iPhone on "Pay as you go" Only £350(!)

Can you believe the price tag on this thing?

http://www.t3.com/news/pay-as-you-go-iphone-3g-to-launch-september-16th-£350-upfront?=36562

And that's just the 8GB model
The 16GB one is just under £400 (!!)

Whilst I admire the popularity of the phone, when you look at it's hardware stats on paper I really can't see how the phone is worth THAT much money?
I can buy a damn good laptop for £350. One example being an eeePC 901, 1.6Ghz, 20GB SSD, 4GB memory, blah blah

Still, its Apple, therefore a million and one people will glady rob their grannies to pay for the phone + apple design tax

I think the people who pay that kind of money for the iPhone need to see a psychiatrist (says he that bought a 24" iMac).

I wonder if you can phone people on an iPhone? Or maybe they forgot to add that feature...

Apple apparently decided to use a sub-standard 3G chip, so somewhat ironically the answer to that question is no. Or charitably "once in a blue moon".

Equally, the volume on the previous iPhone was so low that you could not hear the callers voice if you were in a moderately noisy place, i,e, a train, bus, resturant, shop
Apple, where's the iVolume feature?

@Jim Brown: completely OT, but I will inform you that your links to you great program Framework Assistant dont' work for LINUX (.gz file is corrupted on my machine) and MacOS PPC (page doesn't exist).

And how much was a laptop 3 years ago? It's called market. There is an offer and there is a demand. And someone sets the pricetag on it.



Man, are you jellous or what? Well, in my wifes case she didn't rob her granny. She's working and can effort that thing. And it wasn't because Apple makes it. It's because this thing is imho the first and only mobile size device that you can surf the net productively when you are on the road. There is no need to look at cutoff warp pages, you can get the full experience. Plus the little apps you can get, some are very useful. It is also very easy to use, no need to read a 200pg manual.



I can't agree to that. Here is works just fine.

My Nokia Communicator can do this since 5 years.

bye

Good point, its no where near worth the same as a good netbook+cheap phone combo... and still buy a good meal with the change! :D

iPhone = expensive fad, Ill wait a little while then pick one up for 50 quid :P

But can you fit your laptop in your pocket?




That's not true. An independent lab tested it twice and it works just fine.

Also, AT&T or Apple came out and said that the issue was that the iPhone was asking the cell towers for more power than they actually needed, and so if there were a lot of iPhones in an area, they might overload the tower. So they released a patch recently which was designed to fix that.





A fad? Hardly.

And it can be replaced by a notebook and a cheap phone? Are you serious? I've had a laptop for a long time and I never took it with me anywhere. I used it to store photos and browse the net when on vacaation once, and took it over my sister's a couple times to play Starcraft against them.

The iPhone means you always have the internet in your pocket. Not worth the money you say? Well maybe not at UK prices. But here it cost me $200 and $70 a month for unlimited internet and phone calls. And it's worth every penny.

When I'm out and I need directions, I can use the GPS to center the map on my location and get directions from there to any destination. I can also search for different things locally like restaurants or auto body shops or what have you.

And when I'm shopping, the iPhone saves me money, because I can instantly compare prices online with other local stores using the free Save Benjis app, or by logging into Pricegrabber.

And when I'm waiting at a restaraunt for my food to arrive, I can browse the web, or play games, or listen to music.

And if I'm chatitng with friends and I mention a youtube video I saw which was funny, I can pull that up.

You can also get local weather forecasts.

And the chat application is great. When you get a message you see a talk bubble appear from the left side of the screen, and when you send a message another one appears below it in a different color from the right, and so on, and you can scroll back through the whole conversation as you're having it, and the touch screen keyboard is as fast as the dedicated keyboard some phones have.

The camera even works well in dimly lit restaurants, which my last one didn't.

The phone is just so useful to have on you. And I'm not an apple fanboy, I hate using macs.

vs

The moment a laptop can do the following:

- fits in my pocket
- has an operating time of atleast 2 days
- can make phonecalls
- can do text messages
- has a (good) camera
- has a very good user friendly interface

then I'll be sure to get one.

Actually, there are good indications that the crappy 3G stuff is more related to the carrier used than the phone itself -- Wired conducted a large test, and found that there are tremendous speed and reliability differences between different providers and countries, on otherwise identical equipment.

More info + benchmark program: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/08/iphone-global.html

My 16Gb iPod Touch cost me £240 and is worth every penny. Adding £160 for a 3G phone and GPS doesn't seem too unreasonable at all.

Lars:
You're going to be waiting years if one of your requirements is that the battery lasts 2 days. Battery technology advances really slowly, and running all those graphics takes a lot of juice.

That's the iPhone's main weak point. You really want to have a car charger with you, and one in the office. I recently went on a trip up to the mountains, and it barely lasted the day, with minimal use, because I didn't have a charger with me.


As for the other things, the iPhone does that. The camera is better than a lot of phones and as good as you can expect for a lens of that size.

And the iPhone interface is excellent.

sswift:

I know.. I've got one.. (iPhone that is.. ;))

The iPhone camera isn't that good. At least not any better than most other phones.

Well thankfully since Apple decided to lock you into the crappy carrier, it's still their fault.

Really? Name one £350 phone that has a worse camera than the iPhone. My phone has a practically identical camera and cost much, much less.

Oh yeah? Prove it! Show me some photos from a cellphone other than the iPhone which are any good.

It's a hell of a lot better than the one that was in my LG Rumor, that's for sure. And the LG Rumor is a very new and popular phone which costs about $80.

See for yourself:

The iPhone inside a dimly lit bar with tinted windows:


The LG outdoors on a partially overcast day:


Note how the LG does a lot of noise reduction and sharpening to try to hide the blur, whereas the iPhone appears to do no processing on the image at all and it still looks great, with only a little noise that could easily be cleaned up in photoshop.

Lars:
Oh, I see what you were saying. I thought you were comparing the iphone to a laptop and saying you'd get one when everything in a laptop fit in your pocket. :-)

Because well, "has an operating time of atleast 2 days" is patently false about the iPhone, unless you don't browse the web at all maybe, but I haven't let it run that long without doing that. :-)

16GB iPhone on pay-monthly tariff of £35/month + £159 for the handset = £789 paid for the life of the contract (18 months).

16GB iPhone on PAYG would be £400 plus a monthly top-up of £10 costs £580 over 18 months.

OK, the argument falls down if you top-up more than £20 monthly, but the fact is that it also opens up the possibility of those with poor credit ratings to purchase the phone.

The PAYG option also works out excellent value if you're someone who doesn't send texts very often.

Isn't that two completely different scenes? Outdoor vs indoor and lots of people moving vs a tea cup and some out of focus people in the background?

Perhaps, but the LG was still in far better lighting conditions, and when I tried to take photos with the LG in the same bar that I took photos with the iPhone in, the pictures just came out too dark to see anything.

I had the first gen iPhone for almost a year and now I have the 3G. I have been using smartphones for years. I had a blackberry years ago and used a Windows mobile smartphone for a couple of years. I am no apple fanboy, but the iPhone gets it almost all right. One of my coworkers just got a new blackberry and I had to setup his email. What a dog to work with. It was terrible. Moving around the interface was a nightmare, I could never go back.

The primary disadvantages of the iPhone:

The 3G drops some calls, the original didn't.
No MMS(this REALLY annoys me)
Battery life sucks, especially on the 3G
no copy & paste
Not happy with the camera(my girlfriend's free phone takes better pictures)

Maybe it's just me, but the image from the LG looks much better than the one from the iPhone. Considering that the iPhone is more than an order of magnitude more expensive, I fail to see how this argument favors the iPhone. At all. Basicly you're saying that the iPhone has a marginally better camera than a phone that costs about 1/15th of the price. Yeah. Not a compelling reason to buy.

I didn't say it wasn't. I want one as well. I'm saying its substandard components, should not in good consciousness cost the price they do.

Doesn't work with Flash, Java or PDF's. Making it's Internet Browser mostly a gimmick.

Just an example shot from my LG Viewty
Nice resturant name hey(!)



Conditions - Overcast. The shot has been down-scaled from 2592 x1944 (Camera is 5MB) and cropped a little. No other editing

I have to say in general, the LG Viewty is a little weak in image quality. In particular, colour tends to appear a washed out. However, for video recording it is really superb. 640x480 max recording direct to micro SD card. Also, 120FPS recording for slow-mo capture. Stunning!

The 'feature rich' iPhone has no video recording though(?). Any modern phone has this capability

That's what people said about the iPhone, or the Macbook.....

Good prediction [sarcasm]!

Bust seriously, don't ever bet money on your own predictions.....
Just because of the whole Mac vs PC crap people tend to give devices like this, and the iPod, a bad first impression (just based on Brand loyalty or perceived value). But in reality, this is where Apple tends to shine in terms of quality.

I really like the MobileMe stuff on iPhone - syncs your emails, contacts, calenders, bookmarks on your iPhone, and all your computers. Quite handy to add a new bookmark in IE, and then have it appear instantly on your iPhone.

Just a shame it's so pricey (£60 a year or so) for what is a convenience thing, so I'm not sure if I'll extend it after the free period.

As for the camera, I agree it's probably the biggest weakpoint of the iPhone - I'm still using my N95 as a result, as the 5MP camera and video recording is much better than what the iPhone can offer.

No doubt Apple will release a new version soon though with a superior camera.

Think you have to be a bit silly to spend that much for a phone. But if thats your thing, so be it.

I'm on pay as you go and spend about $30 total a year on my cell phone. I bought it about 4 years ago, thought it broke but turned out that it was just the battery, bought a second phone with two batteries for $40 on ebay and all is good.

I guess it depends if your into gadgets or not. I hate cell phones, and don't want people to be able to contact me whenever they want so I just leave it in the car and use it to get past security at my wifes work, so she knows I'm waiting to pick her up outside.

I like it when a phone is small and just a phone and lasts over a week on a single charge.

What we need is someone to bring out a gadget where you press a button and a synth voice shouts over a PA system different phrases telling people to get off the phone whilst driving and pay attention. And to use their indicators (which about 85% of americans don'd do) That's the kind of gadget I'd spend money on.

Yesterday I've seen iPhone 3G 16GB, it costs more than $1800 :)
Because it is "grey" phones. Apple does not sell iPhones in our country by itself yet.

Old iPhones (first generation) costs around $1000.

Early adopters always pay through the nose and get the quirks that need ironing out. I'm sure in three years they'll be almost as ubiquitous as the iPod.

I don't really see what's so great about the Iphone but people can waste their money as they wish.

Darkheart

Jim:
There are third party apps which you can get for a jailbroken iphone which will record video. Who knows why Apple didn't include that capability themselves though.

I agree. I carry a bag with me wherever I go, so my Eeepc 901 is always with me. Having a decently powered PC in my bag, with a five hour battery life, will always kick a lot more bottom than an Iphone. If I want to take pictures, I'll bring a real camera and do the job properly.

My iPhone is probably the single nicest bit of kit I've bought in *years*.

When I first got it I thought the battery life was bad, but then I realised that's only because I had *everything* enabled all the time. Now I only have the gps & wifi enabled if I actually need them and it's no worse than any other smartphone (and I've owned plenty over the years).

I'll probably get an iPhone on its 3rd iteration. My current contract runs until May 2009.

Whilst the iPhone doesn't really offer any one thing above and beyond my N95, the way it ties apps together is excellent.

Speed of interface is also a factor. I've been frustrated for years at the slow response times of Nokia phones. The N95 has a fast CPU and excellent graphics hardware, but it still takes 3+ seconds between me pressing a button and the Clock app displaying.

It irks me that the very old Nokia's, with no colour screens and WAP-only browsing had instant response to key-presses. Symbian OS has a lot to answer for.

Lack of MMS is a problem. I'm one of the few who semi-regularly send photos and videos by MMS. Once all of my friends have email on their phone, this will cease to be an issue. Not going to happen for a few years though, I'd wager.

Opps, I meant iPod

I just hacked my £70 Sony phone to do most of what the Iphone does, without the annoying touchscreen.

Most decent phones can do everything the iPhone does. None have such a usable interface.

I'm not a lover of touchscreens, but I'm willing to gamble the next Iphone will have a slide-out qwerty keyboard.

I have an iPhone and its the greatest mobile I ever had.
So what its only 2 MP, I use my camera instead.

Only thing I really miss is the option to forward sms's

My phones UI is usable, quick, and works. :-P