UK: iPhone 3G pricing on O2 – part 1

Wowzer! Following the announcement of the iPhone 3GS yesterday (covered in awesome fashion by our very own Will….!), O2UK have released their pricing for the device. I noticed that in fact they didn’t update the site until today (UK time), which is shame, but now the wait for the pricing is over. So as not to overload your noggins (English for heads/brains), I am splitting this in two – let’s take the cost of the device on PAYG and pay monthly first….

PAY MONTHLY (consisting of device price, plus recurring contract fees)

The bottom line is that there is a premium (as you might expect) for the device, depending on which option you want, and which tariff you want. The device costs between FREE and £274.23 for the 32GB option, and between FREE and £184.98 for the 16GB option. Thought that was fruity? Let’s check out the PAYG prices now:

PAYG (in effect, device-only cost)

• iPhone 3G 8GB – £342.50
• iPhone 3G S 16GB – £440.40
• iPhone 3G S 32GB – £538.30

Of course, the iPhone 3G is a bit of a red herring above, but it does give you an idea of the relative costs. I bought an iPhone 3G as a PAYG device about 9 months ago, and the price wasn’t very different then – so no real movement on the PAYG pricing structure, other than to add two new tiers above!

The question of course is: is £538.30 too much money? Is there such a thing?

See my next post for a breakdown of the ancillary costs you can expect for things like Internet Tethering (what, you didn’t think that would be included did you?!)

(You can find all the info and pricing for the iPhone 3GS on the O2 (NYSE: TEF) website here)