billturner

I want a new contract iPhone. I am British and live in Italy but travel extensively overseas due to my work, mostly outside Europe. Spoke to 2 shops today who both said I need an Italian credit card for an iPhone contract. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Rete

Welcome to BE, Bill

The Welcome Inn is for introducing yourself. I have asked for your post to be transferred to the Italy forum. I'm sure our members there will have an answer for you.

Please have a read of the site rules linked on the beige header above.

Again, welcome to BE.

Geordieborn

Did they suggest a Poste "Postpay" card would be acceptable (I doubt). Perhaps the purchase of an unlocked iPhone and separate contract woud be an option? Not too sure how things compare with the UK. Giffgaff offer an unlocked iPhone8 for £699 or £828 over 24 months!!! I would guess it would be dearer in Italy to buy the phone, but you never know - get a cheaper Samsung.

TrustPilot

In Italy it costs more to buy it, many Italians go to America to buy it. however you can use postpay as @Geordieborn says.

arjacey

From what I have seen, mobile phones are very expensive here and I would guess this would translate into the contract costs. For example, an iPhone 7 with 32Gb is £549 in the UK or €659 in Italy; iPhoneX 256Gb £1,149 or €1,359 (prices from the Apple store).

As was suggested, I did buy a cheaper Samsung Android phone but thought that it, and Android were dreadful. That's probably mostly to do with my familiarity with IOS but I would suggest an iPhone user going that route may suffer a little initially, if not in the longer term...

If you are travelling abroad as you suggest, I would buy one, unlocked, on your travels, and then get a SIM only deal here. Much more flexibility if you find that the provider isn't providing the coverage or service you need.

I am not sure how the roaming changes have changed things that might make having a non-Italian contract viable. I have a 3 contract in the UK in addition to my Italian TIM phone (administration dire but very good coverage where we are) but, last time I was back in the UK, they were unable to give me clarity on what was now included (I travel between the UK and Italy, occasionally Spain) and what would be charged extra iof I were to use service in Italy. (My Feel at Home service has long since expired).

Anyone any ideas?

HTH

Serrano

I can't answer about roaming charges etc, except a vague memory that EU regulations had reduced these drastically, Others may know more detail.

However I feel I should take issue with your above comment about phone pricing. Using the prices you've given above to derive an 'exchange rate' between UK prices (£) and Italian prices (€) we get 1,20 for the iPhone 7 and 1,18 for the iphoneX. Given the prevailing real exchange rate (about 1,13) that seems not what I would call 'very expensive'- especially not if you consider the 22%IVA as opposed to 20%VAT.

Geordieborn

Not too sure if it is 3 or TIM rates you are after, but either should now have same rates whether you are in the UK or Italy/Spain. However with 3 you need to be careful you are not outside the UK for too long as they will lock your SIM! The EU regulation mentioned by Serrano was implemented by 3 long before any other UK company, but all of them seem to have some restriction.
I assumed the costs were actual costs without exchange conversion? Anyway a quick look and the iphone7 (32gb) can be bought at IPER for €599 or £499 in the UK at Giffgaff (unlocked). The Samsung S7 with the same 32gb is £399. All seem expensive to me! As for Android, it’s a proper OS not unlike IOS, both are copies of UNIX to my mind. I’ve support its use by the OH for 3-4 years now and never had a problem with it apart from the fact it’s locked down by default, which I think is a crime. Of course you can root it, but they don’t like it.

arjacey

As the man in the pet shop said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I have a cold”.

Serrano is absolutely right of course, I should have got the calculator out before posting. A little bit more expensive maybe but probably not enough to worry about. Apologies.

I still think buying the phone and a SIM only contract is the way to go for reasons of cost and flexibility. It’s pretty widely reported that the service providers make quite a bit on the handsets. You can also go for one of the cheaper prices quoted.

It’s quite difficult to compare packages across providers so you’ll need to do a bit of research. My experience is that the providers will try and oversell.

franklee2

Better get Samsung

arjacey

...but avoid the ones that catch fire