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Did You Pay Too Much For Your iPhone 5 Today?

This article is more than 10 years old.

There’s more than one way to buy an iPhone 5, and chances are if you bought one today you spent too much money on it.

Wednesday I wrote about iOS 6 being a better upgrade than buying Apple’s iPhone 5. Why spend the money on new hardware that only boasts a newer processor and a slightly bigger screen when the free iOS 6 download streamlines legacy iPhones?

The post led to some great discussion in its comment section.

Since then I’ve had more than a day to enjoy the upgrades to my iPhone, and I fully support anyone — especially broke twenty-somethings like myself — who appreciate the little improvements and don't get seduced into buying the iPhone 5.

I love that you can touch the share button on pictures and a screen pops up that gives you the option to share it on Twitter, Facebook, through a text message and (about time) in email.

Then, for all you popular people, there’s now a way to deal with multiple calls at once. As a journalist being able to send texts saying I’m busy when someone calls me in the middle of a phone interview is a blessing. I’m excited to start using Passbook and for some reason my favorite upgrade is the little amoeba-type thing that you pull down to update your mailbox.

Oddly enough, the last change I noticed in iOS 6 was that the phone had a different looking dial pad.

With this iOS 6 upgrade my iPhone feels polished, and I see no reason to waste a few hundred dollars on an iPhone 5 that has nothing mind-blowing to offer.

However, as readers pointed out, there is at least one situation where you can buy an iPhone 5 and it will be of equal price to the $0 iOS 6 upgrade.

What it comes down to is when you bought your last iPhone.

Most cell phone companies give the customer a free phone upgrade every 20 months. People who have an upgrade can buy an iPhone 5 for $200, but if you don’t have the upgrade, the retail price is a depressing $650.

So, say you bought the iPhone 4 within the first few months of its release and you haven’t gotten a new phone since. Chances are you’re available for an upgrade and can get the iPhone 5 at a discounted $200. My readers also informed me that a used iPhone 4 is selling for about $200 on eBay (coincidence?).

If the stars have aligned for you then go for it, get yourself a free iPhone 5.

But is that really your best option?

Instead, you could buy the 4S and get Siri, the nicer camera and also the iOS 6 updates that make it work almost exactly like an iPhone 5. You’ll also make $100 off the deal.

If you already have an iPhone 4S on the other hand, I can’t see any way buying the iPhone 5 would be a good idea from the cost-benefit standpoint I wrote about on Wednesday.

There’s a 99.9 percent chance that anyone with a 4S doesn’t have an upgrade with their cell carrier (unless you exploited some loophole in the system). Some readers with a 4S argued that they were able to sign a new two-year contract and pay $250 to upgrade early, while selling their old phone for $350 to $400 on eBay and buy the iPhone 5 for $450.

Now I’m not sure if this reader had to pay $450 for the phone on top of the $250 to upgrade early, but this still seems like a headache for a slightly faster phone with a modestly larger screen. You have to ask yourself: Is it worth it?

It comes down to this: If you have an iPhone 4 and qualify for an upgrade, then get yourself a nicer phone, you could go with the 4S and make money or come out even with the iPhone 5. But if you have a 4S already just take the free iOS 6 upgrade and put that $200 toward gas or rent or groceries.