iPhone 5c, 5s launch on Virgin Mobile for $100 less than Apple pricing
As of Tuesday, prepaid carrier Virgin Mobile is now offering Apple's new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c off-contract for $100 less than Apple itself sells the devices.
Virgin Mobile's site lists the 16GB iPhone 5s for $550 off-contract, while the iPhone 5c sells for $450 off contract. The same two devices on Apple's own store sell for $650 and $550, respectively.
Interestingly, the iPhone 5, which arrived on Virgin in June of this year, still sells for $550 off-contract.
Virgin revealed last week that the new iPhones would be landing on its network on October 1, and the availability of the devices on the prepaid carrier may reflect which models are in higher demand from Apple.
The gold iPhone 5s color variant, which sold out quickly on the device's launch date, was listed as Out of Stock for interested Virgin customers when sales of the handset went live. This suggests the carrier was not supplied with the gold color option, or saw such high demand that all stocked units were immediately sold.
Higher-capacity models of both the iPhone 5s (32GB and 64GB) and 5c (32GB) are listed as "Web Only" products, while the yellow color variant of the polycarbonate-backed iPhone 5c is also listed as Out of Stock.
Virgin Mobile's site lists the 16GB iPhone 5s for $550 off-contract, while the iPhone 5c sells for $450 off contract. The same two devices on Apple's own store sell for $650 and $550, respectively.
Interestingly, the iPhone 5, which arrived on Virgin in June of this year, still sells for $550 off-contract.
Virgin revealed last week that the new iPhones would be landing on its network on October 1, and the availability of the devices on the prepaid carrier may reflect which models are in higher demand from Apple.
The gold iPhone 5s color variant, which sold out quickly on the device's launch date, was listed as Out of Stock for interested Virgin customers when sales of the handset went live. This suggests the carrier was not supplied with the gold color option, or saw such high demand that all stocked units were immediately sold.
Higher-capacity models of both the iPhone 5s (32GB and 64GB) and 5c (32GB) are listed as "Web Only" products, while the yellow color variant of the polycarbonate-backed iPhone 5c is also listed as Out of Stock.
Comments
It's too bad that it's Virgin and not T-Mobile that is offering the unlocked phone for cheaper.
Virgin, which is same network as Sprint I believe, is CDMA. And an unlocked CDMA iPhone is pretty worthless, especially if one intends to travel.
I wonder which network Virgin mobile uses, if its verizon, at&t, sprint or tmobile.
And I wonder if you read my post.
It's too bad that it's Virgin and not T-Mobile that is offering the unlocked phone for cheaper.
I guarantee the Virgin phone is locked. Prepaid phones are still subsidized, though at a lower rate. Looking on their website, do you think a Samsung Entro flip phone really costs $12 including free shipping and retail markup?
I guarantee the Virgin phone is locked. Prepaid phones are still subsidized, though at a lower rate. Looking on their website, do you think a Samsung Entro flip phone really costs $12 including free shipping and retail markup?
I don't know who you are of course, so I don't know how much your guarantees are worth, but the iPhone 5s no contract costs $549 on Sprint. That is not subsidized.
I don't know who you are of course, so I don't know how much your guarantees are worth, but the iPhone 5s no contract costs $549 on Sprint. That is not subsidized.
You are incorrect and confusing "subsidized" with "contract". The fact that something is under no contract doesn't mean it hasn't been subsidized. Sprint will only unlock a no-contract phone after 3 months, which lets them recover some of their handset subsidy.
There's no such thing as a unlocked CDMA phone.
NVM...........
There's no such thing as a unlocked CDMA phone.
I see. I suppose that maybe there's no point in having one, as I said in my first post, but I wasn't aware that there was no such a thing.
So why would somebody buy the $550 iPhone from Sprint then? Just to be on no contract, but your phone is still tied for life to Sprint? Sounds like a bum deal.
I see. I suppose that maybe there's no point in having one, as I said in my first post, but I wasn't aware that there was no such a thing.
So why would somebody buy the $550 iPhone from Sprint then? Just to be on no contract, but your phone is still tied for life to Sprint? Sound like a bum deal.
I thought you can now use the 5S and 5C on any network (CDMA, GSM, LTE, etc.). They are supposed to have basebased chips that works on any network?
You are incorrect and confusing "subsidized" with "contract". The fact that something is under no contract doesn't mean it hasn't been subsidized. Sprint will only unlock a no-contract phone after 3 months, which lets them recover some of their handset subsidy.
I do know the difference between subsidized and contract. The $99 iPhone 5s is obviously subsidized.
Why would somebody spend $550 on an iPhone from Sprint if it's subsidized? That doesn't make sense.
I thought you can now use the 5S and 5C on any network (CDMA, GSM, LTE, etc.). They are supposed to have basebased chips that works on any network?
I've been looking into the new iPhones, and it seems that they have different models which offer different LTE support.
For example, the iPhone that would be best for me, would be the T-mobile version unlocked, since it'll work in the US and in a lot of places in Europe too.
http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/
So why would somebody buy the $550 iPhone from Sprint then? Just to be on no contract, but your phone is still tied for life to Sprint? Sound like a bum deal.
Sprint will only activate Sprint phones on their network. Think about it it's not hard. Somebody had their old iPhone stolen and can't qualify for a new one, or somebody simply wants an early upgrade. But they want to stay with Sprint because they like their plans, service or their family or company is on it. Therefore, they buy a marginally subsidized non-contract Sprint phone.
Well the Verizon iPhone 5s is CDMA, LTE, and most importantly GSM as well. It's the GSM part that's unlocked and can be used on other GSM carriers worldwide, but you wouldn't, at least not easily, be able to use it on any other CDMA carrier.
There's gotta be some leftover stock.
Hence an unlocked CDMA version is "better" than just a plain GSM version as the CDMA version could potentially be used on all main carriers here in the US (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile).
The Sprint CDMA version also supports ALL LTE frequencies used by Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon.
An unlocked Sprint version of the 5s would be the version to have if any.