Sorry guys but nothing here comes close to the rbm deal.
I think we all need some consensus on what a smart phone package needs to be before we look at a device. Having a sweet phone means nothing if cannot use it.
Personally I want at least 100 minutes, some SMS and a decent chunk of data say 500 megs. A decent device is also important. I don't want a piece of garbage.
For me the rbm does it. Even if I sell the rbm phone and buy a better one it still comes in well priced.
The RBM deal is very good. The only thing that bothers me is that I would prefer to be on a topup contract. It just adds an extra layer of safety for the consumer. If one of your Android apps starts acting up and downloading gigabytes of data at out-of-bundle rates, the worst that can happen on topup is that you lose your airtime for the month and have to buy more. You'll never get a "surprise" R3,000 bill at the end of the month. I mean, this probably wouldn't happen to me because I'm a bit more careful about these things than the average consumer: I monitor my data usage, and I would never do something stupid like travel internationally with roaming and background data enabled. But even so, I just like the safety net of having your spending capped at an absolute limit.
Unfortunately, if you want to be on topup this restricts your options somewhat. In the post above, I said that I was considering 8ta for my next contract. In terms of pricing, 8ta is very good. Their data bundles are among the cheapest in the country, and the prices they charge for their phones are very low. (Samsung Galaxy S is R499 on 8ta Saver 4, compared to R1,849 on Vodacom Topup 275 and R3,369 on Cell C ControlChat 200). However, 8ta makes their "saver" (ie. topup) contracts unusable in practice because they don't allow you buy data bundles
at all. I checked at the 8ta shop and they were very clear about this - the only way to access the internet on an 8ta Saver contract is to pay out-of-bundle rates. This is beyond useless. What's the point of having good prices on data bundles if they don't allow their customers to buy them?
You can also scratch MTN off the list, because they suck: their prices for phones and data bundles are the most expensive of any network in the country, and like 8ta, they don't allow you to buy data bundles with your topup airtime.
So that just leaves a choice between Vodacom and Cell C. To do a fair comparison between them, I tried to calculate what would be the total cost of ownership on a 2-year topup contract, buying a decent data bundle, and taking the Samsung Galaxy S as your phone. These are the results I got:
Cell C:
Contract: ControlChat 200
Phone: Samsung Galaxy S
Initial pay-in: R3,369
Monthly fee: R200
Data bundle: 500mb
Airtime left over after purchasing data bundle: R85
Total cost of subscription over two years: R4,800
Total cost of ownership over two years: R 8,169
Vodacom:
Contract: TopUp 275
Phone: Samsung Galaxy S
Initial pay-in: R1,849
Monthly fee: R275
Data bundle: 500mb
Airtime left over after purchasing data bundle: R90
Total cost of subscription over two years: R6,600
Total cost of ownership over two years: R 8,449
A couple of points stand out here. First, it's amazing how similar they are. For all the talk that Cell C is cheaper than Vodacom, once you add the cost of the device into the equation, Cell C is only R300 cheaper than VC over a 2-year contract. The main difference is that on Cell C the costs are more front-loaded, where as on Vodacom they are more spread out over time.
Second, maybe I really should consider my preference for TopUp contracts. Compared to either of these plans, the RBM deal (which includes a free phone, and will give you a lot more voice minutes and SMSes than either of these plans) seems like a bargain at R6,000 spread out over two years with no initial pay-in.
The only problems with RBM, as far as I can tell, are:
1. A poor selection of phones to start out with
2. I'm assuming your phone comes with a bunch of "Red Bull" bloatware that can't be removed without rooting and voiding your warranty. Is this true?
