[C1Boston]

Originally Posted by TXSTYLE

E X A C T L Y what I used to do and I feel the exact same with tacking on $30 or $60 due 2 phones onto my bill. I definitely try snagging unlocked devices. But if like me, you want new every year, shit gets kinda high.

Yup! I usually upgrade every 2 years, skipping a model. Now Apple sells you the device unlocked at no cost assuming you buy it in 1 payment. I know plenty of people who pay 700-800 dollars in installments and when they mention this to me I give them a puzzled look....if you're paying $30 for a phone that costs 700 dollars then you should not be switching phones every time there is a new release. This is a part of why CC companies make so much profit off Americans with debt, we can buy anything....regardless of being to afford it or not.

[P1]

Luckily, I can still buy my iPhone outright via work for $199. Walking into an AT&T shop means you're forced into financing it. When is the next iPhone supposed to come out? I'm still on the 6s, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. As a matter of fact, it's faster than my wife's crappy 7. What a turd that is.

[C1Boston]

Originally Posted by P1et

Luckily, I can still buy my iPhone outright via work for $199. Walking into an AT&T shop means you're forced into financing it. When is the next iPhone supposed to come out? I'm still on the 6s, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. As a matter of fact, it's faster than my wife's crappy 7. What a turd that is.

Typically, theres a release every September so we should expect the iPhone 8 around that time. I was on the original 6 model and only upgraded because mine fried after 2+ years and I was out of warranty...figured might as well upgrade vs repair a 2 year old phone.

[TXSTYLE]

Originally Posted by C1Boston

Yup! I usually upgrade every 2 years, skipping a model. Now Apple sells you the device unlocked at no cost assuming you buy it in 1 payment. I know plenty of people who pay 700-800 dollars in installments and when they mention this to me I give them a puzzled look....if you're paying $30 for a phone that costs 700 dollars then you should not be switching phones every time there is a new release. This is a part of why CC companies make so much profit off Americans with debt, we can buy anything....regardless of being to afford it or not.

Yep. And I still say free because there was a time when I changed phones every year with no out of pocket costs and my plan was about the same as it is now. So IMO, free! Now you either bring your own unlocked device to port your # or you fork over lease or installment payments on top of your plan.

[Antetokounmpo]

Originally Posted by P1et

Luckily, I can still buy my iPhone outright via work for $199. Walking into an AT&T shop means you're forced into financing it. When is the next iPhone supposed to come out? I'm still on the 6s, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. As a matter of fact, it's faster than my wife's crappy 7. What a turd that is.

If it's on a 2 year contract thats not outright.

Carriers used to hide the cost of the phone in the monthly fee whereas now it shows it. Just look at the contract cancelation fee, basically it's the true value of the phone less $200 less how much you've paid through the 2 year contract. (Usually they start around $450 for the ETF and 200+450 = 650... or the cost of a new iPhone) See where this is going? Nowadays, once you pay for the phone ($650) you're free to do whatever with it.

Furthermore, if you ever kept your phone past the 2 years, you'd still be paying for the phone, even though you've already paid the $600-900 for your iPhone, whereas now after it's paid, your monthly bill will decrease by $20-$40 per phone depending on the phone.

[Sabcat]

Sprint would not even sell me a phone. I wanted an android phone to run MHD and yaV1. The kid at the sprint store would not sell me a phone, he couldn't. I could upgrade to a new phone, agree to the installment plan. Then wait a few days and pay for the phone directly to sprint. Ridiculous. I walked across the hall to cricket, opened a cricket account and was out the door w/ a phone and a months service for like $100.

[David70]

Originally Posted by xQx

Phone provider here. They were never free. We always used to load the cost of the handset into your monthly fee.

Then two things happened: 1. Some ratbag cheap providers started offering plans without phones for $5/mth less for the same voice minutes, and people started comparing our plans to them. 2. Apple entered the scene and started selling $1200 handsets (which cost us $1150), and suddenly everybody was asking for them rather than our "free" $200 phones (which cost us about $100).

It's a hell of a lot easier to hide $5/mth of extra charges into a monthly plan than it is to hide $45/mth. (multiply by 24 months to get the allowance for your "free" phone on the 2 year contract)

If you shop around you should be able to find a provider with a MRO - Monthly Repayment Option - where you pay $40 - $45 extra each month so you can pay off an iphone interest free.

Also agree, the idea that a phone provider or anyone else gives you something that is expensive for free is a joke. They stuck the cost of the good in the price you were paying. They paid for it and then found a way for the consumer to pay for it.

[P1]

Originally Posted by Harambe

If it's on a 2 year contract thats not outright.

Carriers used to hide the cost of the phone in the monthly fee whereas now it shows it. Just look at the contract cancelation fee, basically it's the true value of the phone less $200 less how much you've paid through the 2 year contract. (Usually they start around $450 for the ETF and 200+450 = 650... or the cost of a new iPhone) See where this is going? Nowadays, once you pay for the phone ($650) you're free to do whatever with it.

Furthermore, if you ever kept your phone past the 2 years, you'd still be paying for the phone, even though you've already paid the $600-900 for your iPhone, whereas now after it's paid, your monthly bill will decrease by $20-$40 per phone depending on the phone.

Well, work pays for the contract. Not me. I just pay for the $199 phone.

[David70]

At this point I think the system is better, previously part of every contract had an amount for the phone in it that everyone paid on their monthly bill, my wife has had her phone for over 3 years and doesn't see enough benefits to go out and buy another phone so she doesn't. In the past she was continuing to pay for it regardless.

Company I work (company provided phone) for has gone exclusively to Apple products, I could have gotten a new Apple phone over a year ago and just haven't bothered, mainly because I also don't see enough of a reason to care to deal with the hassle that comes with getting the new phone.

[Antetokounmpo]

Originally Posted by David70

At this point I think the system is better, previously part of every contract had an amount for the phone in it that everyone paid on their monthly bill, my wife has had her phone for over 3 years and doesn't see enough benefits to go out and buy another phone so she doesn't. In the past she was continuing to pay for it regardless.

Company I work (company provided phone) for has gone exclusively to Apple products, I could have gotten a new Apple phone over a year ago and just haven't bothered, mainly because I also don't see enough of a reason to care to deal with the hassle that comes with getting the new phone.

Agreed, exactly what I said.

[GoHokiesGo]

I don't think the changes in the last few generations have been that incredible either to justify another $700-900 for the upgraded/new phone.

I had said similar in the Samsung thread, but I got my S6 right towards the end before the $200/2-yr contract started to disappear. They tried to sell my pretty hard on the month-to-month option too. Normally I'd make the upgrade for an S8 right about now, but it's just not worth the cost of the phone anymore; my S6 still loads all the apps and sites I read, camera works perfectly fine, and the GPS still gets me places.

I don't really need a retina scanner, wireless headphones, or all that other jazz that really doesn't do a whole lot functionally.

[KingOfJericho]

Originally Posted by TXSTYLE

Yep. And I still say free because there was a time when I changed phones every year with no out of pocket costs and my plan was about the same as it is now. So IMO, free! Now you either bring your own unlocked device to port your # or you fork over lease or installment payments on top of your plan.

If you were paying your bill, there were out of pocket costs.

To break it down further, if you were getting a "free" phone 10 years ago and your bill was $100, based on inflation alone, your bill would now be $121. The original iPhone in lowest trim (4GB) was $499 WITH a 2-year contract. Now, on Verizon, which is often called "expensive" compared to the other carriers, you can get a 5GB data plan with unlimited everything else for $55 total if you buy the phone outright for $649 ($50 more than inflation adjusted cost of the original iPhone). If you wanted to finance the phone and pay ZERO out of pocket, your plan would be $82. That is MUCH cheaper than it was ten years ago and you have unlimited everything with plenty of data, even for a heavy user. That's a bargain, if you ask me.