UK iPhone Launch Date Confirmed

Apple and 02 have announced that the iPhone will be launched in the UK on November 9th on the 02 network and as usual, us Brits lose out when converting dollars to pounds. The iPhone will retail at £269 or $538 which is closer to the old price of the iPhone in the US rather than the reduced price of $399 or £199.

The phone will be sold through Apple, 02 and The Carphone Warehouse and will be available in an 8GB version. It will run on the Edge network rather than 3G. At the moment 02 is in the process of upgrading it's network to EDGE and expects to have 30% coverage by launch. This will meaning that there could be large areas of the country who would be getting slower speeds until the network has been completely upgraded.

There will be three different plans - £35, £45 and £55 and all will include unlimited data and access to the entire Cloud Wi-Fi network. The last feature is a killer and is worth £6.99 a month. The plans themselves are not the greatest with the £35pm plan offering a stingy 200 minutes and 200 texts. My £35p/m plan with 3 gives me 300 minutes and 1000 texts a month but I do have to pay £5 extra for unlimited data. The other plans (outlined here) seem to favour more minutes rather than texts.

My contract is up at the end of December but I'm not sure if I would switch to one. The phone looks great but I'm used to the speeds of 3G and would have to either pay more per month to get a decent texting plan or reduce the amount of texts that I send.

Any UK readers gonna get one?

Comments

[Chris]

Already got one, unlocked and on Orange.

Very slick phone - easy to use, sexy interface and does a fair bit.

Only downsides I've found are rubbish camera (compared to my k810) and lack of picture messaging (but due to rubbish camera, I'm less concerned!).

[Darren Straight]

Nope not getting one myself - keep on getting asked if I am though! :P

I'm just happy with my T-Mobile MDA Vario II at the momment as it provides everything I need...

[Chris]

Oh yes, EDGE ain;t too bad on Orange either. As 3G's bandwidth increases incrementally, you only notice the difference if you are trying to download large files or stream video/audio. For your standard web page, its hard to notice a difference between 3G and EDGE.

Shop around for your data plan - T-Mobile web/walk is quite economical, and Orange seemed keen to offer me 25Mb data, unlimited texts and some free minutes for less than the cheapest O2 plan...

[Alex]

If you dont already own an iphone here in south california, you are considered a douchebag.

[Jared]

at least you're not required to stick with it for 2 years... (as far as I can tell)

[podwell]

does Mr Gale use his 1000 texts per month i wonder?..

[Robert Gale]

Probably just a few hundred.