On 8/10/2012 1:53 PM, Russell Coker wrote:
On Mon, 8 Oct 2012, Andrew McGlashan <andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au> wrote:
Yes, of course, but some plans do work out cheap IF the phone plan itself suits otherwise -- you can get a subsidized phone. If you over buy the phone plan, then yes, you are over buying the phone and the total minimum commitment is high.
No, some plans used to be cheap. But now the plan prices have increased while the phone prices haven't.
Everybody needs to do their own research when buying and take into account their own circumstances and understand the costs of ownership. I hate it when a phone plan costs $50 and includes "value" of $700, that is all false.
You can win out with a plan though. I've previously bought a $500 phone at $20 * 24 months payments with no extra charge.
I've previously done that too. But now it seems that no telcos offer such good deals.
I don't know of any specific deals today like that, and I'm not about to research them either; however, it's been done in the past and it _may_ be an option today. Otherwise, buy a phone outright if you can afford the amount up front. At the end of the day, it is up to the buyer to understand the pros and cons of buying whatever way they choose and weigh it up. The arguments over grey import vs AU stock is one area that should be considered and sure, there are differences of opinion as to the worth of buying either way here.... I am not saying one way is the best way for everyone, but I am saying that the buyer needs to be aware of the options and implications.
I usually buy outright now due to tax reasons. I am entitled to buy as part of salary packaging, a phone in my name. The company re-imburses me the cost of the phone in lieu of salary and claims the phone expense. I can then claim the phone expense in my personal income tax return; but I must buy the phone in my own name. Talk to your accountant to see if it will work out for you.
You can't claim something twice. If the company claims the phone then you can't claim it.
As I said, talk to your own accountant. Teachers do the same thing with salary packaging of laptops.
Generally when you want any warranty support you need to demonstrate that it's not something you did.
I still don't subscribe to that theory; if the phone is faulty, it is faulty. Just about the only way you can damage it [by something you did] with root access is perhaps frying a radio by increasing it's power beyond the "normal" level or over clocking the device. Aside from that, I would expect a manufacturer warranty to be 100% okay even with a rooted phone. Technically if you use ANY charger not supplied by the manufacturer, your warranty might be void, but again I see that as an unfair copout which the manufacturers should not be able to get away with.
The malfunctioning Galaxy S I posess randomly crashes, when it's not crashing it works well. The manufacturer would probably claim that the crashes are due to a bad CyanogenMod image - a bad image could cause exactly what the phone is doing now. However I had the phone working perfectly for over 6 months before it started crashing so I know that it's not CyanogenMod at fault, I can't prove that as there's no way of going back to a stock image.
One of the links I gave you previously will get you to the stock firmware and you will be able to reflash it and then present the product for warranty. However, none of the Galaxy S units ever had more than 12 months warranty -- that only started around the release of the S2 models for Samsung. When you got that Galaxy S, I am sure that the warranty period had already expired no matter where it was originally purchased from. Cheers A.