The iPhone 4S will be available to purchase in the UK on contract from October 14th. Whilst the iPhone 4S is beautifully slim, your wallet better be bulging at the seams if you want to get your hands on this credit crunching beast. At a whopping £259 plus £30 per month on a 2 year tariff you’d best ask your mate ‘Siri’ if you can borrow some of her robo-gold. If you’re one of those who did get crunched in the banker bonanza we call ‘the recession’ then you might want to steer clear of the iPhone 4S and opt for something a little less financially crippling. So what are the options?
HTC Sensation XE
A great alternative to the iPhone 4S is the HTC Sensation XE. The best HTC Sensation XE contract deals can be found for just £29 per month, including a free Sensation XE handset, 900 minutes, unlimited texts and 250MB of mobile internet data. The equivalent deal on the iPhone 4S will cost over £280 per year more. Is it worth it?
Well that entirely depends on what £280 means to you, but don’t think Sensation XE beats the iPhone 4S on contract prices alone. Besides offering Beats Audio technology (which in our review of the HTC Sensation XE we found to be far more than a gimmick), the XE sports a much larger screen (4.3 inches compared to the iPhone 4S’s meager 3.5 inch display) and even matches the 4S in the camera department at 8 Mega Pixels. Sounding appealing?
Samsung Galaxy S 2
The Samsung Galaxy S 2 wasn’t the most popular phone of 2011 for no reason and sales so far in 2012 haven’t slowed down!. Superb build quality combined with Android 2.3.4, a super-fast 1.2GHz dual core processor and a beautiful Super-AMOLED display makes the Galaxy S 2 a real contender as a fantastic alternative to the iPhone 4S. Like the Sensation XE, the Galaxy S 2 offers top spec features that can rival the 4S, but at a price that won’t break the bank. Samsung Galaxy S 2 contract deals start at just £28 per month with a free handset, 600 minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of mobile internet data (T-Mobile, 18 month contract). Compare this to the iPhone 4S and we think that you’ll soon give the Galaxy S 2 a second glance.
Apple iPhone 4
The best features to be found on the iPhone 4S are in the software, and guess what? The original iPhone 4 will be getting exactly the same software upgrade to iOS5 as the 4S! Other than an improved camera, un-noticable differences in call quality and a sure fire fix to signal issues encountered on the iPhone 4, the 4S offers very little in the way of hardware improvements compared to its predecessor. So what’s the difference in price? Well, for £33.33 per month (after automatic cashback), the iPhone 4 can be yours free on a 24 month contract with a whopping 1GB of data, 500 minutes and unlimited texts. An equivalent contract on the iPhone S will cost £35 per month plus you’ll need to stump up £49 for the handset.
Whilst ‘sense’ is a word that seems extinct among the most loyal of Apple fans, you’d be more than foolish not to check out some of the best iPhone 4S alternatives phones available. Remember you can compare contracts on all of these handsets here at PhoneShop.co.uk