The Ultimate Guide To UK's Cheapest Apple iPhone 3G

Our final assessment; the cheapest PAYG iPhone you can get is £342.49 at CPW with £10 minimum monthly topup. The cost of using it for 18 months is a whopping £582.49. You have to bear in mind that free data and WiFi is only for the first 12 months after which it rockets to £10.

The cheapest contract for the 8GB iPhone 3G is £30 per month (£596.89 for the 18-month duration of the contract, less Quidco cashback). You only get 75 mins and 125 texts.

Using the Loophole Method, the cost of owning an iPhone will cost you £680 over a period of 18 months (less Quidco), which is £4.61 extra compared to the cheapest tariff (you get 1200 minutes for the first nine months and 600 minutes for the remaining period plus 500 texts) at £37.78 per month.

As a footnote, if you plan to use your iPhone mainly for playing video or music, surfing the web or for making international calls AND if you're most likely to be near a WiFi hotspot, then why not give it up altogether and go for an iPod Touch instead. Argos is selling the iPod touch for as little as £161.92. 

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Grab Truphone's free VoIP application combined with the Cloud's unlimited WiFI access which costs only £47.88 per annum and you have a quasi-iPhone. Truphone prices start from 3p a minute for a US landline call or mobile. 

UK prices vary from 3p for landlines to 15p for mobiles and 10p for SMS. True, you won't get any 3G connectivity, but if you can live with that, you've got yourself a bargain. Oh and it is likely that Skype releases an iPhone/iPod touch sooner than some may think.