Apple iPhone price sours

The first bite of the Apple iPhone has left some Kiwis with a sour taste over the price tag Vodafone has put on the device.

Vodafone indicated on Monday that the handsets would cost $199 - but the hopes of many were dashed when it said yesterday that the monthly running cost at that price would be $250.

There are cheaper monthly options, but users will have to pay more for the handset, which goes on sale at 12.01am on Friday.

Vodafone detailed the pricing plans on its website at 10am yesterday, which partially crashed the site for 45 minutes because of overloading.

Spokeswoman Libby Hay said the company was expecting that much attention, but did not realise it would all happen at the same time. "... The buzz is obviously there."

But consumers are fuming at the price options, which have been called crippling and ridiculous.

"That is sooo disappointing," one of more than 130 comments on the Stuff website said. "After being advertised as `priced accessible for everyone', that is really sad, Vodafone."

Many who left comments said they would rather import a handset from the United States or Australia. "What a joke! It's worth moving to Australia for," one person wrote. Another said: "Only a i-Diot would pay that much."

The price of the handset, which has a phone, music player, Web browser and camera, varies between $199 and $979 on plans that cost up to $250 a month.

Ms Hay said the high plan price was to help "subsidise" the cost of the handset and was the flipside of having such a good phone and high data capacity.

IDC telecommunications market analyst Tim Shepheard said the phone was not overpriced and he believed it would be popular. The plan and cost of the handset were comparable to other plans in New Zealand.

PRICE OF STYLE

Options for 8GB iPhone in a 24-month contract:

* Handset cost $549 + $80 monthly plan with 600 text messages, 120 minutes call time and 250MB data (about 65 songs) = $2469 ($2619 for 16GB model)

* Handset cost $449 + $130 monthly plan with 600 texts, 250 minutes call time and 500MB data (about 130 songs) = $3569 ($3719 for 16GB model)

* Handset costs $199 + $250 monthly plan with 600 texts, 600 minutes call time and 1GB data (about 260 songs) = $6199 ($6349 for 16GB model)

OR: Buy the iPhone outright without a data plan to use only for voice and text messaging. The 8GB model will cost $979 and the 16GB model $1129, plus the monthly cost of a You Choose plan (between $18.95 and $59.95).