The
marriage of a high-priced smartphone to a
value-minded department store was always going to be interesting and Tesco has not disappointed. Having just announced that availability of the latest and greatest iPhone is coming on December 14, the company has also detailed some unique --
for the UK at least -- price plans to go with it. Most notable is the unlimited (subject to fair use policy) 3G web and
BT Openzone WiFi access on offer, which will be
free for a year to Pay As You Go and one-year contract customers or for two years if you're on a 24-month agreement. Tesco's also bringing the minimum monthly outlay down to £20 ($32) on its one-year contract, but that only gets you a £60 ($98) calls and texts allowance and you'd have to pony up £320 ($520) for the 16GB handset. On the other hand, you could go nuts and get the unlimited calls and texts plan for £60 a month, which isn't too bad value for the incessant chatterboxes out there. Finally, there's also half-price calling to your favorite five numbers, which isn't going to matter much to people on the all-you-can-eat price plan, but is a nice extra.
[Thanks Tony H. and everyone who sent this in]
posted December 10th 2009 4:48AM
How many Club Card points can I earn with this?
:-/
@Sean
You joke but they're offering double clubcard points.
Serious.
I can't see any advantage here, don't they use the O2 network anyway?
£20 per month for a 12-month iPhone contract contract sounds good, until you check how much you're paying up-front for the phone.
What does "£60 of calls and text" translate to?
@Elliot Bridgewater Funny that. It's almost as if they didn't move the cost of the phone into the contract (an evil practice if you ask me).
@Elliot Bridgewater
300 mins or 600 texts or any combination of the two, at the rates of 20p/min & 10p a text. It's like a T-Mobile Flext tariff. Also if you set your 5 favourite numbers you can cut those rates in half too.
@Elliot Bridgewater
The Orange £29.95 plan beats out the Tesco plan when you take the cost of the phone into account. This isn't surprising, Tesco rely on 02 for their network and this is reflected in their pricing.
No thanks. Got my HTC Hero and an £18 a month unlimited data plan from Virgin Mobile and I couldn't be happier. Also the plan is a rolling 1 month plan so if a better deal does come up I can just leave at the end of the month!
@grindboy
Well to be accurate, you probably could be happier but ignorance is bliss - the experience offered by the iphone is unmatched imho
@(Unverified) Why do you assume I'm ignorant to the iPhone? I owned an iPod Touch days after the 1st gen launched. When I decided to finally get a smartphone I chose between an iPhone and a Hero and there was no way I was paying for a crazily expensive 24 month lock in contract for a phone I'd have to jailbreak to get the functionality I wanted. With the Hero I could buy it SIM free and then find a plan which suited me.
Also I'm the target market for the Droid does adverts. Geeky enough to care about multitasking, open development and flash in the browser.
@grindboy It's not an unlimited data plan, but an "Unlimited Mobile Internet" plan that gives you 1GB/month. "Unlimited" plans are a scam, but "unlimited data" plans are beyond ridiculous.
@Pies I know. I've never crossed the limit so I don't mind at the moment. But the beauty of it being a 1 month rolling contract is that if it starts becoming a problem I can move on :-)
The 12month@£20 Tesco contract works out at £53.92 a month compared to the 24month@£35 O2 and Orange contracts at £42.29.
So if you really want the new iPhone next year, Tesco is your best bet. But if you want value, go for O2 or Orange. Plus you get more minutes/texts with O2/Orange.
The 'unlimited' data on pay and go is hardly unique.
o2 do the same thing for their pay and go. They're just a little more honest about advertising the 'fair use' limit that tesco seem to be.
I only wish it was cheaper on pay&go!
@Marko Me Too! Gonna buy one for my fiancee on pay as you go and jailbreak and unlock to work with her current sim... Hmm, I'm guessing that people like me are the cause for it being so expensive?!
Can't say I'd like my iPhone if it wasn't jailbroken.
@Marko
I like your stomach
Hmm. So if you get double club-card points on a purchase of the iPhone (let's say a 16G 3GS @ 320GBP), plus triple club-card points on the monthly spend (let's say GBP20.00 for the lesser of the 2 monthly plans) - that is 700 club-card points per year. Which could equate to a lot more benefits than the initial outlay for the cost of the iPhone. Interesting. Especially if you regularly shop at Tesco. Yes, they have you locked into grocery shopping with them up to a point, in order to get your money back - but if you want the iPhone @20.00 per month for only 12 months, it certainly seems an attractive offer.
@davidwalton - sorry, maths error - the total club-card points over a year is 1360 if a 16G 3GS is purchased on the 20.00 per month plan.
iPhone 3GS is so old now...
As soon as these nubs sign up Apple wil release the next one. Fack! they are testing it right now for June!
can you say outdated?
""Foxconn received order for next generation iPhone"
AHAHHAAH what a bunch of maroons!
Y'all nubs have got to know!, that buying old Apple sh*t has got to go!
And I wont stop, cause I cant stop e-r-e-r!
AHAHHHAAHAAH!
I thought they would be cheap, but £60 per month on a 24 month contract is crazy. Compare that to the HTC HD2 that you could get for £35 per month on a 24 month contract with about 800 minutes and unlimited texts + internet.
Anyway I don't care cause I don't like the iPhone and a much improved model is supposed to come out in 6 months or will it just have one more feature that other phones have had for a long time, like multitasking???
@Wesley there are homebrew apps that let you multitask. The phone is capable, it leads me to think that "multitasking" will be a software feature of OS 4. Apple may screw it's current customers by saying that 3GS can't handle it an make a feature only on the new phone... like they did with the video camera on the 3GS.... other phones have had video for what seems like forever, but someone the 2g and 3g can't handle video... go figure.
It is sweet!
Man, whats about 3Gweb and BT open zone?
If I use the iphone in my home (virgin) wifi or at star bucks, should it come under the fair use condition?
Tesco isn't a department store they are a supermarket who has expanded into everything WalMart style.
@fourthletter Seriously, department store makes them sound posh. I went back home to the UK a few weeks ago and went to one of their new "everything BUT grocery shopping" places, though... dirt cheap!
Interesting price plans. And £60 of calls/texts etc is more than it sounds as that is outgoing calls & texts only. We don't have minutes/credit deducted for incoming calls in the UK.
Got my iPhone yesterday so.... meh.
But still, I could probably go with the 12 month contract. Just have to text primarily and make the odd call, but I could probably live within the limits it sets quite easily.
But could I live with having an iPhone on Tesco Mobile :P A paradox if ever I saw one.