Conventional wisdom holds that if you want an iPhone, you have no choice but to get it from a big carrier, lock into a two-year contract, and pay a minimum of $70 per month for service–usually closer to $80 by the time you get hit with all those taxes and fees.
Not today. In honor of Cyber Monday, Virgin Mobile has the iPhone 5 (16GB) for $359.99 shipped, with no activation charge and, more important, no contract. Conventional wisdom holds that if you want an iPhone, you have no choice but to get it from a big carrier, lock into a two-year contract, and pay a minimum of $70 per month for service–usually closer to $80 by the time you get hit with all those taxes and fees.
Not today. In honor of Cyber Monday, Virgin Mobile has the iPhone 5 (16GB) for $359.99 shipped, with no activation charge and, more important, no contract. It’s available in your choice of black or white.
And here’s a bonus tip for users of cashback service Ebates: That site is currently offering a $25 cashback payment with the purchase of any Virgin Mobile iPhone. Assuming you take advantage of it (and I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t), that brings your total down to $334.99–the best price I’ve ever seen for a new, no-contract iPhone 5.
Even more exciting (to me, anyway), Virgin Mobile’s monthly plans start at just $35, a price that includes 300 voice minutes and unlimited texting and 4G LTE data. If you need more voice minutes, the 1,200-minute plan costs $45 per month. And get this: Sign up for auto-pay (which I suspect most people would do anyway) and Virgin knocks off $5, meaning you can operate an iPhone 5 for as little as $30 per month.
If there’s one catch to all this, it’s the less-than-fabulous coverage afforded by Sprint’s network (which is what Virgin Mobile uses). Be sure to check the coverage map before placing your order.
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