14 DAY TRIAL // One of the great news for today is that T-Mobile will be offering Apple's new iPhone 3G for only 1 Euro. And no, we're not talking about T-Mobile USA, which will most probably never see any iPhone in its line-up of products, as Apple seems to be deeply in love with AT&T and chose only them to be iPhone carriers in the US. We're talking about T-Mobile Germany, of course.
The not-so-great aspect of the news (because every great piece of news has some tricky parts) is that, in order to get the 3G touchscreen handset for the price of a toasted bread, users have to sign a 2-year contract with T-Mobile, which will drain 89 Euros out of their pockets every month. That's $137 per month, hence no less than 2,136 Euros or $3,286 in two years - quite a lot of money for owning a new iPhone 3G. Sure, in this price T-Mobile also includes 1,000 free minutes, 300 free SMS and, apparently, unlimited data transfers, but it's still a deal that only few users will be able to afford.
T-Mobile also offers cheaper deals, meaning that customers can also get the iPhone 3G at 169 Euros, for example, also with a contract for two years, but a cheaper one: only 29 Euros per month. The German carrier did not announce yet if Apple's new handset was going to be available free of contract too, as in Italy, via Vodafone, where the 8GB version of iPhone 3G will be priced at 499 Euros and the 16GB one at 569 Euros.
Coming out on July 11 on no less than 23 global markets, iPhone 3G is obviously an improvement of the first-generation iPhone. The new handset brings 3G / HSDPA connectivity, GPS, access to App Store, Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and a fancier design - all added to what the previous iPhone already offers. Too bad about the same 2 Megapixel camera with no video recording, the MMS incapability and the other improvements that didn't make it into the new handset although they should have.