Buying 4S Unlocked vs. Contract: Your Thoughts?

[SteveO]

This post is geared mainly for [mostly] non-international travelers who don't need to worry a lot about extensive across-the-pond usage.

Here is a chart that shows the carriers and contract pricing.

and instrux here for Pay as You Go on ATT.

Caveat: the OSX Daily url is for the iPhone 4, not 4S, but we'll see when an update is posted if everything still applies.

Taking Sprint on contract as an example (afaik, they're the cheapest), figure about $90/month for 450 minutes ($80+tax, I may be low on the tax) and unlimited data x 2 years = $2160 + 399 64gb iPhone (+tax) = ~$2559 total.

Pay as you go (no contract): $50/month talk for 2 years on ATT assuming you can get HSPA+ 3g (T-Mo may cost less but it's EDGE and that may be a dealbreaker for some) = $1200 (+ tax?) + 850 (+tax) for 4S 64gb = ~$2,050....and then add data buckets @ $25 for 500mb. Note, if you're a user of 1GB a month or greater, the PayGo is probably not a good plan for you as it's an extra $50 a month if you go with the ATT option. Even with the 500mb option, you're looking at $600 over 24 months which would take you over $2600 on the ATT, very limited Pay-Go plan.

So that would be about $2560 on a Sprint contract vs. $1600+data buckets @ $25/500mb on ATT PayGo. Might be something for some light data users to think about. Going Prepaid T-Mo (EDGE only) would be a max $1600 including data I'd guess. Would love to hear other thoughts on this, maybe I am missing something.

So Apple pricing these unlocked phones the way they are...makes it hard to provide value for even light users. UNLESS you can make the option below work for you:

Screw the big, overpriced carriers, especially Verizon and AT&T. You can buy a refurbished Nokia e71 from StraightTalk.com for $99, remove its SIM card and insert the e71's SIM in an unlocked iPhone. Then, you get unlimited voice, data and text messaging for $45 per month for your iPhone. StraightTalk uses the AT&T network, and you get AT&T's HSPA+ data speeds. You might bump up against a carrier's police if you exceed maybe 5 GB (upper limit unknown) data usage per month, but most people won't have that problem. Other smaller carriers that piggyback on the big carriers may well work the same (YMMV).

This would add another $100 onto your PayGo price but would conceivably stabilize the data costs so you'd land at $1080 ($45/month for 2 years) + $850 4S + the $99 Nokia for the Straight Talk card = ~$2030...note that all these PAYG costs assume no price increase. This StraightTalk plan seems like the best money-saving solution — to the tune of about 500 bucks — assuming it works and that it's 3G.

Note also that one commenter on the OSX link said you don't need to jailbreak, just go here to his blog for instrux. Note this only apparently works with the $25/500mb data plan above, apparently it doesn't work with an unlimited plan:
http://www.amirnaor.com/?p=49

Some commenters also said they could only get EDGE on ATT with this, but the blogger stated that 3g should be doable with this as he had done it. This unlocked option seems like a winner for someone like me who doesn't use a lot of data. (I'm usually on wifi as I work at home.)

Not sure if a jailbreak will be necessary on the 4S. It seems completely stupid to need to jailbreak a phone you bought at full price. Am I crazy for thinking this? Someone enlighten me, maybe you don't need to jailbreak an unlocked (i.e. full price, no contract) phone. I'm not totally clear on the unlocked/jailbreak terminology.

Another caveat: you can bet ATT will do their best to thwart this method, so you may need to be okay with staying ahead of the Death Star. If you use the Straight Talk or another 3rd party option, though, that may insulate you.

[rgG]

Just buy a used iPhone, locked, and put it on one of the AT&T MVNOs. You can get unlimited talk, text and 250MB of data for $50, or unlimited talk and text and 2GB of data for $60. There are no taxes and no fees. The data will probably not be as fast as on contract, but you are paying a lot less.

The phone does not need to be unlocked and everything except MMS works. There are even ways to get MMS to work, sometimes, if that is important to you. There are at least three MVNOs out there offering plans similar to this.

[SteveO]

A very valid and money saving point. Sorry, I should've stated that I used the 64gb example above because if I get another iPhone, it will be a 64. I already have an Original on T-Mo prepaid starting next month, thanks to you, rgG, IIRC!

[sekker]

rgG wrote:
Just buy a used iPhone, locked, and put it on one of the AT&T MVNOs. You can get unlimited talk, text and 250MB of data for $50, or unlimited talk and text and 2GB of data for $60. There are no taxes and no fees. The data will probably not be as fast as on contract, but you are paying a lot less.

The phone does not need to be unlocked and everything except MMS works. There are even ways to get MMS to work, sometimes, if that is important to you. There are at least three MVNOs out there offering plans similar to this.

With iOS5, you would still have iMessage for free texting, too.

[rgG]

sekker wrote:
[quote=rgG]
Just buy a used iPhone, locked, and put it on one of the AT&T MVNOs. You can get unlimited talk, text and 250MB of data for $50, or unlimited talk and text and 2GB of data for $60. There are no taxes and no fees. The data will probably not be as fast as on contract, but you are paying a lot less.

The phone does not need to be unlocked and everything except MMS works. There are even ways to get MMS to work, sometimes, if that is important to you. There are at least three MVNOs out there offering plans similar to this.

With iOS5, you would still have iMessage for free texting, too.
Yep, and there are apps like Instagram that let you send pics also.

My daughter and I both have iPhones, 4 not 4s, on prepaid plans. She is on the AT&T network and I am on Verizon. Since I am the one paying the bills, I am very happy.

[space-time]

what the heck is an MVNO?

[rgG]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virt...k_operator

A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a company that provides mobile phone services but does not have its own licensed frequency allocation of radio spectrum, nor does it necessarily have all of the infrastructure required to provide mobile telephone service.[1] Conversely, a company that does have frequency allocation(s) and all the required infrastructure to run an independent mobile network is known simply as a mobile network operator (MNO). MVNOs are roughly equivalent to the "switchless resellers" of the traditional landline telephone market. An MNO that does not have a frequency spectrum allocation in a particular geographical region

Basically they are resellers of cellular service like Page Plus, H2O wireless, Red Pocket, Jolt, and many others.

[mattkime]

my att service is about $60/month, which brings the two year price to $2,200. (i'm not a heavy data user or texter)

at $170, its not worth the hassle for me.