Quote:
Originally Posted by Wormius
I know. My question is sort of why would somebody want to go that route, if there is little incentive to buy a phone without a contract. If you spend, say $450 on a second hand iPhone 4, over the course of a 3 year contract, you have spent essentially $12.50 / month on the phone, so if there are not reasonable voice / data plans that would bring you much under the typical $50 plan price it doesn't seem worth it. I just wanted to know if there was some cell phone plans that made this worthwhile.
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You can easily save $12.50 with some effort, and with luck more, but the other side of the coin is that without the initial cash outlay you can save the effort and end up a the same place.
One thing to remember is that some providers will allow you to get a hardware upgrade early by extending your contract, like with Rogers it is 24 months into the 3yr contract. Another is that a subsidized new model phone will still typically cost you $100-$150, so by spending $450 (in your used iPhone scenario), you really only save $300. Some models you can get for $1, but they are not the newest model and could almost certainly be purchased new for a drastically reduced price than a new iPhone.
IMHO, if you want the newest phone, trying to avoid a contract by buying your phone outright can't really save you enough money for the initial cash outlay to be worth the effort required to make sure your bill is as low as it can be. If you are happy with a previous gen phone (iPhone 3GS) then it can be very effective,.