O2 offers early iPhone 4 upgrade amnesty in bid to retain customers
By Vlad Savov 
posted June 9th 2010 5:43PM
posted June 9th 2010 5:43PM
posted June 9th 2010 5:43PM
Apple iPhone 4
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I have to say I hate the drama o2 puts me through when I have to call them up and actually talk to someone, but with my current iPhone 3G, when not talking to customer service - they seem very efficient at Billing me every month and on time.
Can't wait for iPhone 4 - Been eligible for an HTC Desire for about three months, but I held out for this!
So it'll cost me a cool £320 to get out of my Palm Pre contract. Dammit, I knew going in for a 24 month contract was a bad idea
@Phil P I'm going to get another 24 month contract, the incrementalism of Apple's iPhone development means that it isn't so bad. (Although this is only relevant from iPhone to iPhone upgrades).
BrookLynnsFinest
is right
basically you are paying full amount for your current phone and getting into a new 18/24 month contract. great!.
@rakeshin Then don't get the iPhone, or buy it out of contract. If you've signed up for a new phone in the last 5/6 months then you probably shouldn't have (i've held out since March) if you were even thinking about getting the new (predictable release date) iPhone.
@d0mth0ma5 if you are paying 20 quid per month for each left over month, thats exactly what you are doing. you are buying your previous phone out of contract. for 15 pounds a month, you get simplicity deal from o2 which gives you same amount or calls/texts as the £35 iphone contract. they are scrapping the £15 and they wont loose anything from it because they dont have to provide service for the rest of the contract. infact, they are gaining the consumer lock for next 18/24 months!!
Pay even more to buy an expensive replacement for my already overpriced phone. Mmm, no thanks.
Prices are supposed to go down, not up.
@Joylove
Prices are supposed to go down? LOL Who told you that?
Would you be happy if your salary went down every year? No? Imagine that, eh
@suicidebob
Yeah, now where do I apply for that 2015 iPhone mortgage? I hear rates are lowlowlow for two years fixed rate, then 4% over base after that. WooHoo!
@Joylove
If you need a mortgage to buy an Iphone...you blew it
@suicidebob
Considering the economy, many people ARE taking a hit on their salary, meanwhile the prices of everything are increasing.
Cost of living increases, wages decrease. Erosion of the middle class continues while the rich get richer.
stupidly expensive when trying to get iphone on contract. i hoping for the day it would be free for £35 like most smartphones but c'mon £80, £90 even for the 32gb is just too much, O2 especially are picking up the habits of the American mobile carriers.
@kreatos Some people are really cheap
Agree with rakeshin.... in my circumstances still got 14 months left of a 24 month contract so of course it's a hefty sum to effectively end my contract, sign up to a new contract AND still pay the subsidy for the new iPhone, basically cost me the same as full price plus extending my commitment to my contract, which doesn't add up to me. If O2 do not allow me to get a new micro sim for a separately bought iPhone 4 with my current contracted number on it then I'll be pretty unhappy.
P.S. My current iPhone 3G will be winging it's way to my girlfriend so I can't make money off it that way either by recycling, selling on etc.
So O2... please let me get my current number on a micro-sim to put in a newly bought iPhone 4 and I'll be happy enough.
@KopparbergDave Can't you just cut the SIM down? I hope so as that's what I'm planning to do - I thought I saw a device for doing this on Engadget recently.
@duplu I could but I'd rather get something official purely cos I know I'll mess it up and be phoneless til I get one sent to me by O2 anyway, and it seems like you can request a new Micro-sim pretty painlessly from what it says on their info website atm. Here's hoping anyway.
All of it depends on the official pricing when it's announced for the UK, hoping the iPhone 4 just takes over the current pricing of the 3GS and doesn't have an extra premium on it, then hopefully buy it outright and request my micro sim from o@ and get my gf on a S.implicity plan which offers ridiculously good deals with no contract
The better option is to buy it pay as you go for £450/500 and sell your 3GS for £263/£283
http://www.sellmymobile.com/phone/apple-iphone-3g-s-16gb/
@andymc1989 you'll get more than £283 for a good condition 3GS on eBay, no sweat.
@Wiggy Fuzz
o2 has the best customer service in UK.
I can find houses across UK that one of the networks will have poor coverage. Does it mean the network is sh!t? Of course no, it doesn't, but people do not understand that. That's why you can find any mobile operator forum with someone whining and saying "Ohnooo... i have bad signal in my house => you are sh!t", and I mean EVERY NETWORK.
P.S. - Moving from Orange to o2 in September due to increased data amount per month. Orange 500mb; will charge you for every extra meg. o2 will call you to remind that you started exceeding your limit, not charging any money. And as people in forums write, o2 rarely calls, and it is more "unlimited" as there is no megabyte limit in Terms of Use, people use more than 1gb per month and everything's ok
@AA Alex Also agree that since leaving Three (which was near impossible and made me feel like I was sure some poor Indian Call Service worker was going to get killed for losing me as a customer) O2 has been nearly nothing but brilliant compared to what I've dealt with before, plus their plan, especially the unlimited data really is a good deal, especially seeing what's happening in the US now.
@AA Alex: every network is capable of good customer service and bad customer service.
There are plenty of people have been screwed over and/or messed around by O2, same as there are for any other network.
As for web allowances, since their recent tariff refresh Orange now include unlimited (ie no FUP figures quoted in the T&Cs) data usage as a part of their standard Panther tariffs, no extra monthly cost required and 50 free MMS per month as well, which is a nice touch.
That said, the issue with the way Orange and O2 are laying out their web bundles is that they can deem whatever they want as 'excessive' and cut you off, slow you down or whatever.
At least if there's a figure quoted in the T&Cs, you're guaranteed a certain allowance. T-Mobile, for example, offer an 'unlimited' web bundle with a 3GB/month FUP for Android handsets, meaning you get at least 3GB usage before they even start to think about throttling your speeds etc.
Come on Orange! Don't leave me hanging.
That's not too bad. Last time I upgraded from 3G to 3GS I paid about £500. £180 early upgrade fee and £300 handset. Ouch. I don't regret it though ;-)
@Dannybuoy Next time, just take your £500 and buy the phone outright. No extended contract limitation, and you can use the months you've paid for in your new phone. Count on £200-250 for your old phone on eBay, and it's not such a bad idea.
@Dannybuoy You ripped yourself off there that 500 pound would have bought you a 3GS out right and you wouldn't have extended your contract.
My contract is up July next year. Cost £240.
I Currently own a 16GB 3GS.
O2 recycle value for my current phone = £240
coincidence? Well ok yes it is, but cost of ownership is to have a two year contract (or additional year onto existing contract) at no outlay
cheers O2!!!!!
Dude i Can see another national or international phone launch benchmark set on 24th.
After reading 100s of comment on "evo or iphone 4" article when engadget put up a pole iphone was ahead of evo eventho most comments were in EVOs favor. Funny isnt it? I hope apple has billion iphones in stock and are not gonna sold out like ipads.
@enaybee
Evo hype reached epic levels among the engadget regulars but Apple is still the king of marketing. Correct me if I'm wrong but the Evo didn't get full page coverage with 20 articles like your typical Apple product. The media has a hard on for Apple and in turn the stupid masses follow. Pop does not equal quality.
@Shooter McGavin
A fair amount of those stupid masses are now Android supporters.
The evidence? Engadget comment section.
Sorry for ruining your lazy little stereotype
I'd love if the official @endadget Twitter account could add it's signature to the following twitition because O2 UK customers aren't very happy with this "limited time early upgrade offer" - @O2 to offer a more reasonable upgrade policy for iPhone 4 #O2fail http://twitition.com/cdngu
works out £240 for me to finish early (one year left) but would I want another 18months of rubbish reception and this iPhone is not connected to the Internet messages NOPE
I think it's a little risky to upgrade early (and I'm probably going to do it myself).
The reason being a newer model will most likely be out next summer (as has been the case the past 4 years now) and it will feature 4G here in the States. So if you upgrade now instead of waiting out until next year, you might kick yourself down the road. Now as a 3G owner the upgrade to iPhone 4 is significant, but it will probably be an even bigger leap forward come next year. But I, like many others, will not be able to resist upgrading in the near future if AT&T allows us to.
(Not related note: Can I reply to the people who reply to this message? If not it is super frustrating. I'm looking at you Engadget).
Not a bad offer if your already on a £35+ p/m with 10-12 months left on contract and can sell whatever phone you have for around £250.
It all depends if O2 want to shaft customers on charging them for the handset as well as signing them up for 18 or 24 months too. If you're into iPhones, that is.
Call me the forever optimist, but is this in planning for the Iphone to open on new networks January 1 (-ish). ATT/O2 both are trying to retain (keyword) customers by allowing re-ups on their contracts. That was my first thought when viewing blogs on the WWDC with good ol' Steve pushing sales and better signal due to new design. Or I'm a rumor monger. Which ever!
@mattmatt757
Uh. It's going to be on at least 3 networks in the UK at launch
@pukerocket Yeah and 2 in Canada and multiple elsewhere. 02's plan in the UK is to retain customers who are swapping Carriers. So My thought, maybe AT&T is locking in customers to new contracts 2yr. here as a precursor to opening the Iphone to other networks in the new year.
@mattmatt757 It's not so much new networks in the UK it's already on a few. It's getting customers retained for another 2 years the £20 deal isn't really as good as it sounds. The plan you get for £35 with a subsidized iPhone is the same as o2's £15 monthly contract plan with no phone. So basically the £20 a month to the end of your contract pays off the subsidy on the phone. They are letting you out early only to pull you back in for 2 years.
What happened to the June 9 2010 article by Paul Miller titled "iPhone or EVO: which one should you get?". It was a balanced article discussing pros and cons of each. There was a poll with the article that was showing Evo ahead of Apple. Then the article was deleted. Is it true that Apple demanded AOL pull the article??????
@Kelly S
I don't know why the article was pulled... but don't listen to this guy. He has posted this same exact comment in five different articles on Engadget. If you read his prior posts, he's obviously an Android fanboy trying to spread a rumor. Don't believe anything he says.
Still no word on how much it'll cost to buy one separately, which is what I'll likely be doing.
O2 have been okay for me but their 3G coverage is just simply not as good as Orange. I'm deffinatley using this opportunity to get off of O2 and over to Orange, since I've always had brilliant customer service from them.
And to those thinking of waiting until the next iPhone, just because they know it's coming, why then not wait for the one after that, or the one after that? Because you know they're coming too...3g doesn't have the same coverage as 2g yet so I don't get what the point of 4g is either since it's hardly anywhere