Topic: iPhone 11

[Clive]

I'm considering a contract with Tescomobile for an iPhone 11 which will cost £23 a month with nothing to pay upfront.  I've always bought my phones outright but my son tells me nobody does that anymore.   

[daveeb]

I'm considering a contract with Tescomobile for an iPhone 11 which will cost £23 a month with nothing to pay upfront.  I've always bought my phones outright but my son tells me nobody does that anymore.   

Tesco mobile have a good phone app for keeping up with useage etc and they have UK call centres and respond to calls fairly quickly. 3 of the 4 of our family use them under one umberella contract so we also get some small perks like extra date or small amounts off the bill. The downside to TM is their data is very expensive whilst you are in the initial phone contract (the phones themselves are priced reasonably and you pay the price off over the duration of the contract.)
What we do now is take the expensive data hit for the 2/3 years of the contract then ring them up as soon as the initial contract is paid for and renegotiate the data terms. I recently got MrsB 5 gigs of data for £7.50 and did even better a few months earlier getting 6 gigs for £5.50 for me and son. We buy a new phone when needed from Amazon making sure it is unlocked and SIM free. Then just put the old SIM in the new phone. You take a bit of a hit having to buy the phone in one go but the massive savings on data more than make up for it. We haven't bought a phone from TM for about 4 years and every time I ring up they try to flog me a new one as they think we are all still running the original phones we bought from them.
How much data do you get for your £23 (and why an iphone, have you considered an Android phone).

[Clive]

The phone I have at present is a Moto G4 which is starting to creak battery-wise.  It's also lightweight on facilities but I bought it on Amazon. We don't find it at all easy to use.  I've always had my data package through TB and last March they gave me a data upgrade for free.  It's 500 minutes of calls and 2GB of data.    My son thinks we would be better with an iPhone because he has always used them.

[Simon]

A lot depends on how long you intend to keep the phone. Usually, if you keep a phone longer than a couple of years, the cost ratio of contact vs purchase diminishes, and then once you've had a phone for three years the total cost of phone + service would probably work out cheaper than had you paid for it on contract.

The problem with iPhones is that they don't tend to lose their value so even an iPhone 11 will still be quite expensive to purchase outright.  You just have to sit down and work out the costings over how long you intend to keep the phone, and then make your own comparisons.  It's sometimes worth bearing in mind whether you can get a cheap insurance with a contract, which would then cover your phone for losses or damages, but obviously this would increase the price of the monthly payments.

Tesco Mobile use the O2 network so you should get good coverage in most places. It just depends on what sort of deal you are getting on the phone contract.

[Simon]

I don't know how long the Tesco contract is over, but just for arguments sake, say it was over three years:

£23 x 36 = £828

Assuming you don't need masses of data, you can get a Tesco 2Gb SIM only contract for £7.50 per month, so:

£7.50 x 36 = £270

Then you would have to buy the phone outright, and you could probably pick up an iPhone 11 for under £500, so let's for arguments sake say you got one off Amazon for £480.

£480 + £270 = £750.

So, theoretically, it would be cheaper to purchase an iPhone outright under those terms.

[daveeb]

The phone I have at present is a Moto G4 which is starting to creak battery-wise.  It's also lightweight on facilities but I bought it on Amazon. We don't find it at all easy to use.  I've always had my data package through TB and last March they gave me a data upgrade for free.  It's 500 minutes of calls and 2GB of data.    My son thinks we would be better with an iPhone because he has always used them.

There's a definite generation gap with phone preferences, my grown up kids wouldn't be seen dead with an Android phone now, personally I think Apple are all style no substance and terrible value for money.
You do have a third choice i.e. get a new phone off Amazon and get a cheaper payg sim from e.g. Giffgaff. I do however think the customer service with TM is better than most.

[Simon]

Sometimes I think I'd quite like to swap my Samsung S10 Plus for an iPhone, but the hassle of trying to change everything over is very off-putting.

[daveeb]

Sometimes I think I'd quite like to swap my Samsung S10 Plus for an iPhone, but the hassle of trying to change everything over is very off-putting.

I'll happily swap your S10 plus with my Iphone 4S (the one and only time I ever used Apple).

[Clive]

Trouble is now he is trying to get me to buy an iPhone Pro at over £40 a month.  Admittedly I'd get 3GB of data but he gets unlimited everything with his and free Spotify thrown in.  This is a real can of worms!   

[daveeb]

Trouble is now he is trying to get me to buy an iPhone Pro at over £40 a month.  Admittedly I'd get 3GB of data but he gets unlimited everything with his and free Spotify thrown in.  This is a real can of worms!   

How much data do you actually use Clive? 3GB isn't a large amount but unless you sit away from the house watching Youtube or er..artistic movies  you won't need humungous amounts of data. On a busy month I might use 2 gigs and that's with loads of data hungry apps running. Also i think the cameras in Iphones are alleged to be slightly superior but other than that there's no advantage IMO.

[Clive]

I won't lie to you  Dave but with six days of my monthly allowance left, I've gone through 0.1MB.     This has all started because a neighbour came in the other evening flashing his 7.5" iPhone that had cost him £1008.  Mrs Clive immediately demanded to know why we don't have one.  Our son backed her up and berated me for always buying crappy phones.  I suppose he does have a point.   

[Simon]

I have a 4Gb data allowance but barely skim the surface of it as usually I'm at home on the WiFi. 

For your usage, Clive, I think a Pro would be unnecessary.

Regarding cameras, I've read that the cameras on the Sony Xperia phones are really good, but I've never used one. 

I used to upgrade my phone every year, two at the most, but most annual upgrades seem to be just incremental with no real noticeable changes, so I now tend to keep my phone until it breaks, or until I break it!

[Simon]

They're out of stock at the moment but you can get a new iPhone 11 on Amazon for £489, or perhaps even look at a renewed one.  I know someone who bought a renewed iPhone 12 and it was practically new.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08L6YSCDF/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_DKFK6H2SH6NRHBQ8APCS

[Clive]

Five star reviews too!  I've been looking at SIM packages and there is no doubt that Tesco is a real rip-off as for £10 a month to O2 I can get unlimited everything. 

[daveeb]

They're out of stock at the moment but you can get a new iPhone 11 on Amazon for £489, or perhaps even look at a renewed one.  I know someone who bought a renewed iPhone 12 and it was practically new.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08L6YSCDF/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_DKFK6H2SH6NRHBQ8APCS

They're also £489 direct from the Apple store for the 64GB model which is where I got my sons from earlier this year. Possibly a safer bet than Amazon in terms of it being unlocked etc.