AT&T Is Offering A Huge $200 Discount On iPads
If you plan on purchasing an iPhone 5s or 5c in the near future, you can score $200 off a new iPad - which nearly halves the price for certain models.
There are a few restrictions, however. You'll need to purchase the more expensive cellular iPad model, which is $100 more expensive than the WiFi-only tablet, and you must add the iPad to your data plan with AT&T.
Also, instead of buying your new iPhone on a regular two-year contract, you'll have to purchase it through AT&T's Next Plan for the discount to be valid.
The deal is particularly worth it if you've been eyeballing the iPad mini with Retina display. AT&T has cut its price on top of the new promotion, so you can grab the cellular model for $200 instead of $430.
The Next Plan allows you to pay off your phone in monthly increments over the course of 12 or 18 months. For the 12-month plan, you would pay anywhere between $32.50 and $42.50 per month for the iPhone 5s depending on which model you buy. For the iPhone 5c, prices range between $27.50 and $32.50 per month.
According to this deal, users will have to pay AT&T $329 for a 16GB iPad Air (that's including the $200 discount) and $390 over the course of a year for the iPhone 5s, since the 16GB edition would cost $32.50 over the course of 12 months. That amounts to $719 total for the cost of both devices.
The total for the cost of both devices on a two-year contract comes out to $729. This doesn't look like a big difference, but when you add up the monthly expenses over the course of an entire year, it does end up saving you quite a bit of cash.
According to AT&T's data plan calculator, if you're using the MobileShare Value Plan, you'll end up paying a $25 access charge for the phone on a Next plan, $32.50 as part of paying off the cost of the iPhone 5s, a $10 access charge for adding the tablet to your plan, and $80 if you want 5GB of data to split between the phone and the tablet.
Factoring all of those costs together could run you $147.50 per month, which adds up to $1,770 over the course of a year. Then throw in the $329 you paid for the iPad Air, and you're paying $2,099 for the tablet, the phone, and all of its data costs over a year.
On a two-year contract, you'd end up paying a $40 access fee for the phone, a $10 access fee for adding the tablet, and $80 for 5GB of data to split between the iPhone and the iPad. This amounts to $1,560 for a year, or $3,120 for two years. Then add $200 for the cost of the iPhone 5s on a two year contract and $529 for the iPad Air, and you're paying $2,289 over the course of one year.
In the end, the Next plan with AT&T's discount saves you $190 compared to a two-year contract without the deal.
You need to head over to a company-owned retail store to take advantage of the deal - which means you can't redeem it online or in one of AT&T's authorized resellers.
The promotion comes just as Apple is rumored to unveil its next iPhone. The company is expected to take the wraps off its iPhone 6 on Sept. 9, which means the phone could debut in stores by the end of the month.
Apple has also been introducing its new iPad models in October for the past two years. It's possible that AT&T is trying to clean out its iPhone 5s/iPhone 5c and iPad inventory to make room for what's next, but we'll have to wait until Apple says the word to be sure.
There are a lot of catches to the deal, but if you need a new iPhone now and don't necessarily care about getting the newest model when it launches, it may be worth it.