You’ve probably perused our iPhone 6s and 6s Plus Plan Megapost and come away from it feeling confused, and a little scared. Maybe a little bit of wee came out when you saw all those dollar signs and options, a lot of them with big numbers alongside them.
I do not blame you! A lot of this is intentionally confusing, to make straight-up comparisons across providers difficult. No provider wants to be objectively worse than another.
Let me make some assumptions here on your behalf; if you’re looking for an iPhone, you don’t want a 16GB model. That’s terrible, you’ll hate yourself. So, let’s go up a tier to an iPhone 6s 64GB.
You probably don’t want a iPhone 6s Plus because that phone is Too Damn Big. It might be cool for a while, but ultimately you don’t want a phone that feels like you’re stuffing a chopping board in your dacks every day.
I’ll also make an assumption that 0.5-1.5GB of data is not going to be enough. Again, let’s go up to the next tier.
I’m going to assume you can judge left-field benefits (like Apple Music, Spotify, phone upgrade plans, international roaming or whatever) for yourself.
Finally, I’m going to assume you don’t care about calls or text charges that much. Whatever plan you get, you’ll probably have enough.
Hurry up and tell me what to buy
Fine! So, with those parameters in mind, you have the following options.
iPhone 6s 64GB – Handset Plan
Upfront: $0
Optus: $88 per month ($60 plan, $28 handset), 3GB of data
Telstra: $102 per month ($70 plan, $32 handset), 2.5GB of data
Vodafone: $90 per month ($60 plan, $30 handset), 3GB of data
Commitment: 24 months
iPhone 6s 64GB – Prepaid
Upfront: $1,229.00
Optus: $45 a month, 3.5GB of data.
Telstra: $40 a month, 3GB of data.
Vodafone: $40 a month, 3GB of data.
Commitment: None. Leave when you want to.
iPhone 6s 64GB – SIM Only Plan
Upfront: $1,229.00
Optus: $45 a month, 4GB of data.
Telstra: $50 a month, 5GB of data.
Vodafone: $40 a month, 4GB of data.
Commitment: None. Leave when you want to.
Last year’s iPhone plans were rubbish compared to prepaid. This year, it looks like plans have taken a bit of a course correction and appear to be fairly reasonable in terms of value for money.
Aside from freedom, there’s not a ton gained from going prepaid this time around. You have to weigh up what is more important to you; those left-field offers, or the freedom to port to whoever you want at any time.
Hopefully that makes the vast amounts of options a little more bearable. Now go forth and spend.