Apples or Oranges?

The Apple being the new Apple iPhone vs ?. Well I’ll back to you on the ? in a minute. The consumer is sitting there and sayng, hey cool I save $200 and get even more features. Well hold the iPhone LeRoy –

Apple’s new 3G iPhone might seem like a bargain at $199: more features, 3G speeds, and $200 cheaper than the original model. Great, except it’s not actually cheaper. The new $199 iPhone is actually $160 more than the $399 iPhone it replaces.

The iPhone itself may be cheaper, but the required flat-rate data plan now costs $30 per month, a $10 increase. Over the mandatory two-year contract, that works out to an extra $240. AT&T also now charges $5 per month for 200 text messages, which used to be free. That adds up to another $120.

Before you apply your generous $200 discount, you’ve already agreed to fork over $360. Two years from now, your new iPhone 3G will have cost $160 more than a current-model iPhone.

Compliments of the ever watchful folks over at Consumerist.com. Now Dear Reader do you understand why ThirdPipe recommends that phone costs be decoupled from rate plans! Its a shell game they are playig on you. You have to figure which pee you are going to get.

So lets get back to ? shall we! The ? is the Hop-On 1809 3G phone pictured here –

Oh shucks it doesn’t have the cool itouch display!? So what. It does nearly everything else you just have to use a button instead. Its 3G enabled. Plus its all up, no strings attached, full up price is $125. That’s right $125.

Folks you can keep being a chump and paying for Apples extortion or you can use your brains and get a similiar 3G product The choice is yours but if I were yoiu I would join the ‘its paid for express’. You will garner benefits in the end when the whole ETF’s issues get settled in courts and the idea of contracts die the ugly deaths. Those without subsidized phones will be the first to benefit.

The economic difference could not be clearer.

Consumerist Link.
Hop On 1809 Link.