4 ms·
This is the way that it is with every phone on the market. If you aren't ~22 months into your contract, you can't upgrade devices at the subsidized price. Lik
by mdasen 17y ago
This is the way that it is with every phone on the market. If you aren't ~22 months into your contract, you can't upgrade devices at the subsidized price. Likewise, if you aren't upgrade eligible on Sprint, the Palm Pre is going to cost you $550 ($50 more than the iPhone 8GB unsubsidized).
It might be crappy, but this is the way that subsidized devices work. You have to wait nearly two years before you can upgrade or you have to pay the unsubsidized price.
- SamAtt 17y agoApparently it's not (though I concede it often is like that). From the linked article... UPDATE So this is what AT&T tells us: An iPhone 3G customer in most cases can early upgrade at $399 [16GB] or $499 [32GB]. You’ll note that that’s still several hundred dollars more than what Joe Smoe would have to pay, right off the street, if he doesn’t already have an AT&T account.
- tptacek 17y agoNo, Joe Shmoe is "paying" more than $299 for the phone; he's just paying over the long haul, with a new contract commitment to AT&T. AT&T already has your contract commitment. You have nothing to offer them but cash.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- jasonlbaptiste 17y agoNo it's not the case actually. I upgraded from my 2G to 3G without any penalty. With the iPhone, which is what we're talking about here, that's not the way it works or should work. Also keep in mind, the 3G[s] isn't a huge leap.
- keltex 17y agoThe 2G to 3G was without penalty because the 2G devices were unsubsidized.
- jasonlbaptiste 17y agoVery valid point. It's still pretty screwy to play: don't subsidize, subsidize, don't subsidize.
- tptacek 17y agoI don't understand. The phone costs what it costs. Would you rather AT&T didn't subsidize? I'm happy that they did for me. The party that seems to actually be dishonest here is Apple, since the true price of their phone is nothing like what they put in the Keynote slide.
- pxlpshr 17y agoYou can say that again, I paid a pretty penny for my 2G which is why I ignored the 3G. Glad I waited... 2G was good to me though, never had a drop call.
- jrockway 17y agoI am at the end of my AT&T contract (non-iPhone), and their website wants to charge me more for a new phone than new customers would pay. Unfortunately for them, I am just going to transfer my number to T-Mobile when the G2 comes out. Fuck AT&T. (And if T-Mobile pulls this on me, there is still Sprint and Verizon.)