Orange recently announced that they were going to sell the iPad at a lower price but attached to a data plan. Shortly after that, Three announced that they were going to launch a similar deal.
As it happens, Orange have just announced their prices, but I’ll focus on the cheapest option for now.
£200 (well, £199) will get you a 16GB 3G iPad, but it comes with a two year £27 per month data plan if you are a new Orange customer or £25 if you are already with Orange. This comes with a disappointing 1GB 3G usage allowance per month and “unlimited” BT Openzone wifi. I use “unlimited” in inverted commas because it is actually nothing of the sort – there is a 3GB fair usage policy involved.
- A 16GB 3G iPad costs £529 but to get it on contract will cost you £848 by the end of the term. This means that the data is going to cost you around £13 per month. £13 for 1GB sounds quite steep to me.
- A 64GB 3G iPad that normally retails for £699 can be had for £350 or a total of £998 (£648 + £350) over two years. This makes the data for the 64GB version marginally better value at £12, but still with a disappointingly low usage allowance.
- If you work nights or suffer from insomnia, they do also provide 1GB of “quiet time” data which covers you from midnight until 4am…
If you buy your 16GB iPad elsewhere at full price and get a data plan from Orange, £15 per month will provide you with a 3GB allowance and at the end of the two years you’ll have paid out £889 – £41 more than getting it through Orange, but you’ll have enjoyed a lot more data.
Fortunately Three have come to the rescue. See here for details.
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