How to Tell if You Are Getting a Good Deal on a New Phone

Most people get their smartphone on a contract with one of the many operators in Singapore. Some of them seem like good deals but once you run the numbers you realize that only a handful of offers are worth considering. If we were to look at the promotion phones from M1, most of them would seem appealing. What most users tend to do is to look for deals for a particular smartphone model and disregard the rest. This is how you can miss good deals.

Comparing Apples to Apples

To get a better understanding of the many differences between different offers and what you get, it is important to work with examples. Looking at what M1 has on offer, the iPhone 13 stands out. Everyone wants to get the latest smartphone from Apple thus it makes sense for the models to be amongst the promotion phones from M1. A good example would be to compare the newest iPhones that the mobile operator has listed amongst their devices that are available on a contract.

To make the comparison fair, we need to look at the iPhone 13 mini 128 GB and the iPhone 13 128 GB. Both phones are on offer with the S$78.95 plan. For that monthly plan, you get 45 GB of data, 300 minutes of talk time, and 300 SMS messages included. That should be more than sufficient for a regular mobile user. The iPhone 13 mini requires a downpayment of S$200. On the other hand, the iPhone 13 128GB has a downpayment of S$340. The retail price of the mini is S$1,1149 according to the Singapore version of the Apple website. The standard version is $1,299. You save S$10 on the mini. That may not sound like much but if we look at the Pro version and the total cost.

If you were to get the Pro version, the total cost would be S$2,972 which includes the downpayment and the monthly plan for a 24-month contract. The total cost of the standard version is S$2,234 which gain includes the downpayment and the cost of the plan over the same period. These two promotion phones from M1 have a difference in the total cost of S$738. This is how much you pay over 2 years to have the Pro. In retail prices, the standard version is S$1,299 versus the Pro which is S$1,819. The difference between the two retail prices is S$520. Just because you are getting the pro version, you are paying S$218 extra.

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The Bottom Line

As explained in the example above, just because a device is on offer does not make it a good deal. The takeaway is you need to look at more offers and always compare them to see which one is worth considering. Promotion phones from M1 can be appealing and there are some good deals you can take advantage of. What is important is to not limit your search to just one phone model. You may want the iPhone 13 Pro but you would save a reasonable amount of money by going for the standard version. You get the same phone but with one less camera and a marginally smaller screen. Everything else is the same.