Matt Miller

Matt Miller, Contributor

I write about the media and tech trending with Millennials

9/21/2012 @ 8:57AM |26,076 views

Did You Pay Too Much For Your iPhone 5 Today?

There’s more than one way to buy an iPhone 5, and chances are if you bought one today you spent too much money on it.

Wednesday I wrote about iOS 6 being a better upgrade than buying Apple’s iPhone 5. Why spend the money on new hardware that only boasts a newer processor and a slightly bigger screen when the free iOS 6 download streamlines legacy iPhones?

The post led to some great discussion in its comment section.

Since then I’ve had more than a day to enjoy the upgrades to my iPhone, and I fully support anyone — especially broke twenty-somethings like myself — who appreciate the little improvements and don’t get seduced into buying the iPhone 5.

I love that you can touch the share button on pictures and a screen pops up that gives you the option to share it on Twitter, Facebook, through a text message and (about time) in email.

Then, for all you popular people, there’s now a way to deal with multiple calls at once. As a journalist being able to send texts saying I’m busy when someone calls me in the middle of a phone interview is a blessing. I’m excited to start using Passbook and for some reason my favorite upgrade is the little amoeba-type thing that you pull down to update your mailbox.

Oddly enough, the last change I noticed in iOS 6 was that the phone had a different looking dial pad.

With this iOS 6 upgrade my iPhone feels polished, and I see no reason to waste a few hundred dollars on an iPhone 5 that has nothing mind-blowing to offer.

However, as readers pointed out, there is at least one situation where you can buy an iPhone 5 and it will be of equal price to the $0 iOS 6 upgrade.

What it comes down to is when you bought your last iPhone.

Most cell phone companies give the customer a free phone upgrade every 20 months. People who have an upgrade can buy an iPhone 5 for $200, but if you don’t have the upgrade, the retail price is a depressing $650.

So, say you bought the iPhone 4 within the first few months of its release and you haven’t gotten a new phone since. Chances are you’re available for an upgrade and can get the iPhone 5 at a discounted $200. My readers also informed me that a used iPhone 4 is selling for about $200 on eBay (coincidence?).

If the stars have aligned for you then go for it, get yourself a free iPhone 5.

But is that really your best option?

Instead, you could buy the 4S and get Siri, the nicer camera and also the iOS 6 updates that make it work almost exactly like an iPhone 5. You’ll also make $100 off the deal.

If you already have an iPhone 4S on the other hand, I can’t see any way buying the iPhone 5 would be a good idea from the cost-benefit standpoint I wrote about on Wednesday.

There’s a 99.9 percent chance that anyone with a 4S doesn’t have an upgrade with their cell carrier (unless you exploited some loophole in the system). Some readers with a 4S argued that they were able to sign a new two-year contract and pay $250 to upgrade early, while selling their old phone for $350 to $400 on eBay and buy the iPhone 5 for $450.

Now I’m not sure if this reader had to pay $450 for the phone on top of the $250 to upgrade early, but this still seems like a headache for a slightly faster phone with a modestly larger screen. You have to ask yourself: Is it worth it?

It comes down to this: If you have an iPhone 4 and qualify for an upgrade, then get yourself a nicer phone, you could go with the 4S and make money or come out even with the iPhone 5. But if you have a 4S already just take the free iOS 6 upgrade and put that $200 toward gas or rent or groceries.

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