iPhone to be £660 in UK?!?!

[bigandy]

I can't see it being £300. Prices always work out more over here than just looking at the exchange rate.

But double the price? Aye, right.

2MP is not enough in a new phone (for 2008) in my opinion. Lack of 3G is the final blow.

anyway, 3G is a must in Europe and Asia. Just my opinion.

What's this fetish with 3G these days? And where do you live? London, or one of the other larger cities in Europe, I guess?

3G is NOT a killer feature for the majority of the population of Europe. The coverage is worse than a drunk's attempt at applying a tube of fake tan, the speed is as good as a motorised scooter, and the improvement over 2.5G is equivalent to the difference between the Olsen twins...

 

[koobcamuk]

What's this fetish with 3G these days? And where do you live? London, or one of the other larger cities in Europe, I guess?

3G is NOT a killer feature for the majority of the population of Europe. The coverage is worse than a drunk's attempt at applying a tube of fake tan, the speed is as good as a motorised scooter, and the improvement over 2.5G is equivalent to the difference between the Olsen twins...

Yes, I live in a large city (not London) but I am guessing that most people wanting to waste money on a mobile phone also live in the city. I don't think my friends in the country give a damn about that kind of thing. (sweeping generalisations - I love them).

My argument is that, if they can, they should just have 3G there. It's just better. There is a difference in the Olsen twins, there is a reason to put the latest technology in there (roaming - use in Japan for example) because it's becoming standard across the board.

OK, let's put either no camera or no 3G and hmmm, wifi? Let's scrap that too because it isn't needed.

My point is that I think it's better to cram in as much as possible and not miss out on things just because America has bad 3G coverage. I bet you the iPhone for Europe has it.

There's just no point from me moving from my current phone because it does more than the iPhone, with the exception of being an iPod (which I don't own anyway) and having wifi/OSX. I have a laptop and I bet I can email quicker from that in a wifi hotspot than someone on a phone. Even if we start a race and it's still in my bag.

 

[Project]

You have to remember that 3G adds bulk to the device and affects battery life significantly. Perhaps Apple had QA issues in respect to this. The UI seems more likely than any other mobile OS to use up battery.

 

[koobcamuk]

You have to remember that 3G adds bulk to the device and affects battery life significantly. Perhaps Apple had QA issues in respect to this. The UI seems more likely than any other mobile OS to use up battery.

I think UI (touchscreen) and screen size will eat up more battery than 3G use.

 

[marcol]

3G is NOT a killer feature for the majority of the population of Europe. The coverage is worse than a drunk's attempt at applying a tube of fake tan, the speed is as good as a motorised scooter, and the improvement over 2.5G is equivalent to the difference between the Olsen twins...

Your experience of 3G is completely different to mine. I'm in Norwich (hardly a major city, just 125,000 people) and get 3G in most places. I travel to Birmingham and the West Midlands quite a bit and mostly have coverage there too. As for speed, it's consistently at least five times that I get with GPRS. This with T-Mobile.

 

[dcv]

You have to remember that 3G adds bulk to the device and affects battery life significantly. Perhaps Apple had QA issues in respect to this. The UI seems more likely than any other mobile OS to use up battery.

"Adds bulk" in what way? Do you mean physically or in terms of performance? If physically, have you seen the W880i? As for battery life, the only way I've found battery life of a 3G handset to be affected was with an old handset which would lock onto a 3G-only signal. In an area of poor 3G reception the battery would deplete itself as it struggled to stay on the network. That was with the first ever released SonyEricsson 3G handset. Newer models aren't locked to to 3G only and don't have this issue. Things that affect battery life are generally the UI (Symbian phones tend to need charging more often).

3G is NOT a killer feature for the majority of the population of Europe. The coverage is worse than a drunk's attempt at applying a tube of fake tan...

I disagree with you... but then I've had a 3G phone since 2004. And yes I live in London.

 

[emotion]

To those that say that they don't need 3G remember that 3G != HSDPA which is what the iPhone needs to compete with other similar phones (n95, samsung blackjack etc)

As for WiFi, you need a mesh wifi so that you can wander between access points without loss of service. I'm not sure all municipal wifi networks are of this type (though I'm not sure on that fact).

The person who made the point about 3G adding bulk makes a valid point.

 

[ascender]

I'm guessing that might be the initial price for an unlocked phone not on a contract. Its not unusual for new state of the art phones to cost £400+ when they first come out if you want one sim free.

Like others have said though, even with a contract, they'll be able to charge a lot for them as there are people who will pay whatever it takes to be the first to own a new phone. The price will come down over time, its just a case of how badly you want one initially.

 

[emotion]

Like others have said though, even with a contract, they'll be able to charge a lot for them as there are people who will pay whatever it takes to be the first to own a new phone.

The mobile phone market in the UK at least is not a sellers market though. If Apple want to shift 10 million iPhones (as rumours have suggested) they need to compete.

 

[ascender]

The mobile phone market in the UK at least is not a sellers market though. If Apple want to shift 10 million iPhones (as rumours have suggested) they need to compete.

I've not read much on their strategy, but if they want the device to be a big seller rather than a premium, niche product, then there's no way it'll be that expensive.

As for the comments about 3G, I was extremely sceptical until I got a new phone this week which had it. I tried it out of curiosity and was very impressed, finally it makes the technology useable on a mobile. Much, much faster and the coverage seems to be good too.

 

[koobcamuk]

The person who made the point about 3G adding bulk makes a valid point.

Utter tosh. I owned this phone but sold it because it was too small. It's 3G.

http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=gb&lc=en&ver=4000&template=pip1&pid=10653&zone=pp

Many, many phones are 3G and the only reason you'd know is because it has two cameras. Seriously, where are all these massive 3G phones now? Anyway, the iPhone is large enough! It's not like it's tiny.

I am also from Norfolk, and 3G on vodafone is patchy there. It's much better than not having it. That's my point. You'd appreciate it. Like everyone going back to dial up... I dare you to try. Especially with such fast computers.

 

[emotion]

Utter tosh.

Rudeness very rarely backs up a good argument.

Maybe 3G phones in the USA are like bricks...

A lot of 3G phones have traditionally been large (even the N95 is a brick and that's very latest tech).

You're right though, it doesn't necessarily follow these days (Samsung Blackjack is another good example).

 

[koobcamuk]

Rudeness very rarely backs up a good argument.



A lot of 3G phones have traditionally been large (even the N95 is a brick and that's very latest tech).

You're right though, it doesn't necessarily follow these days (Samsung Blackjack is another good example).

OK, maybe the 'utter tosh' was a bit rude, but it wasn't meant to be mean.

Just making the point that 3G does not = large handset. The new N95 does a lot more than use 3G for downloads. If you want to watch movies on your phone, it needs to be large. Try watching a movie on a W880i. You can't (realistically). The iPhone might be ok for movie watching - it's large already! Adding 3G will not add to the size. I guarantee that.

I have a Sharp 903SH and I love it. In Japan, they lead the world in mobile phones (currently) and over here we're obsessed with size (funnily enough), so we constantly sacrifice the latest and greatest so the handset is slim/eatable/microscopic/gets carried up into the atmospheric boundary layer with water vapour... you get my point.

You want an amazing iPhone? It needs 3G (sorry if anyone found the 'tosh' comment rude - was not the intention).

 

[emotion]

OK, maybe the 'utter tosh' was a bit rude, but it wasn't meant to be mean.

It's all good man, no worries.

I agree with you about 3G. I'm not buying a new phone without it.

 

[Applespider]

Of course, neither company will likely be able to brand the iPhone in any way, though there's the possibility of a small operator logo on the iPhone's surface I'd imagine. Maybe O and V will pass completely!

My last 3 phones have been O2 ones picked up from O2 stores and none of them have had any O2 brand on the outside. The start-up/shut down screens stay O2 and the link to O2's live services... but no nasty buttons, changes of menu colour or disabling of features. It's the main reason that I switched away from Orange when they told me that they were deliberately removing features to keep consistency across all their phones so people could change more easily...

In terms of browsing the real Internet on a handset, such as on the iPhone via its mobile Safari, 3G makes a vast difference.

Yeah... but data charges still kill unless you're on T-mobile (note the other prospective changes above) and they seem to get phones much later than other networks. I've got a N73 which has the S60 Webkit based browser but I rarely use it since the data charges are extortionate after the first MB. I go back to the old WAP browser if I'm going to use it. And 3G is still slow compared to what most of us are used to at home these days... as city wi-fi rolls out more and more, I can see it being more useful than 3G to have as a phone feature since you don't really 'need' wifi to be on all the time.

 

[Willis]

My contract expires August 2008. Got a pretty sweet deal. £35/m but 15 months half price! 400mins, 250 texts, £5 included downloads a month, 25mins video calls, 25 picture messages.

Thats with 3 ... but when the iPhone comes out in the UK (which will be around the end of the year) I wont have to wait too long to get an iPhone.

End of the day, it just depends how much the networks charge for the phone. They might slap the £40 a month contracts on them

 

[Chimaera]

I would not call 3G phones bricks, although they certainly *can* be.

I definitely would not class the N95 as a brink - in fact I'd say its right on the bottom end of what I would call a comfortable size for a phone for me (and I speak from experience - I own one).

In all honesty there is definitely a market for the iPhone even at such a ridiculous price - look at the Nokia 8800 - that was just a 6230 in a shiny case and some people paid through the nose for it.

Speaking personally though there is no *way* I'd pay that sort of money for such a primitive phone and the same argument applies to the iPhone - I have grave doubts about the interface (there have been many touchscreen phones in the past and they have all *sucked - yes Apple might pull it off with their multitouch interface but the odds are against them and since no bugger has used it we can't say.

Besides that the lack of 3G and lack of 3rd party apps are total deal-killers too - while I like Apple software one of the things I like best as a mac user is that everything I'm likely to want to do on my macbook someone else has already come up with a good way of doing it - in some cases thats Apple but in a lot of others its the programming community, both open source and otherwise. While I generally like Apple's policy of KISS as far as most software goes they do occaisionally take it too far and I honestly believe this is one of those cases. I genuinely believe that you cannot call a phone a smartphone if you can't install applications to it.

Unfortunately in the UK lack of 3G is a critical failing in my opinion - I use 3G extensively on my phone both on the phone and as a modem for my macbook and theres a *world* of difference between GPRS connectivity and the 3G HSDPA connections I get. Yes 3g coverage in the UK isn't absolute and HSDPA is even less so - but I can use 3G 95% of the time in the wandering I do and HSDPA for 80% of that time - the only place I've not managed to get a 3G signal where I wanted to was in Whitby and I was on holiday and had far better things to do than poke about on the internet

 

[ppnkg]

why is that surprising? EVERYTHING in the UK has to be a rip-off.

 

[Igantius]

One of my friends manages a store for one of the larger mobile phone shop chains - when I spoke to him about the iPhone a few weeks ago, he reckons you'll be looking around the £300 mark if, and only, if you're on one of the more expensive subscription plans.

 

[Bobthemonkey]

So the cheapest iPhone contract to get the phone at £300 is minimum £25p/m, based on the current market.

 

[XIII]

I just can't see that being the case here, I don't think it would sell.

As someone else mentioned, T Mobile are the only ones with some decent data packages - and for that reason I hope it gets 3G before being released in Europe, and that T Mobile pick it up.

 

[Igantius]

So the cheapest iPhone contract to get the phone at £300 is minimum £25p/m, based on the current market.

The figure my friend gave as an example was £50 per month – I must stress that the launch price has yet to be finalised but it should be around what I’ve indicated.

I just can't see that being the case here, I don't think it would sell.

Neither does my friend...