool (Posted 06.12.08 3:50 PM) Report Abuse

Yeah, right. I'd like to see the Blackberry plan that's only $45 a month. AT&T's cheapest Data add-on (on top of your regular minutes) for a Blackberry is $30/month. I'm so tired of hearing people complain about this. Most other wireless providers plans for a smartphone (minutes and data) start at around $70.  You're paying so much more for an iphone because of the features (hello, it's basically a new ipod also....which alone, and 8gig mini is $200+)

Everyone is making such a big deal over this, if you can't afford it, quit complaining and whining about how AT&T and Apple are screwing everyone over and go get your free Motorola

Razr.

tired of it (Posted 06.12.08 3:53 PM) Report Abuse

There really isn't any savings.  The cost of the phone was reduced and put back into the service plan.  So what's the big deal?

Tamedwolfe (Posted 06.12.08 3:57 PM) Report Abuse

Apple should have severed ties with AT&T and alowed people to sign up with other companies.

AT&T is really becoming a joke and too big of a company.  And when a company gets too big, the only thing that can and will happen is the fall of AT&T.

I want an iPhone, but not with AT&T...

Noah (Posted 06.12.08 4:01 PM) Report Abuse

Sprint has their data plan for blackberry's at $30/mo

bull (Posted 06.12.08 4:02 PM) Report Abuse

Guess I'll Stick with my Sprint  plan and Blackberry  phone with unlimited voice texting and DATA  that includes phone as modem for my laptop and second phone  with same features  for less then 200.00 a month

Vitale (Posted 06.12.08 4:11 PM) Report Abuse

Eddie, you grammar sucks.

mizzle shizzle (Posted 06.12.08 4:12 PM) Report Abuse

coming form MSN a company owned by Microsoft, this article is not very unpartial, of course the wording using is the article itself is very misleading, putting "true" iphone price wording, this is very common in bussines wars, the true price of an IPHONE IS 199.00 plus tax for the 8g model and 299.00 for the 16g plus tax the PLANS are a different story, so the article should say "THE IPHONE PLANS TRUE PLANS" but of course it will not sound as alarmist as this article.

jacvi (Posted 06.12.08 4:21 PM) Report Abuse

do people realize that for only $10 more a month you get speeds two and a half times faster?  instead of a 15 second download, its now near 5.  thats a long time when you are waiting for something to load.  also, if we are going to factor in 'everything' into the cost, why dont you factor in the gps/navigation aspect.  a garmin starts out at $100, factory navigation in a car can be a $1000 option.  there are even car options up near $2000 when you have multimedia storage on it.  so skip the $2000 option, pay the $1800 for the iphonover 2 years, and you end up making $200.  thats the new headline "new iphone gives you $200"

Jon (Posted 06.12.08 4:22 PM) Report Abuse

The phone does not cost $199.00 by itself; at that price it is obviously discounted via the 2 yr contract. Doesn't look like it is available without the contract; if it is then I would expect it to cost around $399.00

MaliciousFadeaway (Posted 06.12.08 4:29 PM) Report Abuse

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