Orange iPhone prices identical to O2's

*Sigh*

I'd preferre if they'd just say, you have 750MB...

By SmilerOnline on 2 Nov 2009

Suprised ?

Guess we should of seen this coming really

By jmbailey38 on 2 Nov 2009

Maybe Mandelson can investiagte this?

Since price fixing of smart-phones is more damaging to business that the supposed "loss" made by American music giants from 12-year-old kids downloading the latest 50-cent album.

But then, questioning an American corporation on their profit margins is taboo in the same way altering British law to support the music industry is not up for discussion....

By cheysuli on 2 Nov 2009

apple is rubish

I had/have an old iPod, and I liked it. I loved the minimalist design, and the functionality. And more recently after the iPhone 3GS matured enough to fit my needs I decided that I wanted to buy one. To my horror I discovered that you can not get it cheaper than £800+. And another appalling thing is that they lock it to a network. The device just does not worth the cash. You can get a good laptop for that money. Altogether I am very annoyed with Apple now, so now, out of principle, I will shy away from their products. HTC Hero here I come and Apple you will have to do a LOT of work to attract me back into your camp. And I am pretty sure that others like me will be deflecting as well

Art

By raritzu on 2 Nov 2009

Disagree

Apple sell the iPhone 3G direct for £342 and the 3GS for between £440 and £538 depending on exact spec.
http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/shop_iphone/
family/iphone

So I'm not really sure where you got £800+ from. I will agree that it is still locked to O2 and must be used with their PAYG sims.

Locking phones to specific networks is fairly common place in the UK mobile phone market and so shouldn't really come as a surprise.

By judas6003 on 2 Nov 2009

One Word

Collusion

By rozman on 2 Nov 2009

£800+

I presume the £800+ figure is the total cost of ownership i.e. any up-front handset cost and the base cost of the contract. £29.36 per month x 24 month contract + £125 handset cost = £829.64 on Orange (based upon the figures in the article).

When I considered an iPhone at the beginning of the year I was fairly horrified at the total cost of ownership too. Once you add in any calls, MMS, video calls, etc outwith your contract the cost increases even more. Plus any accessories or apps you buy.

Screw paying a grand for a phone over two years!

I got a Nokia E71 on 3 for £20 a month on an 18 month contract, with no handset charge. It comes with 200 mins of calls, unlimited texts (4000), unlimited internet (1GB) and free access to Facebook, ebay, BBC, Google, Bebo, myspace, Skype, Yahoo, Windows Live and Youtube (accessing these sites does not count against my monthly 1GB).

Total cost of ownership £360, thank you very much.

True it isn't as impressive a phone, however I've got satnav on it and it does push e-mail too. I'm auto-synching my calendar and contacts with Google whilst on the move too.

It came with full version Quickoffice which allows creation and editing of loads of office application formats, including Office 2007.

Job done (at a fraction of the iPhone's cost)!

By clen_peapus on 2 Nov 2009

re: Disagree

Raritzu is essentially correct. You can get it for £440 but you effectively have to spend £30 per month on the pay & go tarriff in order to get your free data allowance - and it isn't much use without data. You can get a sim-free iPhone 3G S from shops such as Play, but this will cost you ~£880. Nice as the iPhone is I'm afraid it's just far too expensive. I'll be sticking with my HTC.

By jgwilliams on 2 Nov 2009

What did you expect?

Apple and price competition - now there's an oxymoron!

By rjp2000 on 2 Nov 2009

What a coincidence

NOT!

Ah well, I shall soldier on with my Sony 750i PAYG. The iPhone is nice to be sure, but there is a recession on y'know.

By Lacrobat on 2 Nov 2009

Ah well. They can write me off as a customer for another year then.

By bubbles16 on 2 Nov 2009

Not strictly the same...

Although Orange's prices are the same, their allowances are different, at least on my tariff. My £30 pm with the 3GS for 18 months gets me only 75 mins compared to Orange's 150 mins, and 125 texts instead of 250.

I remember asking what the fair usage allowance for data was when I bought it from O2 but the salesperson didn't know. I dare say I might go through 750 MB myself.

@clen_peapus:
I understand that the high price is an obstacle that many cannot or refuse to pay. Personally, after being extremely dissatisfied with all smartphones I've ever used, I'd had enough and decided that for me the ease of use and convenience was worth it. I do use mine more like a laptop but I don't have to carry a laptop with me, so for me it was worth it.

And as I've said many times before, I'm not an Apple gambit, quite the opposite in fact.

By mviracca on 2 Nov 2009

Gambit?

Lol, that should have said fanboy but I guess my iPhone corrected the word while I wasn't looking! Apple gremlin at work?!

By mviracca on 2 Nov 2009

Disappointed...

My contract runs out in January with orange so i was hoping they would have a cheaper tariff. I think i'll just buy a IPod touch and go on PAYG with my current phone.

By TomC89 on 2 Nov 2009

what about all those "dont wait" customers

so why has orange forgotten about all its loyal customers who didnt leave for 02, who bought from oranges "you have seen the iphone but we have these" range? why havent our price plans been made to match the iphone one? orange doesnt deserve loyalty

By equityguru on 2 Nov 2009

AWFUL

The iPhone is a great phone. I've never been an apple fanboy and always slag them off as being over priced but I do love the iPhone after I picked one up cheap off a friend in the US.
The contracts here with them though are AWFUL!!
The price is not only insanely high to begin with, but the actual allowances you are given in those plans is just pittiful. The inflated prices might be somewhat acceptable if they included realistic usage allowances.
The iPhone makes texting even easier to do without thinking much yet they give a pittiful 500 txt's on the plan even though in the iPhone texting feels like just MSN chatting so you tend to send FAR more than usual.

REALLY let down by this, have been waiting for Orange and Vodafone to get their iPhone's so I could get a decent allowance with a new 3gS :(

By nilathomas on 2 Nov 2009

@jgwilliam

Why do you have to spend £30 per month on PAYG to get the data allowance? I can't find this on O2's website.

By hotboy_92 on 3 Nov 2009

Give up

Reality is everone is trying to make money cos of the recession and that includes Orange. As long as people keep buying the prices stay,if people stop they will be forced to drop the prices. When will "got to haves " realise. A very good alternative is any phone with Googles Droid and they come with better tarrifs.

By GRE66 on 5 Nov 2009

How do Apple get away with it?

This is exactly the same a ipod prices. you can search and search, but incredibly you'll find no more than a difference of a few pence here and there...its almost as if, dare I say it, the price has been fixed!
With virtually any other electrical item, even a basic seach will show up a range of prices, some good, some bad, but for Apple products it seems to just be the same regardless.
Like Clen above, I went down the e71 route....sure its not got all the bells and whistles, but enough for me at a price I think is decent value for money. Each to their own I guess.

By vincepcp1 on 5 Nov 2009

Poor Value

Unless they drop prices and tariffs I will not buy one despite loving all things apple.
I'll just stick to the Blackberry.

By Batbloke on 5 Nov 2009

How do Apple get away with it?

This is exactly the same a ipod prices. you can search and search, but incredibly you'll find no more than a difference of a few pence here and there...its almost as if, dare I say it, the price has been fixed!
With virtually any other electrical item, even a basic seach will show up a range of prices, some good, some bad, but for Apple products it seems to just be the same regardless.
Like Clen above, I went down the e71 route....sure its not got all the bells and whistles, but enough for me at a price I think is decent value for money. Each to their own I guess.

By vincepcp1 on 5 Nov 2009

@vincepcp1: "..its almost as if, dare I say it, the price has been fixed!"

I think that everybody should say it, and to the relevant authority (The Office of Fair Trading?). It looks very much like "Resale Price Maintenance" which AFAIK is illegal in this country and throughout Europe.

By 6tricky9 on 5 Nov 2009

Alternatively...

As a previous poster mentioned, if you have good wi-fi access, look at the iPod touch instead. It does everything but the phone calls and picture taking, and then use a PAYG phone or whatever for your calls. If you are bothered by such things, buy a Nokia 2630 PAYG for £24.95 as it matches the iPod touch in colour/design.

By adetri on 5 Nov 2009

Alternatives? ...

After reading the article I'm of the opinion that Apple are not silly by probably dictating the basic rules for their product. What surprises me is that commercially it's obviously not that good. The iphone appears to come accross (or will do) more like a 'symbol' rather than the ideal and perfect communication device it's supposed to be. Oh, well there are many other phones that almost meet the mark, cheaper and selectable.
Michael

By photomanlondon on 5 Nov 2009

There is a silver lining tethered to the cloud

If you do occasional tethering, e.g. to connect your laptop to the internet when travelling, Orange's entry-level prices are quite a lot more reasonable than the £15 a month O2 require for tethering.
Otherwise - it's a market and they'll charge for the phone and contracts what people are prepared to pay for a popular, must-have product.

By richardpenney1 on 5 Nov 2009