How to choose the right iPhone 4S for you

Buying an iPhone 4S is more complex than brain surgery! There’s a mind boggling 6 options to choose from if you count the black and white colour variants. Next you’ve got to make the dare devil decision as to how much memory you’ll need (or rather how much memory you can afford!).

A brain showing the decisions that need to be made when choosing a new phoneAfter all that it’s a question of whether you buy SIM free, pay as you go or on contract. Choose to get the iPhone 4S on contract and you’ll walk into yet another wall of confusion.”Help!” you say! If you’re thinking of getting your paws on Apple’s latest must-have, then the following guide should point you in the right direction.

It don’t matter if you’re black or white!

There’s no difference whatsoever between the white and the black iPhone 4S. The white option is slightly more prone to finger marks as the black is to dust gathering. Whether you choose virgin white or classic black is down to taste. For whatever reason, the white iPhone 4S does sell on eBay for a touch over what the black fetches – so if you’re concerned about re-sale value, white is right for you.

Don’t forget your memory!

The difference in price between the 16GB and 64GB versions is around £200, so you best think carefully about how much storage you’ll actually need. With the A5 chip from the iPad on board, the iPhone 4S is capable of delivering a gaming experience like never before, but as such we can expect the games themselves to grow in size considerably (the current version of FIFA 12 for the iPhone is already more than 1.5GB). Download more than 10 games of this size and you can kiss your 16GB goodbye (let alone any music, films, pictures, videos and email attachments you want to store on your device).

Own an iPhone already? Check to see how many MB’s you’ve munched and then add 15% on top – if this adds up to more than 16GB, splash out the extra and go for 32GB option. On the hole, the 64GB monster should be reserved for the rich or super-geeky – but if you’re not the one stumping up the cash, then why not?

SIM free, Pay As You Go, or Contract?

OK, so as you might expect, there’s no definitive right answer here. There’s plenty of reasons that you might choose any of these options – it’s just a case of figuring out which is best for you.

A SIM free iPhone 4S will suit those who don’t want to be ‘tied in’ to a particular network. Perhaps you move regularly between two locations where signal is only available on a certain network, or maybe you’re moving abroad imminently.

Choosing Pay As You go for regular use will always work out more expensive than contracts, but if you want total control over your bills it’s worth investigating further. Remember that if you buy the iPhone 4S on Pay As You Go, it’ll be locked to the network that you bought it with.

Although SIM free deals are marginally more expensive than Pay As You Go, if you’re planning on switching networks, unlocking your iPhone 4S might be more hassle than finding an extra tenner for the SIM free option.

If you make a lot of calls (by a lot I mean more than 300 minutes worth per month) an iPhone 4S contract will work out far cheaper than Pay As You Go, plus you won’t have the hassle of ‘topping up’ regularly.

Another advantage of choosing an iPhone 4S on contract is the inclusive data. Unless you’re going to be using your 4S for phone calls alone, it’s likely you’ll need to connect to the internet. Email, apps, social media and of course web browsing will all use ‘cellular data’. Most contracts will come with a monthly data allowance of between 250MB and 1GB (stay away from contracts that don’t!).

Finding the best iPhone 4S contract for you

Finding the most suitable contract is largely a case of matching what you’ll use with what’s on offer, then finding the best price. If you’e already on contract then finding out how many minutes, texts and how much data your using is simple. Just give your network a call and ask!

Most of the UK networks now have login areas of their websites where you can view your latest bills. Take a look at your usage from the past 3 months and note down how many minutes of calls you’ve made, how many texts you’ve sent and the number of MB’s you’ve downloaded.

Now you know roughly what you’ll use in a month, the quickest way to find the best iPhone 4S deals is to compare contracts using a specialist mobile phone contract comparison site. These sites make it really easy to pick and choose your options and see all the tariffs available without the need to visit every network’s website. Buying your iPhone 4S online also means you avoid commission thirsty ‘assistants’ you seem to find in every high street mobile phone shop.

When you make your contract comparison, you’ll notice that the shorter the tariff length, the more expensive the monthly cost tends to be. 12 month contracts are the most expensive and although networks must offer 1 year deals by law, they more than make up for it with excessive monthly charges. Most will find that a 24 month contract works out cheapest with 18 month tariffs falling somewhere in between.

So that’s about it! I hope you enjoyed my first post on Technology Bloggers, please comment below and I’ll do my best to answer questions.

23 thoughts on “How to choose the right iPhone 4S for you

  1. Some great tips, Many people are careless before buying any mobile including me 😉 they usually buy phone because of the buzz and don’t research about it. I think it’s really important to think about your requirements before purchasing your iphone and of course budget too. Currently iphone 4s is costly for me and will wait for sometime before getting one for myself.

  2. I was planning on getting the iPhone 4S so I appreciate this article. The biggest thing for me is the memory space. I think going for the 64GB will be well worth the extra money for me because I plan on downloading a lot of games and music onto my phone when I finally get it.

  3. I can say that I am too serious about chosing such things as a phone as this is the thing which will last for some time and it should be more or less presentable in general. I think everybody should be careful about it.

  4. We don’t really have a lot of plans for iPhone. As a result, choosing the plans is not really a headache part as the telecommunication provider has already done the sorting for us. As a result, we are more concerned on the color and memory size. I think for us, black or white matters as I find lots of girls like to go after the white one. But I myself is quite curious since iPhone4s offers up to 64GB with only 16GB as the minimum. Would 16GB end up not sufficient for a regular user in probably 2 years time?

  5. I am on Android and switched from Apple about 8 months ago. I have friends in the US and UK who are so desperate for the iPhone 4S that they are in the middle of their contract and just stepping up and paying full price for the phone with no cell provider subsidy! I guess when you want it, you really want it. In the UK they are paying close to $950 for a 64GB, and they currently own the regular iPhone 4. Personally I would wait for my contract to come to an end and let the cell phone carriers bear some of the cost, they make enough money anyway!

    • Christopher (admin team)

      Agreed, why waste the money? By the time the time your contract has expired, you will probably be able to get the iPhone 5 and make all your friends jealous!

      Thanks for your comment, welcome to the commenting community 🙂
      Christopher – Admin Team

  6. It is up to you to choose the right model for your use and it also depending on what your heart likes. It is quite difficult to have reliable information on how people chooses iPhone; the smart phone marketplace is wide open so you need to carefully review what is being offered to make sure you choose the right option for you.

    • Christopher (admin team)

      That is true Paul, but I think that Tom is just trying to give you some tips to help you 🙂

      Thanks for your comment, welcome to Technology Bloggers.
      Christopher – Admin Team

  7. seo services chicago

    iPhone becomes the first choice of many peoples and i am also in that list..and waiting eagrly to buy a new iPhone..but it will take some time to buy it…no probs..i am just waiting for that moment..

    • Christopher (admin team)

      Well whenever you do decide to get an iPhone, if it is a 4S, come back here, and I am sure that Adam’s tips will be of use to you 🙂

      Thanks for your comment, welcome to the community 🙂
      Christopher – Admin Team

    • Christopher (admin team)

      I think you were not alone in looking forward to the iPhone 5, the 4S isn’t such a bad announcement though, is it?

    • Christopher (admin team)

      Hopefully there are more articles on our blog which can help you out in future Robert 🙂

      Thanks for the comment, welcome to the blog!
      Christopher – Admin Team

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