ridiculous prices on Mobile phones


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I kinda agree with the topic starter. But I guess it's not the consumer's problem. If I can work hard and earn money I will buy what I want.

You mentioned Apple in your post. Companies like Apple should give a lot of money for charity. I mean A LOT. Than their prices would be fair.

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The world is messed up. Every time I look at my Dads $80,000 truck I get sick thinking about the fact there are kids dying everyday from starvation who could have been saved for a measly $1 day. People today make me sick. Even though I can, I never buy new, ALWAYS used and NEVER the best. The "best" is reserved for millionaires and idiots (famous quote I hear from finance managers in my circles).

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Mine's ?21 a month, with a ?79.99 upfront payment (bonus from work paid for that). ?50 towards the contract payments because of having a valid NUS card at the time.

And I've got a HTC One S. It's all about finding the best deal for your budget.

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I just bought a Galaxy Note 2. It cost me about ?600 sim free. I shall use it for about 18 months... So let's do a little maths...

That works out at about ?1.11 per day. But wait, I have my contract on top... ?21 pcm for unlimited (and yes it IS unlimited) everything, so that's another ?0,7 per day.

Wow, I spend ?1.71 a day for an awesome phone that has a track record op upgradability, provides all my services, and does exactly as I want.

?1.71... I work 3 jobs (out of choice, not necessity) and so ?1.71 is, well, it's literally nothing. I earn my money and I spend it how I choose. Nothing "ridiculous" about it.

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With viber increasing in popularity a contract will become less of the norm. I can call other users that have viber for free and text them for free. This will be the norm at some point within the next 3yrs i'm sure. We'll just pay for data. The audio quality is voip quality too :)

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With viber increasing in popularity a contract will become less of the norm. I can call other users that have viber for free and text them for free. This will be the norm at some point within the next 3yrs i'm sure. We'll just pay for data. The audio quality is voip quality too :)

I think this will happen soon too. More people will use data lines for phone calls instead. The telecoms will be slow to react but find a way to get money out of us.

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I think it's sort of okay. Your phone is basically a small computer.

I paid ?500 for my Xperia S (without a plan, you can't buy a phone on contract in Belgium - a Galaxy S3 would be ?600ish) and pay a little below ?15 a month for unlimited calls to my network (= family and most friends), 1 hour of calls to all networks, 2k texts and 2GB of data. Over two years that comes down to around ?860 ~= $1120. Not that bad for a load of connectivity and utility if you ask me. Plus it's replaced my music player, GPS and point-and-shoot (I have a DSLR too). ?500 isn't too far off a standalone 32GB music player, proper satnav and a point-and-shoot camera actually.

The monthly fees some of you pay are ridiculous though. $100 a month, seriously?

Completely agree with this...you're not paying for a phone, you're for most intents and purposes paying for a computer...someone mentioned that a Core i5 laptop can be had for this amount of money and is better, but for a lot of people out there it really isn't better - you get nearly all the functionality (basically everything except MS Office) in a much more portable package which is infinitely more useful every single day.

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Personally I have a job that allows me to pay for a smartphone. I remember a user not too long ago on these forums that commented on how he had taken out a loan to preorder an iPhone 5. Now that's ridiculous, just like your example of how some people on welfare are walking around with smartphones. Of course if they bought the smartphone and then found themselves unemployed, that's different.

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I always used to be "bleeding edge" with phones and always got a new phone, every year on contract - I've been doing this since about 2000. However the ever increasing cost of the handsets and the contract lock-in going from 12 months, to 18 months and now up to 24 months just seemed to make something click inside me... I can't be bothered with it any more. I got myself a cheap Three SIM for ?10 a month (which is working out just fine) and now I'll buy a moderate / mid-range SIM free handset as and when I fancy an upgrade. The days of buying a ?500+ handset are gone for me. There's far more interesting and important things to spend my money on!

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you're not paying for a phone, you're for most intents and purposes paying for a computer

Put it into perspective, look at the price you are paying for daily usage of the product and services. Things suddenly become a lot more worthwhile.

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Just LOL at some of the gross over reactions to the OP....

He hasn't had a go at anybody, suggested how you should spend your money and didn't use the third world reference as a guilt trip in any way whatsoever.

Just LOL at your lack of being able to read...

"I mean how can you sleep at night when you spend so much."

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I just bought a Galaxy Note 2. It cost me about ?600 sim free. I shall use it for about 18 months... So let's do a little maths...

That works out at about ?1.11 per day. But wait, I have my contract on top... ?21 pcm for unlimited (and yes it IS unlimited) everything, so that's another ?0,7 per day.

Wow, I spend ?1.71 a day for an awesome phone that has a track record op upgradability, provides all my services, and does exactly as I want.

?1.71... I work 3 jobs (out of choice, not necessity) and so ?1.71 is, well, it's literally nothing. I earn my money and I spend it how I choose. Nothing "ridiculous" about it.

Pretty much what I said earlier lol. The cost of my phone is significantly less than say the saving I make by making my own sandwiches for lunch instead of just buying ready made ones from the shop. So by simply making my own lunch, my phone is already paid for.

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Pretty much what I said earlier lol. The cost of my phone is significantly less than say the saving I make by making my own sandwiches for lunch instead of just buying ready made ones from the shop. So by simply making my own lunch, my phone is already paid for.

Seems we think in similar ways. I work a few 2nd jobs (DJ, freelance web design) and I calculate spending on an in/out method against the money I make. As such, when I buy something, I look at it's lifespan, look at it's usage and see how long I have to work to pay for it.

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Personally I have a job that allows me to pay for a smartphone. I remember a user not too long ago on these forums that commented on how he had taken out a loan to preorder an iPhone 5. Now that's ridiculous, just like your example of how some people on welfare are walking around with smartphones. Of course if they bought the smartphone and then found themselves unemployed, that's different.

Spending money you don't have is always stupid. Good thing it's not really common in Belgium. Aside loans for houses or cars people don't really loan or buy stuff no credit. Work first, buy later.

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The problem seems exclusive to the US, since there's been NO phone (inc the 64gb iphone 5 I have now) that I couldn't get for free on a reasonable contract.

Nope, the problem spreads to the UK too. Can't get the 64GB iPhone 5 for free here (can't see the 32GB prices at the moment, as they're sold out), and while you can get the 16GB for free, the contract isn't exactly reasonable. It starts from ?47 a month; that's at least ?5 (maybe ?10) a month up from the 4S, so that's an extra ?120 over the course of the contract. If you got unlimited everything, then I might reconsider my stance, but you don't. The best deal is Vodafone, who do unlimited calls and texts, but only 2GB data, and 3GB of data at BT Openzone wi-fi hotspots (which used to be completely unlimited, BTW).

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Apart from I was given a free iphone5 64GB in return for staying on my existing tariff, which is cheaper than ?47 :p

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Apart from I was given a free iphone5 64GB in return for staying on my existing tariff, which is cheaper than ?47 :p

That's an upgrade; different story to the typical contract prices.

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