An iPad for under 200 quid*
*You'd be throwing in your soul, of course
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Orange has announced how much it is prepared to subsidise the Apple iPad, and it pushes the entry-level fondle slab down below £200 with Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity.
You'll have to agree to pay Orange £27 a month for the next couple of years, less a couple of quid if you're already indentured to Orange. So, including the £200 down payment, you'll be handing over £848 for 1GB of data a month (plus 1GB of off-peak data).
Buy the same 16GB slab direct from Apple (£529), and pay O2 or Vodafone a tenner a month for a similar quantity of data (excepting the off-peak allowance), and you'll be paying out £769 overall - but that assumes you've got £529 burning a hole in your pocket now.
The iPhone was originally sold without a network subsidy, which is why it didn't have 3G or MMS. It was only when Apple accepted the operator shilling that sales skyrocketed (and the iPhone finally got MMS) - handset subsidy is the new never-never, only without the hiding-behind-the-sofa option.
When developing the original Palm Pilot, the company worked very hard to get the price down to what they called "a single-spouse decision" - Apple couldn't get the iPad down to that level, but with the operators' help, it might yet be done... ®
COMMENTS
Subsidy? What nonsense. More like Loan sharks.
This is never a subsidy, el reg. It is purely like a hire purchase at 20 to 30% ish plus APR for a product you want to buy without upfront costs. And no escape or returns halfway thru. (Unlike other items eg cars, Tvs etc which can be returned/surrendered or claimed back by the company for the unused portion of the deal time/defaults.)
Or a loan/installments scheme.
Loan sharks, anyone?
Paris , cos I dont mind a higher APR for being loaned/subsidised to me.
"a single-spouse decision"
I like that!
It always with me though, it's also "a single-spouse consequence" too when I've pushed my luck too far!
well it didn't
The first iteration of the Iphone didn't have 3G and MMS. Held it back quite a bit except for the proper fanbois who chose to claim that email was better anyway.
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