Quick Trivia – Why US iPhones are $199/299?

Quick trivia for you. Being the typical Malaysian, you must have already done some quick calculations. US$199/299 ONLY?!

Well hang on a minute. US$199 sounds like a sweet deal but it doesn’t factor in the carrier costs. One main reason why the iPhone 3G/3GS is locked in the first place is because it is meant to be bound to a (usually 2 year minimum) network carrier contract. If you add up all the costs of the contract, the iPhone itself as well as the transportation, processing and markup charges, you will end up with the average prices found in the market for an unofficially unlocked iPhone 3G/3GS/4. I’ll leave it to you to do the math.