Originally Posted by DaremoS
Isn't this too dramatic?...
This tale of the cell contracts has started to sound to me as a the fairy tales that Apple told to make people to buy their average crap.
In my house we have a contract at 18-months for 5 cell phones which is less expensive than 5 prepaid cards according with the amount of minutes that the group uses.
Well, fixed contracts are probably an advantage in some situations, but certainly not in most of them.
Here in Portugal, most carriers provide a service that only requires "charging up your account" with a minimum 20€ worth of calls every 2 months. That's 10€ per month, including free SMS for numbers in the same network, and a few other cool things. This is one of the most used "service plans" around here: everyone I know uses it.
Would it make any sense for me to pay an extra 40€ per month (assuming the iPhone contract is 50€) just to have the "honour" of owning an iPhone? You know, multiplying by 24 months that adds up to 960€ more than what I usually pay.. not to mention the cost of the device itself!
Now if I tell you that the minimum salary here is 426€, do you still think that SteveMB was being too dramatic?
Your case might be an exception, but for almost everyone the iPhone remains _very_ expensive, with or without contract. And those $199 are just a smokescreen: it's just like paying it with credit.