iPhone for her indoors

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Her indoors has a Nokia N97 on a contract with Orange that has a year to run. For various reasons she wants an iPhone.

It seems to me that the cheapest way to do this would be to get a PAYG iPhone on Orange and then use the contract SIM. However she'd also like to be able to take her iPhone elsewhere when her Orange contract ends.

Does anyone have any brill ideas about a better/cheaper way to do this?

I am pretty ignorant of how the iPhone world works and it does seem to be a differernt from other mobile phones in terms of how the network locking works.

[Bunk]

If it's an iPhone 4 then I'm pretty sure they all come unlocked. If it's an earlier one then I'm not sure what the situation is. I know I got my 3G unlocked just by texting O2 and then plugging it into iTunes.

[Svalbaard]

The iPhone uses a micro SIM so I don't think your plan would work.

Unless of course you can get a PAYG with a micro SIM.

[Ignis Fatuus]

NB I know from experience that some phones come locked to Provider + Contract type, not just Provider. I had 2 contract phones from O2 at the same time, actually on the same contract. One of them would accept an O2 PAYG SIM and the other wouldn't. So better check.

[riffpie]

The iPhone uses a micro SIM so I don't think your plan would work.

Unless of course you can get a PAYG with a micro SIM.

Only the iPhone 4 uses microsims, and they're delivered as normal-sized ones with a centre that pops out anyway.

[Theonenonly]

I bought my Iphone4 from Apple direct (this is the only way to get it not tied to any network)

I paid £499 for the 16gb version and when I tried to get a sim only contract for £15pm I awas told if I wasnted a microsim I would have to go on the special Iphone package which was £25pm.

The only extra you got was free wifi (most places do that now anyway)

So I told them just to send me a normal sim out and that I wouldnt be using an Iphone at all.

When it came i cut it up and stuck it in the iphone and it works a treat. (saving me a needless £10pm in the process)

So over the 2 year most palces are doing deals for its gunna cost me £860 all in for phone and monthly fee.

If you get it on contract your tied in for 2 years have to pay about £200/£300 for the phone upfront and also have to pay £30/£35pm for less minutes/texts/internet.

Thats £1340, so your paying more and locked down for the next 24 months.

T mobile have a £15 sim only deal with 1gb of internet which is the best on the market (IMO)