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Many of you wil be coming to the end of your 3GS Contracts and perhaps even the 3G contracts for Christmas presents in the next 2 months and I have had some emails asking if upgrade to iPhone 4 is good choice or whether you should wait for the Unibody iPhone 5, chiselled by virgins from a single piece of unicorn horn.
Well, for what its worth...and I’m truly flattered if my opinion is worth something, Here what I figured when I upgraded to iPhone 4 and left my 3G to the wife.
I had been out of contract on my 3G for about 5 months and had switched to the lower “Simplicity’ Tariff on O2, which had saved me some money. My view was then to buy the iPhone4 outright and sit and watch for at least the next iteration.
My thinking was that I wanted the new extra features but only in the sense of replacing the Flip Mino I had so that the 720p video camera became something I could whip out when something great was happening with the kids etc. The camera I thought might replace a point and shoot and in some well lit circumstances it has, but being a photographer perhaps I am a little too picky and the shots aren’t really used. Outside it does a good job, inside its pointless.
My next thought was "What are they going to do that will make iPhone 5 and 6 so much better"?
• PIco Projector? Not interested
• More accurate GPS? the one in it I don’t use in preference of the TOM TOM in my car
• Better screen? Why the one in it is incredible (You wont be sorry on that front)
• More Pixels in the camera? Alex and I rant on that most weeks in the Bagel Tech Foto Show. More pixels on smaller sensors is just bigger crap
• More integration with MACs or iPads...Bluetooth has that covered and most of the interactions I have I have stopped using as they are quaint but limited in functional day to day use.
• Gaming? I'm not a high end gamer and what the phone does is brilliant so no need
• Better Phone? This one is hugely better than 3G in that respect
I guess I lack the vision of the iPhone Engineers which is why I don't have $50Bn in the bank, but as a plain consumer, I cant see what I would gain by waiting another 18 months when my 3G contract had already expired and to be honest, iOS 4.0 was such a dog on the 3G. I also did the maths and by buying outright and going for the cheaper iPhone deals on O2, I would be able to buy again in 14 months at the same money. which kept my options open.
The last factor in my thinking was that the previous 'BIG' upgrade was the 3GS and my pal did that and it wasn’t the huge leap forwards. He has had more problems that I had with my 3G and I think that the next iPhone wont be a '5' I think it will equate if not in name, to iPhone 4.5 or 4GS.
I cant make the decision for you but what I would say is to shop around for the sim free deals and then sit down with a calculator and figure out when your debt is cleared as opposed to the subsidised deal and you'll be shocked. If you do go with a subsidised deal, work out also what are the consequences of taking one of the packages which lets you have a 'Free' iPhone and the Tariff, bearing in mind that you are only locked to that tariff for 9 months of the 2 years and you can then drop it to the tariff you need but will still have got the phone for 'Free'
Personnaly, even given the fact that I already have...I would jump, but most of that is realising that I just couldn’t do another year with the 3G having experienced iPhone 4.
If you’re interested, I hope I helped make up your mind.

Regards
Ewen

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Ewen Rankin

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