Contract/Lease/Easy Pay/BYOD...Which do you choose?

[spotmeterf64]

Since the word on the street is Sprint is killing contracts, I thought it would be an interesting discussion to see how people on S4GRU buy their phones.

 

Personally, my 2 lines are on SERO Premium 500 (I am an ex-employee), so we do the contract route. Reselling the phones at the end of the contract often pays for our upgrade, so it's a good arrangement for us. I don't like Easy Pay since it would increase our monthly bills, and leasing would make a small impact on the bill while allowing us to upgrade sooner, but since we usually get free upgrades anyway by selling our iPhones, I don't see the benefit. Paying full price up front for an iPhone is insane in my opinion as well.

 

How do you buy your phone?

[travismheim]

Since the word on the street is Sprint is killing contracts, I thought it would be an interesting discussion to see how people on S4GRU buy their phones.

 

Personally, my 2 lines are on SERO Premium 500 (I am an ex-employee), so we do the contract route. Reselling the phones at the end of the contract often pays for our upgrade, so it's a good arrangement for us. I don't like Easy Pay since it would increase our monthly bills, and leasing would make a small impact on the bill while allowing us to upgrade sooner, but since we usually get free upgrades anyway by selling our iPhones, I don't see the benefit. Paying full price up front for an iPhone is insane in my opinion as well.

 

How do you buy your phone?

This poll's results are going to depend on your plan type. Anyone still on a subsidized plan will obviously choose a subsidy (or maybe a lease with the credit) over anything else. Since my family is no longer on a subsidized plan, we do easy pay/lease/byod depending on current circumstances and offers currently available.

[scubajwd]

My Note 4 is on Easy pay; my wife's phone is a 4 yr old Galaxy 3; I keep

phones a long time forgoing the urge to upgrade  to the latest & greatest

technology so therefore the leasing model is not for me; Sprint's leasing plans are

attractive but I'm an ownership type of person in all things..just my humble opinion

[spotmeterf64]

My Note 4 is on Easy pay; my wife's phone is a 4 yr old Galaxy 3; I keep

phones a long time forgoing the urge to upgrade  to the latest & greatest

technology so therefore the leasing model is not for me; Sprint's leasing plans are

attractive but I'm an ownership type of person in all things..just my humble opinion

 

Easy Pay does seem like a good deal for you, since you keep your phones past 2 years. For me, contract is the best since I tend to upgrade the day my contract is up for renewal. I do agree with owning the things I use, just a psychological thing the way I was raised I guess.

 

 

This poll's results are going to depend on your plan type. Anyone still on a subsidized plan will obviously choose a subsidy (or maybe a lease with the credit) over anything else. Since my family is no longer on a subsidized plan, we do easy pay/lease/byod depending on current circumstances and offers currently available.

 

 

The lease credits for subsidized plans can be tempting for sure, especially the iPhone Forever plans for iPhone fans. I still prefer contracts...I've broken a few phones and it would sting too much if I break a leased phone and have to buy it out.

[travismheim]

Easy Pay does seem like a good deal for you, since you keep your phones past 2 years. For me, contract is the best since I tend to upgrade the day my contract is up for renewal. I do agree with owning the things I use, just a psychological thing the way I was raised I guess.

 

 

 

 

The lease credits for subsidized plans can be tempting for sure, especially the iPhone Forever plans for iPhone fans. I still prefer contracts...I've broken a few phones and it would sting too much if I break a leased phone and have to buy it out.

Buying out your lease is almost no different than paying the upfront upgrade price. $200 now, or $200 later you still pay.

[spotmeterf64]

Buying out your lease is almost no different than paying the upfront upgrade price. $200 now, or $200 later you still pay.

 

Yes, but with a 2 year contract I can sell my $200 phone for more than $200 and get another $200 phone for free (and often make more than $200 to cover the upgrade fee, etc).

 

With a lease, I have to surrender that phone to Sprint and start a new lease. It's a negligible difference honestly, because with the loyalty credits the leases end up being maybe $5-10 more per month than our contract plans, but why pay more if you don't have to? That's how I've been looking at it thus far...maybe this thread will change my mind.

Edited December 15, 2015 by spotmeterf64

[travismheim]

Yes, but with a 2 year contract I can sell my $200 phone for more than $200 and get another $200 phone for free (and often make more than $200 to cover the upgrade fee, etc).

 

With a lease, I have to surrender that phone to Sprint and start a new lease. It's a negligible difference honestly, because with the loyalty credits the leases end up being maybe $5-10 more per month than our contract plans, but why pay more if you don't have to? That's how I've been looking at it thus far...maybe this thread will change my mind.

What's stopping you from buying the lease out, selling the phone and repeating? They really are just two sides of the same coin.

[spotmeterf64]

What's stopping you from buying the lease out, selling the phone and repeating? They really are just two sides of the same coin.

 

I suppose so, but all the while I've been paying $5-10 more per month for that leased phone (difference in lease price - loyalty credit), versus my contract phone...so it isn't really a good deal. Still, it's very close, but with more risk than a contract from my viewpoint.

 

Best advantage to leases is iPhone Forever. For an extra $5-10 per month, I can always have the latest iPhone. I am really thinking of going for that...but the upgrade fee every time takes the wind out of my sails every time I'm at checkout about to pull the trigger.

Edited December 15, 2015 by spotmeterf64

[ab30494]

I chose lease.

 

I don't mind handing my phone in, since my last 3 phones are still laying around anyway.

[red_dog007]

I do BYOP because I like Nexus devices. 

 

For my wife we did lease.  It makes sense.  It is the same thing as easy pay, just cheaper monthly payments really.  After 2 years I just keep paying until paid off, or trade in.

But, she keeps phones for a while.  She has an S6, and after two years that phone will not be worth $200.  Just look at the S5.  I can pick one up for $200 easy and it is only 1.5yrs old. 

 

Lease is best cause she does like to upgrade, and this way we don't have to pay full price for the phone or have to deal with selling it.

[Ascertion]

Subsidy for any legacy plans, no doubt.  Probably BYOD as my second option.

[anthony.spina97]

My family does BYOD because we buy sim-free iPhones now. My father doesn't want to be on contract anymore, and will be going 2+ years between upgrades, so he's perfectly content paying full price for our iPhones and only paying 45 per line for our Framily plan. It's the easiest way to do phone purchases for us.

 

-Anthony

[clbowens]

I do lease because I would want a new phone every 2 years anyway.  So why not pay a reduced price for it.  Plus, there's no money upfront.

[Scott]

I'm still on a ED450 plan so I voted 2-year contract. I typically upgrade at Best Buy and use gift cards I save up from birthday/holiday gifts and by the time I upgrade I usually have enough to cover most, if not all, of the upfront cost of the phone.

[clbowens]

I'm still on a ED450 plan so I voted 2-year contract. I typically upgrade at Best Buy and use gift cards I save up from birthday/holiday gifts and by the time I upgrade I usually have enough to cover most, if not all, of the upfront cost of the phone.

Hey, I'm also on the ED450 plan.  But I upgraded with last Friday's upgrade day to a GS6 with a lease.

[Scott]

Hey, I'm also on the ED450 plan.  But I upgraded with last Friday's upgrade day to a GS6 with a lease.

I've thought about switching to a lease, but I like keeping my phone after I upgrade as a backup in case something happens to my phone so subsidy is better for me.

[MacinJosh]

I've thought about switching to a lease, but I like keeping my phone after I upgrade as a backup in case something happens to my phone so subsidy is better for me.

You can always pay the payoff on the lease at the end and still keep your phone.

 

 

Sent from my Gold iPhone 6s Plus 128GB using Tapatalk

[Scott]

You can always pay the payoff on the lease at the end and still keep your phone.

Yeah, but I'd rather pay $200 upfront (or less, using gift cards as I mentioned above) when the phone's new rather than when it's 2 years old. If I leased, I likely wouldn't do that payoff to keep it because with the way Android phones lose their value, I could probably buy a replacement phone on the secondary market for less if something happened to the newer phone.

[anotherBAM]

I leased an iPhone for the first time last week, so I recently did the math on this. I like having a newer phone, traditionally every two years, however the upgrade option w/ iPhone forever could be appealing to me. I'll have to see what the numbers look like at the time I can upgrade early. I'm also not completely sold on leasing should anything go wrong, but on paper, it seems to make sense for me.

 

On my plan (SWAC), it works out close enough over a two year period that financially I don't think it really matters what option I pick. My plan cost is $40 per phone. I receive a $15 credit per device leased or on easy pay. We only have iPhone's, so my device cost upfront is always fairly significant if I go with the newest model and upgrade the storage. I have not taken taxes into consideration on this post and there is also a cost benefit not realized in these numbers if I elected to sell a device at the end of a 2 year or easy pay term. But I hate dealing with that and paying slightly more over two years would be worth not dealing with that hassle to me.

 

2 Year:

(40*24)+$300= $1260

 

Easy Pay:

(40*24)+(32-15)*24= $1368

 

Lease*:

(40*21)+(26-15)*21= $1071

Lease w/ buyout:

(40*21)+(26-15)*21+187= $1258

 

*My lease is 21 months. I've yet to figure out why they have a 21 or 22 month lease and forgot to ask the rep why they have two lease options 1 month apart.

 

Edit: I picked lease on the poll since that's what I did on my most recent upgrade.

[MacinJosh]

*My lease is 21 months. I've yet to figure out why they have a 21 or 22 month lease and forgot to ask the rep why they have two lease options 1 month apart.

The 21 month lease was no smartphone trade in, the 22 month lease is with the smartphone trade in and gives a $7/mo discount from trading in a smartphone worth at least $1.

 

 

Sent from my Gold iPhone 6s Plus 128GB using Tapatalk

[anotherBAM]

The 21 month lease was no smartphone trade in, the 22 month lease is with the smartphone trade in and gives a $7/mo discount from trading in a smartphone worth at least $1.

 

 

Sent from my Gold iPhone 6s Plus 128GB using Tapatalk

 

Ah, got it. I was not eligible to receive the $7/mo discount so it made sense for me to keep my existing phone and do something else with it. Although, $7/mo + $15/mo in discounts to lease a brand new device would've been a hell of deal!

[Jones]

We lease a GS6 but there is no discount on the line. Is that because we are part of a Framily plan? I called a while ago to ask about this and thats what I was told.

[spotmeterf64]

We lease a GS6 but there is no discount on the line. Is that because we are part of a Framily plan? I called a while ago to ask about this and thats what I was told.

 

Yes, newer plans that included the notion of leasing (Framily, Unlimited Family, Unlimited iPhone, etc) do not include a lease credit because the lease or easy pay is assumed when buying these plans. This is why the old Unlimited Everything plan was $100 (back in the Palm Pre/HTC Hero days), but today it's only $70 - the plan is no longer subsidizing the phone. If you lease or do easy pay, your bill is probably still close to $100 (maybe even a little over if you're getting a top-end device like a 128GB iPhone 6S Plus), but if you BYOD you're saving money with these new plans.

[spotmeterf64]

I am honestly surprised to see BYOD/Full price edging out to be #1 over contract. I expected to see lease ahead, simply because it's the most affordable way to get a phone these days and as time goes on, fewer and fewer people will be on legacy contract plans.

[mreed112]

Just got a new LG G4 at Best Buy for $1 with a 2 year contract.  While my Unlimited, My Way plan is probably a little higher, I still think that I came out ahead of Leasing or Easy Pay.  The same phone at the Sprint store was $199.