How’d you like an unlocked iPhone 3G at S$878?
Local newspaper Apple Daily has reported yesterday (see the 27th Sep edition if you read traditional Chinese) that parallel imported iPhone 3Gs here in Hong Kong are now priced between HK$4,780 (SG$878) to HK$4,880, while the 16GB version is between HK$5,780 (SG$1061) to HK$6,080.
That’s HK$620 or about SG$114 less than what the HK Apple Store is selling the 8GB version for.
The cons of saving that bit of money are – no local warranty, and the article reports that most of the parallel imported iPhones, which are from the US, have a SIM slot that is slightly different and requires the addition of a copper piece to make local SIMs (HK and SG SIMs are the same) fit. I’d presume the US SIM slots are larger? Oh, and they’d probably have to be unlocked via ZiPhone or similar iPhone unlocking software, which should be a simple two and a half minute process if its similar to what I had to do with the 2.5G iPhone.
In any case, don’t hold your breath for these HK phone dealers to drop their prices any further. The article reports that they are still seeing brisk sales, and they are expecting loads of iPhone buyers from China over the upcoming “Golden Week” holiday.
Albert posted in a comment to this post that the iPhone 3G can be had for SG$800 in Beijing, so HK certainly isn’t the cheapest!
Well, sure beats the HK$8000-9000 that they were costing when they were first parallel imported here!
Heard Apple resellers in Singapore have also started selling unlocked iPhones, and they’re cheaper than the telcos are selling them without contract.
As always, everyone tries to make as much money as possible from consumers who wants to be leaders in getting the latest and greatest. iPhones are no the exception here, except that it is the only phone that is also getting “hyped” way too many times in Techgoondu š
Good news for those who had a bit of patience. Which shows that, soon this will come to SG and you won’t have to be tied to SingTel’s sky-high data plans.