The one big catch here is that this will not be offered to new AT&T customers. You’ll have to present an existing line in order to buy a No-Commit iPhone. AT&T is also limiting this to one per line, but admit that there’s no real way to enforce that if customers make multiple visits to multiple stores. Even so, the rest of the downsides make this even less worth it.

So already you’re paying out the wazoo, plus you have to be signed up with an AT&T contract. Bummer. You know what else is a downer? According to a commenter at Boy Genius Report, it would be cheaper to buy a new iPhone 3G with a contract, use it for a month (that’s a requirement), and then spend the ~$200 to terminate your contract. If this is the case, and it appears to be so, why would anyone even think of paying the No-Commit price?

There’s no specific talk about the type of data plan available to GoPhone users. The slides say that “An iPhone Data plan is require if the device is activated on the AT&T network.” That might actually be a good thing. Yes, it’s $30 per month, but it provides comprehensive data services. The other data offerings from GoPhone charge per kilobyte, which just isn’t going to satisfy the average iPhone user. Remember back in the day when it cost $20?

I’m not quite sure how well these will sell, given the circumstances: the economy, the high price of the device, the price of the data plan, etc. I suppose AT&T thought it worth the experiment, but as it stands it’s clearly better to just sign a contract if you want an iPhone.

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Prepaid iPhone available on March 26

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Prepaid iPhone available on March 26

When asking specifically about AT&T’s plans with targeting the prepaid iPhone market, we were assured that those interested in saving money should not turn to these plans. We specifically got excited about a cheap prepaid iPhone plan with a possibly less expensive tethering plan. Say, something that totaled around $70/month. However, the chances are that after activation fees and data usage, you’ll end up spending more money. Plus with the unsubsidized iPhone costing at least $599, this isn’t AT&T’s first choice for new customers. Those without the necessary credit to sign up for a contract with AT&T, will inevitably be forced into cell phone bills that are harder to manage.

That does sound expensive. MacBlogz then notes that AT&T would stick to their one cent per kilobyte access rate, which is insane for anyone doing a decent amount of browsing. And when you buy an iPhone, I would think you plan on browsing the Internet with it. One of the biggest drawbacks to a prepaid iPhone, as we’ve noted, is the lack of an unlimited prepaid data plan.

It sounds like this will be a reality soon enough. Certainly not before year’s end, and probably not in January when retail sales typically slow. As prepaid grows, though, bigger carriers are going to take measures to capitalize. Offering the iPhone on prepaid is one of those measures.

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Waiting for a prepaid iPhone? Don’t hold your breath

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Waiting for a prepaid iPhone? Don’t hold your breath

The units are mainly available via the company’s website. New customers or customers looking to add a line can order one and have it delivered to their door. They then hook the phone up to iTunes, where they can activate service, much like customers did for the first round of iPhones.

The 8GB model will cost $150, and the 16GB model will run $250. So yes, there is still a subsidy involved, meaning you have to sign a two-year agreement. Customers who do not activate the phone within a certain period of time will be charged an early termination fee. As long as you can stomach the extra $175, I guess you can get it without a contract.

My other gripe with this is that only new customers or customers seeking to add a new line can buy a refurbished iPhone online. Upgrades have to be done at an AT&T store, and not all of them will have refurbished iPhones. This happens all the time in the wireless industry. Carriers neglect their current users in favor of ones they’re luring.

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AT&T selling refurbished iPhones, not for prepaid

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AT&T selling refurbished iPhones, not for prepaid

The snag: price subsidy

Unlike the initial iPhone, for the 3G version AT&T and Apple decided to subsidize the price. The main objective with this was to bring down the price, thus theoretically allowing more people to afford the device. More people with iPhones means more sales dollars for Apple and more service revenue (thus even more money for Apple) for AT&T. However, this does have an adverse affect on the consumer.

Where before you could activate the iPhone on your own terms, now it requires a two-year contract. Hey, Apple and AT&T aren’t going to subsidize the price of the phone without something in return. This two year contract also includes a required data plan, which rose in price since the original iPhone from $20 to $30 monthly. Even with the $39.99 voice plan, this still comes out to $70 per month before taxes — and you’ll pay it every month for two years lest you incur an early termination fee.

From this, it seems that getting your iPhone on a prepaid account will be a bit tougher this time around. Thankfully, there are plenty of people out there who want to solve this problem. So we can look to a solution.

iPhone compatible with prepaid out of the box

When the iPhone 3G was first released, there was speculation as to whether you could even use it on prepaid without a jailbreak. This meant that you would have had to find a program which could give your iPhone the ability to work on a non-contract AT&T plan.

The strange grammatical structure of the preceding sentence is in place for a purpose. It was a hypothetical at the time, but eventually it was disproven. You can, in fact, activate an iPhone 3G on prepaid without any unlocking or jailbreaking. Just insert your AT&T prepaid SIM, and you’re good. So why aren’t more people taking to this?

Still the problem of the contract

Here’s the issue that’s holding most people back. When you buy the iPhone 3G, you agree to a two-year contract. You cannot break this without incurring an Early Termination Fee. Additionally, you cannot break your contract within the first 30 days, or else you have to return the device. This is just a way for AT&T to make sure you’re activating the phone on a postpaid account with a data plan.

Because of this, most people are turned off from using the iPhone on prepaid. They’re under contract already, so it doesn’t make sense to have a postpaid account and a prepaid account. Many people are also turned off by the idea of paying an early termination fee. The path of least resistance here, clearly, is to just suck it up and use the iPhone as AT&T and Apple want you to.

Could it be cost effective to terminate your contract?

At the time of the iPhone 3G release, AT&T offered an unlimited MEdiaNet plan on their Pay As You Go service for $20 per month. Voice calls are 25 cents per minute (unless you pay a dollar per day for 10 cents per minute), but hey, we don’t buy an iPhone so we can call Great Aunt Sally. No, we want them for the data features. So the MEdiaNet plan made perfect sense.

For the first two years of iPhone service on a contract, you’re paying $199 for the phone and then $70 per month, minimum, for service. That works out to $1,680. However, if you just ate the termination fee, you could be paying much less.

Under this scenario, you’d pay $199 for the iPhone, $70 for the first month’s service, and $175 to get out of your contract, so you’re at $444. The data plan, at $20 per month for 24 months, works out to $480, so $924, leaving you $756 for voice minutes over that period before you break even with the postpaid scenario. That’s 3,024 minutes.

If you’re not big on voice minutes, it could be cost effective to eat the early termination fee and migrate to prepaid. There’s now a snag in that idea, though.

No more unlimited MEdiaNet

Unfortunately, we learned a while back that AT&T is discontinuing their unlimited data plans. This first applied to just Pay As You Go customers, but was later made to include Pick Your Plan deals. This means that the best you can do, at the moment, is $14.99 per month for 10 MB of data. That’s hardly anything, especially when you’re browsing from an iPhone. So while going prepaid with the iPhone 3G sounds like a good idea in theory, AT&T’s current plans don’t make it seem so hot anymore.

Not only that, but AT&T also raised the Go Phone text messaging rate to 20 cents. So that $756 you had for voice minutes won’t stretch as far. You’re probably better off getting a texting bundle, which makes the plan just a bit less economical.

So can an iPhone Go Phone?

Yes, it can. It would have made sense back when the device was released, but now without the unlimited MEdiaNet package, it’s tough to justify it.

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Can the iPhone Go Phone?

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Can the iPhone Go Phone?

We’re back today with our second handset review. A few weeks ago, we reviewed the Samsung Slash. Sticking with Virgin Mobile, today we’ll take a look at the Arc by UTStarcom. The phone launched in July, and has since come out in various colors. One poster on Howard Forums noted that a gold version is available at Target. I got the red one.

The expectations caveat once again: This phone will not blow your mind. It is not meant to. I think I put it best in a post on HoFo, which is gleefully quoted in user Love Souljah’s signature:

Why doesn’t Dan Brown write sleazy romance novels? Why doesn’t Wal-Mart sell thousand-dollar car stereo systems?

They’re appealing to an audience. Same with VM.

So, now that we realize that the Arc is not the G1, let’s hit the review.

Form factor

Flip phones aren’t exactly my bag, though prior to about a year ago I owned them almost exclusively. They seem to be popular enough. Many of even the newer cell phone models are of the flip variety, including the RAZR, which is still the best selling handset in America.

There’s nothing wrong with the Arc’s form factor. It’s a slim clamshell which flips open rather easily. This means that it fits easily in your pocket, and isn’t a pain to open up — though I’m not sure I know a flip phone that is. All in all, the form is pretty benign. That can be a good thing if you’re not looking for something overly fancy.

Keys

Straight up, I am not a fan of the Arc’s keyboard layout. In particular, the dedicated Web button is the most troubling. It’s where you would typically find the End button, which on this phone is stowed below it, and is not as prominent in position or size. That one definitely threw me off. Why not put the Send and End buttons where they usually are, and put the speakerphone and Web buttons below them?

Not to harp on the issue, though I clearly am, I ended up hitting the End button a few times while trying to use the letters D, E, and F, as the End key is right above the number 3. Maybe I’m just out of practice, since I use a BlackBerry nowadays. Still, not everyone is proficient with their key accuracy. Thankfully, hitting End just brings up a Save Message dialog, so you can get back into it without losing what you’ve typed.

Other than that, it’s a pretty straightforward keyboard.

Display

The LCD screen isn’t much to look at, but it gets the job done. Once again, we’re going with expectations here. I’m not expecting a high-res screen, but I can say I’m expecting a little more than this.

The top image in the graphics section of VirginXL is (or was, at the time of testing) “Amanda in Hot Thong.” Dude. Sold. So I went to that, and guess what? Amanda isn’t so hot. Well, she very well could be. Problem is, I can’t really tell. Assigning her as wallpaper helped a little, but then her face is covered by Virgin Mobile. Eh. Not like I could see it anyway.

Call quality

I had the same deal as I did the Slash with the Arc. Call quality was crisp and clear. Once again, this is in New York City, so we can expect at least a moderate level of coverage. Since it was pretty clear, though, I can imagine that there aren’t many internal issues with the Arc which hinder its call quality. This almost makes up for the disappointing display.

Mobile Web

Again, the mobile Web is similar to that of the Slash. The separate Web and VirginXL screens is a bit of a pain, but not enough to make me rail on it for a paragraph. Browsing speeds are about what you’d expect from a non-EVDO phone. Some pages loaded quickly, while others took a while to connect. C’est la vie.

The downloads from VirginXL are rather quick, though. No complaints on that end. Amanda went from website to phone in about two seconds. Honestly, I didn’t even really notice. That’s a good thing.

Other than that, it’s your basic 2002 mobile Web experience. Remember: expectations.

Extras

That’s a picture of a portion of my bookshelf, taking with the Arc. Not bad, right? I mean, it’s far from great. This is a VGA camera, though, so I’m not expecting to get the same out of this as I do my Powershot. For simple MMS, this does just fine.

Speaking of MMS, I tried to send an MMS to the phone, and it wouldn’t accept. I wonder why. Does anyone else have this problem with the Arc?

I enjoyed the voice dialing feature, and normally I don’t like them. It picked up my voice pretty well. The last time I actually used a feature like this was with a Samsung I got in 02 or 03. The Arc picks out my voice much better.

Feel

As I said in the form factor section, this phone feels fine while I’m holding it. It’s weight, just 0.2 pounds, makes it even better. Honestly, though, holding it kind of makes me want to chuck it at someone. I don’t know why. It just feels natural as a projectile. Thankfully, I was able to avoid such a temptation on the subway.

The flip is smooth, and it fits in my pocket with easy. Certainly better than my clunky BlackBerry. Can I get a trade in? (Just kidding.)

Final thoughts

I’m not as high on the Arc as I was the Slash. Then again, with my predisposition towards sliders over flips, and with the general objective superiority of the Slash, this was to be expected. That isn’t to say the Arc is bad. It’s to say that there are perhaps better models out there.

Factoring in price, though, it’s a decent bargain. The Arc has all of the basic functionalities, including Bluetooth, and has a decent camera set up and voice dialing application. If it was priced closer to say, $30, I’d be all-in. As it stands, I’m lukewarm on the Arc.

Price: $49.99

Carrier: Read the Virgin Mobile review

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Review of the Virgin Mobile Arc (by UTStarcom)

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Review of the Virgin Mobile Arc (by UTStarcom)

“I did not pwn the iPhone. I did not unlock the iPhone. It. Just. Worked.”

Erica notes that you can take advantage of AT&T prepaid deals which can bring down the cost of the refill cards. For instance, you can nab certain refurbished Nokia phones with $100 of airtime for $80. You can then apply the $100 to your prepaid data plan, which costs $20 per month.

It’s good to know that this really does work. The only issue, of course, is getting an iPhone 3G without a contract.

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iPhone 3G works with Go Phone out of box

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iPhone 3G works with Go Phone out of box

Of course, this report could just mean that it will hit the UK prepaid markets, which are far larger than the U.S. counterpart. All Headline News cites O2 as the carrier who would have it in the UK. Then again, they do cite the price as $296. Yes, they themselves used the dollar sign, which is strange, because you’d figure if it was just for the UK, they’d cite it in GBP.

Clearly, this is something we’re going to follow. If GoPhone picked up an iPhone Nano, I can absolutely see it being a hot holiday gift for teenagers. Combined with AT&T’s $20 prepaid data plan, it could certainly turn out to be a hip, affordable option.

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Apple readying iPhone Nano…for prepaid?

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Apple readying iPhone Nano…for prepaid?

Follow the logic here, and feel free to chime in where it is flawed.

You go into the Apple store, and buy your iPhone 3G for $199, and sign up for a tw-year deal. You take it home, play with it for 30 days, and then cancel your service. You can’t cancel it before that, lest you’re forced to return the iPhone 3G. And we don’t want that.

So now you’ve paid $369, and you’ve got an iPhone without a contract. And that’s still cheaper than the original iPhone was selling for.

While it’s not guaranteed to work, you could then theoretically activate it on GoPhone’s data only plan for $20 per month. Of course, AT&T would know about your tricks and would likely stop you in your tracks.

But hey, it’s worth a shot, right?

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Do you really want an iPhone on prepaid?

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Do you really want an iPhone on prepaid?

Think about it, though. Say you’re an exec with MetroPCS. You’ve got a new handset to announce, or you’ve got a new feature, like MetroFlash. Do you want to go announcing that on the day that the iPhone launches? Do you want to launch it in the week leading up to said launch, or even in the week after? Probably not. No need to let your news get lost amid the geek frenzy.

If something happens this morning, you’ll see it later. Otherwise, we’ll probably just gripe about how you can’t get this new iPhone on a prepaid plan. Even if you fail a credit check.

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You don’t mess with the iPhone

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You don’t mess with the iPhone

Many of you would be wondering how this could have happened, knowing the extremely tight security around the iPhone firmware updates. We don’t know, but apparently the leak has occurred because “someone wanted to help the unlock effort.” The source of the leak is completely anonymous, even to the people who have had access to the upgrade.

The update does bring along some nifty features, like the ability to drag icons to your liking. Of course, it comes with the side-effect of effing up your unlocked iPhone.

Many think that this is a hoax, but Natetrue, creator of the iBrickr application, swears it true. He says the leak installed and worked perfectly, and even made a demo video showing the drag and move feature. “If it is a hoax, they did a buttload of work,” says Nate.

So now it’s the hackers racing the clock. It’d be nice to get a fix out before the actual firmware update, but like past firmware updates, it might be a while before unlocked iPhones are back to full functionality.

[Gizmodo]

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Firmware affects unlocked iPhones…again

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Firmware affects unlocked iPhones…again