Bleak January smartphone offerings

Wow, I just looked at the offerings around and it is pretty bleak compared to what was offered a month ago. It this a seasonal thing, or is it the new standard?

MB525
8ta Was R130 with decent airtime value (R3120) - it is not offered anymore, now only on contract 1 with R1740 pay in (R2160 +R1740=T/C R3900) or R230 (R5520 )
MTN had it for R89/month (R2136) with a R100 anytime thrown in, now it is no longer offered. I see the upgrade pay-in with Autopage ( I am with them ) is R1301 on anytime 100 (R2400 airtime T/C R3701).
Vodacom has this with everyday off peak:-( (R99 t/c R2376).

The Ideos S7 slim was also on offer on similar low end pricing R99 or so, now MTN no longer offers it, 8ta has a R1864 pay-in on contract 1 (R4024 t/c), it is not offered on Contract 2, you need to go to contract 3 (R5520). CellC still has a decent deal on their site R99 with 100MB/month on casual chat 100, and Vodacom has always taken the piss on this R229 On MyMeg 500 (t/c R5496). Autopage/MTN upgrade has R1557 pay in to the anytime 100 (t/c 3957).

What all this ill-formatted data shows is :
1) Vodacom does not compete too well
2) 8ta has increased discontinued some good devices on the Contract 130 - this offers good airtime but not so good on the handsets as previously
3) MTN (as per YelloTrader) has discontinued these devices (or stock levels are too low after great Xmas deals?)
4) It is smarter to discard Autopage and take a new contract with MTN come upgrade time.
5) I missed the sweet spot between a great phone, low price and good airtime value.

I had my eye on the MB525 as it was better than the IDEOS S7 Slim tablet with similar pricing and good resolution. Most other Android phones have lower resolution, 320x480 is already a step down on my ancient Nokia 5230's 360x640. Decent kit like Samsung Wave II is not Android.

Like my similar complaint. Only that it's about how us prepaid customers are screwed over while contact customers can pay less for the phone and get extra airtime. Somebody needs to look at what's going on in the cellular industry.

Forrest said:

Like my similar complaint. Only that it's about how us prepaid customers are screwed over while contact customers can pay less for the phone and get extra airtime. Somebody needs to look at what's going on in the cellular industry.

Click to expand...

I'll let you in on a little secret, a friend of mine works at an SP Head Office (wont mention which 1) on a Management level and I have also asked him the same thing "How does it actually work?".
A Big Tip is contract is your best bet.
Reason being SPs are looking for loyalty therefore you signing a contract atleast lets them know for the next 2 years your are loyal to their network (whether you use the SIM or not) YOU GETTING CHARGED FOR THE SERVICE.

In fact SPs get mobile phones at a close to nothing price per unit bought in bulk so where do they make their money? Off the service not off the value of the device being offered to you. See, now you buy a phone cash (primary) plus still need to top up your own airtime (secondary) whereas SPs offer you a airtime/data/sms/minutes package (primary) and just throw the phone in coz hell you need some kind of device (secondary) to use all this on.

So to them they make money by you being subscribed to their services so the actual mobile device is just to sweeten the deal. Its a corporate world and loyalty makes you money. Now if you on prepaid you a free lancer (risk) coz you can chop and change networks whenever you feel like it since you not binded to a certain SP so unfortunately Contracts will always be a better deal coz they trying to get prepaid customers to hand over their loyalty too BUT hey if you can afford to buy every new phone that comes out then thats good too.

I hope this kind of clears up a bit as to how it sort of works (dependant on the contract taken out too though).
Some contract clients feel ripped off too and prefer being on prepaid coz of wrong package choices too

That does not explain why most SP are charging so much more for handsets on top up contracts. You are still tied in and less risk

iPhone 4S in America = R5700

iPhone 4 in SA = R14000

Handset manufacturers subsidise their phones with the SPs. It's obvious that the SPs use this subsidy to increase their contract base instead of just reselling the phones.