Half-Priced iPhone 3G: Not So Fast

Are you really sav­ing any money? Not really.

The new phone costs $40 more over the life of the 2-year con­tract. The upfront costs are lower. The browser speed is over 3 times faster than the orig­i­nal iPhone. Bet­ter fea­tures. But it still prac­ti­cally costs the same which, with all the upgrades, makes it a bet­ter value propo­si­tion than before.

The bot­tom line is that it’s an $80 per month expense. It seems AT&T won’t be pro­vid­ing a GoPhone option either which could have saved an addi­tional $10–15. I won­der if you can choose an Edge data plan instead of a 3G data plan; that could be one way to save some money I suppose.

So yeah, the half-price sav­ings is an illu­sion. You don’t save any money at all, but you do get improved fea­tures in exchange, and you’re not shelling out a for­tune with the ini­tial purchase.