Apple reduces IPhone price to $1778 (plus tax)

June 10, 9:22 AMGadgets ExaminerDan Appleman

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More portable computer than phone - but at a price

There was great excitement this week at Macworld with the announcement that the current iPhone 8GB phone will have its price reduced to $99. That the new phones will be priced at $199 and $299 for the new 16GB and 32GB models was almost as exciting.

Yet in a very real sense, all of those announcements were irrelevent. The upfront cost of a phone might be the most noticeable aspect of a phone, but it is actually a small part of the real cost of a phone. With a voice and required data plan, the real cost of that $99 phone is over $1778 over the course of a two year contract.

Unfortunately, that’s what you have to pay for a high end smartphone. The new Palm Pre requires similar plans. So do the Blackberrys. You can save a bit going with T-Mobile and the Android based G1 – a low end voice and data plan with phone will run you only $1469+tax, a $300 savings off the lowest IPhone plan.

With today’s tough economy, the question really isn’t which phone to get – it’s whether you really want to commit almost $1000/year for cel phone service.