Best iPhone Deals

Buyers' guide: iPhone deals

One of the must-have gadgets of the moments has to be the Apple iPhone, a device that makes a mouth-watering style statement as well as it offers great performance and stress-free usability, all packaged into some of the best iPhone deals around. However, the iPhone has also become a victim of its own success and with the launch of a brand new model, stocks are already fluctuating wildly as more and more consumers become converted to its charms via iPhone contract deals.

The new iPhone 4 has been completely revised and, thankfully, with this new model Apple has addressed many of the features that were either poorly performing or absent altogether on earlier incarnations of the handset. A stylish redesign now insists on your attention, while the features packed inside that incredibly good-looking exterior are now formidable.

All of this style and performance comes at a price so cheap iPhone deals ad offers are scarce, however, and you'll need to spend quite a lot of money in order to bag yourself one of these excellent handsets. To own one there are essentially two routes you can take in that it’s possible to plump for a contract deal that'll get you up and running over a fixed-term. Alternatively, you can opt to pick up a pay-as-you-go iPhone deal that'll mean spending a large chunk of money to buy the device in the first place.

Finding the best iPhone deals UK wide

When the iPhone first came out the options for finding a good deal when it came to price were nigh on impossible. Things have improved with successive releases of the iPhone and with version 4 you'll find that there are a lot more options open to you.

Perhaps the biggest decision you'll have to make is whether or not to go for a contract option. If you don't currently have one of the many iPhone contracts, then it may be worth considering the no-contract option that'll allow you much more freedom because it's outside of the iPhone deals UK side of things, but you'll need to spend a lot more just to buy the device in the first place.

Picking up a no-contract 16GB iPhone 4 is definitely not going to be the cheapest as they're currently on the market at around £500. The good thing about that is you only need to buy the touch screen phones and then a SIM-only deal and you'll be in business. When it comes to iPhone best deals for SIM-only you can get something cheap and cheerful for as little as £10 a month if you shop around using our price comparison charts above. You don't have to be a mathematician to add that up over twelve months and then factor in the cost of the iPhone itself to see that the deal isn't too bad going down the iPhone SIM Free route.

What's more, you can hopefully do a trade-in when another iPhone replacement comes out without taking too much of a hit financially. Look after your handset and you should get offered decent prices for it when replacement time comes around and will help you land the best iPhone deal for the money.

Pay-as-you-go or contract iPhone deals

Spend some time comparing the best pay-as-you-go iPhone UK deals to see how taking that route might make sense for you financially. It may mean that you’ll be paying over the odds for the device itself but the benefit is that there's no contractual tie-in so you've got a lot more flexibility before you even start.

PAYG iPhone deals can give you reasonable amounts of data usage per month without facing penalties, and if you’re an average user then this can be a great way of getting all of the iPhone trimmings without being stuck in a contract.

However, chances are that you'll want to hang on to your iPhone for a while and if that’s the case and you're keen to put the handset through its paces as much as possible then the contract route option might be a better one to take.

There are now plenty of these contract deals available from a wealth of mobile providers, as you'll see from our quick reference guides above. If you plump for a contract package that runs over 18 or 24 months then you'll be looking at paying out quite a large chunk of money simply because iPhone contracts tend to be quite pricey when it comes to the monthly charges associated with them.

Of course, mobile providers are hungry for business so if you're in the mood for haggling then you might be able to get a better deal, especially if you're doing a switch from an existing phone package. The only trouble is that the longer deals run for a lengthy period of time, and not all of us know when we’re going to be doing this time next week, let alone in two years time. So it may be worthwhile investigating some of the shorter-term contracts, like one of the twelve-month packages for iPhone price UK options that are around. Check out the reviews of these packages too to be on the safe side.

iPhone deals UK - the other options

Deals on iPhones, and any other handset such as the HTC for that matter, will hopefully become increasingly simplified in the coming months and years. Ofcom has already published proposals for reducing mobile termination rates, which are the wholesale charges mobile operators add on for connecting calls to each other's networks. Ofcom proposes to drop these over the next four years and all that could be good news for touch screen mobile phones users' who have handsets that can quickly munch their way through data usage limits.

Thanks to these mobile termination rates being expected to drop, as from next year, mobile providers certainly seem to be trying to simplify their deals when it comes to the Apple iPhone 4. What’s more, things are becoming much more in the customers favour thanks to bundle deals that throw in minutes, texts and data usage into one convenient price.

Another angle you could approach the new iPhone from is that of the SIM-only deals that are in existence. The iPhone 4 comes with a micro-SIM, which is smaller than the more common regular-sized SIM cards found in standard mobile phones, so that's something to look out for when you're shopping around and comparing our deals as outlined in the tables above. There are more deals based around the SIM-only concept coming out all the time, so you'll need to keep an eye on the information as its being updated all the time. You can also read and compare current customer reviews and find out about their 3G smartphones experience.

Picking up a SIM-only deal might be ideal as you'll often get a decent unlimited data provision although watch out for fair usage policies and make sure that you don’t overstep the mark by downloading more content than is covered by the rules and regulations.

Which network is best for the iPhone?

If you’re buying yourself a brand-spanking new iPhone 4S then you'll certainly want to make sure that it earns its keep. Of course, one of the most crucial aspects of this amazing handset is that you can use it to stay online, as well as for making voice calls. To do this the phone will often tap into the 3G phones network and while this is becoming better all the time the service availability can be subject to fluctuations. If you live in a city or larger conurbation then you might not find this to be much of a problem, as coverage levels are always reasonably good.

However, if you're located miles from anywhere or in an area of only partial coverage then you may find that your new iPhone 4 doesn’t work quite as well as you might have hoped for. This is another good reason for using our comparison tables to get a better overview of what the networks can offer you in any given location.

Try using the postcode checker option that will link you through to the UK mobile providers website (Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange, 3-Mobile, O2) and allow you to input a postcode or address location to see what sort of reception you can expect.

This isn't an exact science though, and remember that’s services can also be affected by the amount of network traffic and other users tapping into it. So while the new Apple iPhone 4 is a great bit of kit, even it can be subject to problems that are beyond its control.

You'll also need to revisit the subject of data usage too, because the iPhone will want to tap into online resources even when you're simply on the move with it. So be sure to read up on what the mobile providers offer as part of the deal you're considering, along with factoring in any additional charges for going over your data usage levels.

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