I wanted, ideally, the black 16 gig version; I'm not sure I like the look of the white one.
Fortunately, I live very close to Grafton Street, where there are two O2 stores and one Carphone Warehouse, plus another Carphone Warehouse in weird old Stephen's Green at the top of the street. So, I started there.
They didn't have them at all.
The other stores all had them... but, only the pay-as-you-go version. Now, let me explain the economics of the pay-as-you-go version. The contract one is 229 euro for the 16 gig version, and 45 euro a month. The pay-as-you-go one is 569 euro, and, wait for it, 1 cent per kilobyte data, up to 99 cent, then no further charge until 50 megabytes, then half a cent per kilobyte. Let me draw you a graph of that:
Yeah, that's sane. Since the big reason I want to get one is the lovely integrated browser and Internet-using apps, if I got a pay-as-you-go one, I'd be paying 30 euro a month just for data, before even considering calls and texts. And with the silly initial purchase price. Thanks, O2, but no thanks.
(This... interesting pricing model has been adopted by Meteor, my current provider, as well. As my current phone only has the silly little ancient, incredibly slow, WAP browser, this is useless to me.)
Two of the shops which had the pay-as-you-go version were unwilling to comment on when they'd have the contract one; the other said, uncertainly, that they might have a couple next week.
It's a funny situation, really; wanting to buy an extremely expensive phone, but not being able to. Bah. Amazing that there's still such a shortage.
They did, however, have the absolutely outrageously expensive new Blackberry. 500 euro or so, with contract. Why on Earth would anyone want that?
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