On the other hand doesn't the stereotypical iphone owner in the USA currently write a check well over $100 per month? I'm not talking about "extreme measures" but the more typical grannie walks in off the street and walks out with a phone?

This seems to be a problem. Hmm buy the inferior product, or spend a mere 3 weeks service to buy the top of the line. Duh I'll buy the top of the line. If I wanted to save money I'd just get an android phone from Republic Wireless for $19 like VLM did on Hacker News (I'm a happy customer). Therefore since I'm already contemplating the 2nd most expensive option out there, and possibly the 2nd best option out there, may as well pay a tiny bit more for the best one.

If I want to blow $30 on an expensive bottle of wine, there's no way in hell I'm paying $31 for an inferior bottle sitting next to a superior $32 bottle. If I wanted to save money I wouldn't participate in that market anyway.

And that is the marketing plan I think they're using. I don't think they'll sell any of the cheaper ones.

I think kids on family plans are the target market for this. It's a $99 contract iPhone that comes in colors - I think it's more of a replacement to the iPod touch. When buying multiple devices for children the savings make more of a difference.

I concur. My niece who just started high school (and many of her friends) are very excited about the 5C. The funny thing was an erroneous statement I heard from my niece: "iPhone 5C is the cheap phone .. only $100. The iPhone 5S is the expensive one ... over $700". I had to explain contracts and why the 5S is only $200 with a contract, which is the comparable number to $100 for the 5C price. I wonder what clever kid came up with the erroneous statement to get his parents to buy her/him a 5C!

More of a difference, but still not much. I add $40/mo ($10 for the line, $30 for the data) to my parents' Verizon family plan.

iPhone 5S: $1,160 over two years iPhone 5C: $1,060 over two years

True, but have 2 or 3 kids and it's more expensive up front. I also don't think people really extrapolate out the price when buying phones (although I wish they did, might help with the telco monopoly)

I pay 62$ a month for my iPhone through AT&T and I am still on the original unlimited data plan so I think that can be dropped below 50$ a month.

How does that work? This is exactly what I was writing about WRT no extreme measures and "grandma walks into store and walks out with phone". No grandfathered plans, no work discounts, just joe6pack price.

I go to ATT.com, click on wireless and the cheapest contract voice is $40/month and the cheapest data is $20/month and I'm continually informed I'm the only living human being who doesn't text, so thats another $20/month plus taxes. So thats $80/month for the absolute minimum. 300 megs of data a month? Really? I don't think you could keep up with app updates alone much less actually "do" anything with only 300 megs/month. So you're more realistically $90 for 3 gigs or $110 for 5 gigs, before taxes of course.

I have a 384 mb data plan (USD 5/month here in Uruguay), and it mostly works for my use case (mail, browsing & maps).

I only download or update apps on my home Wifi connection though, and I use Opera browser which does a lot of caching.

BTW I'm still amazed at the incredibly expensive plans in the U.S. (there are lots of threads here with comparisons, and the U.S. is among the most expensive). I pay USD 20/month for my contract (voice + SMS, and we don't pay for incoming calls, caller pays) plus USD 5 per 384 megabytes.

Edit: link to one of the previous discussions

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4342617

> I don't think you could keep up with app updates alone much less actually "do" anything with only 300 megs/month.

You probably don't want to have automatic over the air app updates enabled. In fact, I'm not even sure if that's an option. Honestly, 300 MB/month would be sufficient for most months even for me, and I'm a fairly heavy user on LTE. I pay for the 2GB plan mostly to cover months where my usage peaks. I suspect that 8 months a year I use less than 300 MB/month, and I use iTunes Match, occasional video streaming, and occasional Facetime calls.

Grandma probably doesn't text and won't use much data. Some members on my family plan use < 100MB/mo.

More realistically, she already has a plan with a monthly payment. Which she is not even considering at this point. All she cares is how much it will cost her right now. $100 could make a difference.

The difference is still minuscule. £549 vs £469 is insignificant, especially when you can get a Nexus 4 for twice that difference (£159).

where can you snag a nexus 4 for 159 pounds?

On Google Play last week (the 8gb version), it has now sold out. The 16gb version is available for £199, which I bought two weeks ago and am thrilled with.

What you get for the price, best deal there is! Months ago, this phone was being offered for free on a 2 year contract. I paid $50 for mine 6 months ago.

Only thing I'm disappointed in is the camera, but that's why I have my Canon.

Google cut the price a couple of weeks back.

The 8GB N4 is £159. You can grab it from here https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Nexus_4_8_GB?i...