In the UK, O2 will sell you an unlocked iPhone for the cost of your remaining contract with them:

£35 @ 18 months = £630

Plus the original cost of the phone, £399 ...

The question that hasn't been answered as yet - does Apple still provide warranty coverage when the phone is unlocked ?

So as far as I was concerned it was cheaper, and was actually easier to unlock a US phone than to deal with these 'legal' but possibly un-warrantied European iPhones.

Because of course as far as we know now, they all come with that great Apple non-warranty service for only a few extra dollars.

Actually, more like £269, but you get the point.

> Plus the original cost of the phone, £399 ...

Hi Farhad,

I was prompted to write in response to your comment:

But Europe has something America lacks -- consumer protection laws. Last month a court in France forced Orange to promise to sell an unlocked version of the phone there when it hits store shelves later this month.

What I read is: what you think, ie a more socialist view, is more important than either the buyers or the sellers rights. I don't really agree with the premise that bureaucrats, or yourself, make better decisions than the market. I agree that some parts of cell phone contracts are a bit too much, but each company does that at its own peril.

If Apple/ATT makes a crappy deal, then you have choice to buy elsewhere. Just like in real life, you can't really force someone to do something they don't want to do. Allowing every company to set their own rules, with-in the law, is what makes the economy work. We do have consumer protections, just not some of the ones you want.

I think if you were to propose that we should change the regulations, that would be fine. Personally, I'm not really convinced that they do it any better in Europe. I don't buy that rhetoric, but there are some changes I would support.

Best Regards,

-jon

but here in Finland my bills for my Treo (with the cheapest GPRS/EDGE unlimited data plan) are in the vicinity of the price difference quoted ($ 843 = ~ € 572 /24 months => ~ € 23.80), usually less (not a heavy talker).

The irony is that Finland, homeland of Nokia, used to forbid sale of locked phones totally. Now it is allowed, and people are amazingly tardy about switching over from GSM to 3G. Whereas back in the day the switch from NMT to GSM was amazingly fast.