This article was first published on Dollars and Sense
As usual, when Apple announces a new product, the world listens. This includes a large majority of us as well as the local telecommunication service providers who will be providing you the mobile plans to go with your fancy new iPhones in Singapore.
Many iPhone fans were left devastated (we exaggerate… or at least we think so) when they realised they actually had to wait till November for the real new iPhone to come to the market.
I’m not sure how many of you don’t already know this yet, but we’ll just say it for the benefit of anyone who may not know: the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus doesn’t actually mean anything to anyone. Everyone’s really waiting for the iPhone X in November, while wondering what happened to the iPhone 9.
How much will the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X cost?
We weren’t invited to the iPhone launch in Cupertino, however, a quick check on the Apple website revealed that this batch of phones are going to cost more than any other previous models.
Yes. The cheapest of the new iPhones is going to set you back by $1,148, and most of you won’t even want it. The real deal – iPhone X – is set cost up to $1,888. You could actually buy a Mac Book, Mac Book Air or even some models of the Mac Book Pro and iMac computers.
You could get an (already pricey) Apple computer for the price of its new phone now!
How much will it cost if I sign up / extend my mobile plan when I buy the phone
On to the real question on most of our minds: how much will it cost us if we signed or extended our mobile plans with one of the local telco companies…and which is cheapest.
We’ve done the relevant snooping on the four telecommunications companies in Singapore, and here’s a breakdown of the price of the phone on some of the mobile plans we’re fairly likely to be on.
As you can see, the three main local telco companies offer some form of discount on the new iPhones while Circles.Life only offers an interest free instalment plan over 24 months.
We’re not sure what this actually means for Circles.Life as they pride themselves on not locking customers down to a mobile plan. This cannot be the case if they’re offering an instalment plan for 24 months. We’ll have to see how this plays out as they haven’t revealed any details yet.
Also, M1 does not currently offer a mobile plan for the iPhone X, while the others seem to have.
So… which is the cheapest?
Naturally, you’re going to wonder which is the best deal for you if you want to buy the new phone. We crunch the numbers to calculate what you’re going to spend over a 24-month period on each of the plans.
While it may look like Circles.Life does offer the best mobile plan, we have to note that they only offer 100 minutes of talk time on their Base Plan, and we have to add $2 per month for free incoming calls. What it also offers is the chance to increase our data limit to 20GB for $20 extra per month.
What about SIM only mobile plans?
We’ll assume we have purchased the respective iPhones separately (using the individual handset cost stated at the start of the article) and compute the total cost (including monthly expenses on our SIM Only mobile plans) over 24 months. This is quite similar to the above calculation for the Circles.Life plan.
As we can see from the chart, SingTel and M1 mobile plans come up to slightly cheaper, even when compared to the Circles.Life plan above. However, we have to note that StarHub’s mobile plan offers more talk time and unlimited weekend data and the Circles.Life plan offers an interest-free instalment plan as well as more data. Even SingTel’s and M1’s plans differ in more ways than just talk time. You have to really look into the fine prints to check what they really offer individually.
Similar to the Circles.Life plan, we can also increase our data limit on majority of these SIM only mobile plans.
Get a mobile plan that suits you
At the end of the day, you have to see which mobile plan is best suited to your requirements and comes at the most affordable price.
You also need to note that if you and your family members sign up for mobile plans, or bundle your home broadband plan, with your mobile plan, you may receive additional discounts. This adds another dimension to your calculations for which plan will ultimately be the cheapest for you.
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