June 10th, 2008 | |
Posted in Mac
This is going to be a really short post detailing how the new iPhone 3G is more expensive in the long run than the first iPhone.
The original iPhone was either $399.99 or $499.99 depending on what one you purchased. Lets just take the $499.99 iPhone for this (Comparing the $399.99 old iPhone to the $199.99 iPhone 3G will lead you to the same difference in price). Now lets just use the $39.99 voice plan for both of the phones (as long as you use the same plans for both of the iPhone’s you get the same result). Since both plans are going to be $39.99 we can cross that out and not even need to do that math. The data plans are different for each phone so we need to do the math for those. The original iPhone’s data plan was $20 a month so we need to do 24×20=480. We then take that 480 and add 499 (price of the 16gb iPhone). 480+499.99=979.99 . Ok, the original iPhone would cost $979.99 for the entire 2 year contract just counting the price of the phone and data, remember voice doesn’t matter since it is the same price for both phones.
Now on to the new iPhone 3G which costs $199.99 or $299.99 depending on which one you get. We are going to use the high end model because that is the one we used in the previous section. The data plan is now $30 instead of the original $20. 24×30=720. Now we need to add the $720 to the price of the phone, $299.99. 720+299.99=1019.99 .
To find the actual difference in price you take the cost of the current phone+data, $1019.99, and subtract $979.99, phone+data cost of the original phone. 1019.99-979.99=40. In the long run you are going to be paying $40 more than if you kept the original iPhone for 2 years.
The hardware may be cheaper but in the long run it is more expensive. Oh and also AT&T’s 3G network may not be as big as you think. I’ve mirrored this image locally but I got it from HowardForums. This image was last updated 4/30/08 and you can find it here. The blue is AT&T’s 3G coverage area’s. This sucks if you are not in a 3G area because you will still have to pay the $30 a month data fee for EDGE.
I was totally excited about the iPhone 3G until I did these calculations. I may still buy one if it is with a family plan but even then it would be $10 more than I was expecting. That $10 may not seem like a lot but when you don’t have a lot of money as it is anything helps.
Tags:
apple,
iphone