The Nexus 4 is due in just a short couple of weeks. You may also have read that O2 have exclusivity on the contract side of things for one month.
You’d expect a handset that starts at £239 sim free to come fairly cheaply on contract, right? Well, erm, no..
O2 have posted this, which details the handset will only be ‘free’ on a £36 a month tariff So over two years, that comes to a grand total of £864 – or £585 for the tariff alone even when subtracting £279 for the 16gb handset.
Considering most £500 phones come free on this amount per month, this seems a bit, erm, unfair.
It seems ordering from the Google Play market and getting a sim only plan would be a much better bet.
It’s what I’ll be doing.
Link – O2
£25 would have been a more acceptable price, that at least gets you the phone and gives O2 over £12:50 per month for the contract. It’s not like they are giving you a huge data allowance. I think they are working on the basis that the less web savvy purchaser will think this is a good deal, it is a well specced phone for free, so why shouldn’t it be the same price as a SGS3, and it costs less than a iPhone 5.
It smacks of profiteering to me 🙁
Actually, looking at some other phone in the same price bracket, like the Sony Xperia P, which is £249.99, with the same On & On, is also £36, the cheapest one is £31, but minutes drop to 300 instead of unlimited. You can also choose £36 with 600mins and upgrade 3 months early.
So in theory, it seems not just the Nexus is priced this way for the cost price of the phone.
Weird thing is the Xperia T @ £369.99 has the exact same pricing structure as the P….
I TBH, do not understand o2 pricing, here is another example the HTC One X+, which is also free on £36, but costs £429.99 on p&g.
Now for the £36 you get unlinited mins, texts and 1gb of data, but weirdly, if you pay £149.99 for the phone on £36 you get 2gb of data? How does that work, I am confused, surely it should be increased monthly cost not increased handset cost? IDK…..
http://shop.o2.co.uk/mobile_phone/pay_monthly/24_months/High/HTC/One_X_Plus/column/monthly_cost/dir/asc
Maybe someone in the know can reach out to o2 to explain there cost structure.
I also take into account we do not know how much o2 is buying the handsets from the manufacturers for at wholesale price.