AT&T vs Verizon iPhone Prices
Now that the iPhone 4 is offered on both AT&T and Verizon platforms, you might be wondering:
- Should I switch from AT&T to Verizon?
- I have an older AT&T iPhone, should I just upgrade?
- Is Verizon or AT&T more expensive over the life of the contract?
To answer these questions, I’ve gathered the following data:
Major cost differences between providers
| Provider | AT&T | Verizon |
| Trade In 3GS | $181.76 | $120 |
| Data Monthly (200M) | $15 | N/A |
| Data Monthly (2G) | $25 | $29.99 |
| Voice Monthly (450m) | $39.99 | $39.99 |
| Contract Length | 2Y | 2Y |
| Phone Cost | $299 | $299 |
| Termination Fee | $325, -$10 for each month in service | $350, -$10 for each month in service |
| Activation Fee | $36 | $35 |
| Upgrade (2Y) | $0 | $0 |
| Upgrade (21M) | $18 | $20 |
New Subscriber Costs
If you are not an existing AT&T or Verizon customer, or you are signing up with either network for the first time, or upgrading after closing a two year contract, your costs are similar and easy to calculate. You buy the phone, and you pay the activation fee, which differs by a dollar. However, with a more expensive voice plan, the future liability of the Verizon plan is slightly higher:
Over two years, you pay $114 more if you open a Verizon contract.
Should I upgrade or switch?
Assume that the CDMA Verizon iPhone just doesn’t do it for you–you are going to stick with AT&T. When is the best time to upgrade? What if you’re stuck in a contract already? This chart will show the cost of switching from AT&T to Verizon compared with the cost of upgrading:
It’s very simple. If you’re an existing subscriber, you can save up to $80 by switching to Verizon between your 13th and 21st months of service. However, once you become eligible for an AT&T upgrade, it becomes $100 cheaper to stick with AT&T.
This post has been updated to correct an error in plan pricing: Verizon offers a $39.99 no-text plan with 450 minutes to perfectly match AT&T’s offering.
Free Credit Report
There’s a new website Credit.com that I saw linked from BoingBoing. You give them your address and social security number, and they give you back some general indicators of how good your credit is. Very easy to use, and the results, I believe are quite accurate.
For example, I was dinged for not having an auto loan or a mortgage–OK, so having less debt is bad? The explanation they give you is interesting:
You don’t appear to have a healthy mix of accounts on your credit report.
You could be doing better in this category if you had a more diverse list of accounts. And, if you have finance company accounts on your credit report that could be hurting you as well. Finance companies are generally considered to be higher risk lenders who target higher risk customers. As such, consumers who have finance company accounts on their credit reports could suffer lower scores.
If you ever have a mortgage that shows up on your credit report then you will do better in this category. The reason is that studies show that consumers who have mortgages are more stable than consumers who do not. And, credit scores will reward you because of that stability.
They had some interesting statistics too, such as how long you’ve been “in the system” in terms of credit age:
7 years of credit history
Youngest account is 7 months
Oldest account is 85 months
Average age is 44 months
Neat stuff. Again, as it’s totally free, I really recommend checking out Credit.com. Leave some comments on this post and let me know what you think. Many credit reporting online companies are scams looking to steal your information and resell it–this one doesn’t seem to be.
Windows 7 Preorder Coupon Sale!
I just preordered Microsoft Windows 7 Home on Amazon, because right now it’s over 50% off. For just $49.99 (58% savings) you will get it delivered to your door on the official release date of October 22, 2009 (if you’re a PRIME member, which I am).
As fas as I can tell, the only difference between Home Premium and Professional is that you don’t get their virtualization for XP software support (which is probably like VMWare Fusion on the Mac), no automatic backup features, and it’s missing some enterprise Active Directory thing called “Domain Join” that I doubt I’d ever use. So I’m not paying any $ for that.
One advantage I’ll get out of this is the ability to (a) run DX10 for the latest games, and (b) 64bit support, so finally I can run all 4 GB of RAM properly without PAE and any other proprietary crap. Right now my 4GB only shows up as about 3.4 anyway. Also, SSD support is much better in Windows 7, from what I’ve read. So my Intel X25-M will continue to serve me well!
Update: If you missed this, but you are a student or know a student, you can get a super cheap deal ($10 cheaper!) by visiting the Windows 7 Student Discount Page. It’s $30 for Windows 7 Pro, and another $13 to get a physical DVD.