Best Buy has begun selling the two-year old 8 GB iPhone 3GS (Best Buy link) for free today. The deal is only valid with a new two-year contract from AT&T and you must purchase one of these in-store - orders cannot be placed online. Previously, the iPhone 3GS was available at a very low cost of $49 (again with a two-year contract).
Just to refresh your memory - the iPhone 3GS sports a 480 x 320 resolution display, a 3-megapixel rear-facing camera, built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support, and voice control capabilities.
Are you going to think about picking one of these up?
Here's another wrinkle in all this. I love the headline here "Best Buy selling 8 GB iPhone 3GS for free"
How can you *sell* something that's "free"? :-)
itsalltech, appreciate your friendly give and take here! We all know that the phone itself will be "free", as in listed as $0 on an invoice, but you've missed my major point. (P. T. Barnum would get it, however!)
People who get suckered in by $0 or $49 headline or advertisement are being penny wise, pound foolish. Indeed, it's worse than that. By getting saddled for 2 years with *old* technology at an outrageous amount of money ($1400-1700), they are shooting themselves in the foot. If they can afford that amount of amount they could spend another $100 or $200 and have good, new tech.
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Incidentally, the editing in your comment area works poorly (similarly bad as that of the Washington Post and some other sites). You cannot click the white space next to a line to move the cursor there (the way most word processors and other comment boards work). You have to precisely click the end of the line, just so, right next to the character where you want to type. And even then, it typically doesn't work! (For example, I tried adding another sentence after "foot." above and it wouldn't take it. I had to click inside the foot and retype or use the arrow keys to get past the period!) Trying to add text to the end of a remark, you often end up in the penultimate line. It's frustrating! Maybe you can change it. :-)
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Likerobinson007 Can you provide a screenshot or short video clip of this occurring? It may be a browser issues as I jus typed out two full paragraphs of text in our comment box and clicked the white space to the right of the third line I typed (well away from the characters themselves) and the cursor was brought up to the last character of the word on the third line without issue. Let us know.. Thanks!
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Likerobinson007
We have different views on the topic - let's leave it at that.
As far as the title, yes - it was an editing mistake and I've already fixed it. Thanks for that!
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As far as the issue you noted with our commenting system - I've forwarded the issue over to Livefyre and am awaiting a response from them. I could not reproduce it on my end - could you please let me know what web browser you're using, OS, and screen resolution?
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LikeWhy does the world persist in describing cell phones as "free" when they come with a $1400-1700 contract price tag?!! :-)
Anyone who gets suckered by "free", or "$49" is being silly. Given how much 2 years costs, you're much better off buying a really good phone up front. Why settled for old tech, when for a hundred or two, you can get the latest?!!
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Likerobinson007 Well, the cell phone, the actual device, is free. That's why the world continues to use the term "free." Nobody is advertising a free contract, they are advertising a free cell phone, the actual device.
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Likeitsalltech It's not free if you have to buy something.
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Likefantasydisaster I honestly don't think you understand what I'm trying to get across here. The phone is completely free. Best Buy is not mentioning ANYTHING about a contract, nor are we. We're talking about the phone itself - strictly the phone. The phone is free, there's no secret about that.
The contract and other things you may buy will obviously cost money, but the phone itself is what is free. A phone is not a contract - it's a device. There is a difference between the two.
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Likeitsalltech The Best Buy ad clearly says the phone is free* (* with 2 year contract). That's like saying that a car is free with a $20,000 warranty contract. To get the car, even just to sit in your driveway, you must pay $20,000. To get the iphone, even just to sit lifeless in your pocket, you must pay for 2 years of service. Itsalltech, I don't think your "free" argument holds up.
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Likelittlepiggie Actually, it does. Because, once again, the phone is the free thing. But, if you feel that way (for some strange reason), by all means feel that way. We're not stopping you, we're just reporting what Best Buy has announced.
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Likelittlepiggieitsalltech The phone (iPhone) and cell phone service provider (VZ or ATT) are completely independent of one another. The phone is free with your COMMITMENT to ATT or VZ via a contract. Without a commitment to the contract the phone is not free. To use your car example... The car is free, in the same sense, as long as you commit your signature to a bank (for the loan). You arent paying the dealer for the car, technically the bank owns the car until you make you're very last final payment and receive the title to the car. Thus, the phone is free, you are paying the contract you signed to get the phone free. Once the contract is up you can do what you want with the phone, just like once the car is paid off you can do what you want with it. But if you dont pay the car off the bank will come for you and if you stop paying your cell phone bill the provider will shut off the service. Furthermore, with another example. When you purchase a home, you are the mortgagee, the mortgagor is the bank giving you the mortgage. Thus while you pay the mortgage every month you can rebuild, repaint, jump around your house all you want. IF you stop paying the monthly mortgage (similarly to stop payment on your service) the bank will come for your home, the same way VZ or ATT will shut off your cell phone service making your iPhone basically useless (in regards to the intended use of a cell phone) or making you not have a home. The only major difference is that with a cell phone if you dont fulfil the contract there is a ETF which makes up for the cost of giving you a free device and having you NOT last the agreed contract period.
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