
Lose phone
And what happens if you lose the phone or something else that's not covered by the insurance? Seems like an unwise investment given how miserly most insurance companies are.
O2 reckons it’s the first UK operator to lease smartphones to small businesses, providing annual upgrades and free insurance, but no phone at the end of the day. O2 Lease can be used to get iPhone 4Ses, or whatever tech-candy the executive staff are demanding, on a lease deal, from £55 a month with the usual bundle of call …
A one or even two year old iPhone still has a lot of resale value. It would be much cheaper overall to buy on a contract, insure it, and sell the phone at the end than to do this deal.
Any business that would let valuable, easily sold assets depreciate in a cupboard like that deserves to fail.
I've just looked on the O2 website. You can get 900 minutes, unlimited texts & 500mb data for £42 per month + £50 cash. Insurance is £5 per month I believe.
Over 2 years, your rental just cost you 55*24 = £1320
Over 2 years, the 900 minute option cost £47*24 + 50 = 1178.
Resale value of an iPhone 4s in 2 years will be about £250 I reckon. £1178-£250 = £928.
So why exactly would any sane company throw away £400?
I would also note that O2 regularly do deals where you could knock an extra £50-£120 off the purchase price of a standard contract (fo4r instance, you don't have to pay the £50 excess if you buy before the end of dec). And that 900 minutes is more than 750.
Only a fool or a company who knew they were going out of business soon - or say, a traveller - would buy this. For a serious company? Not unless they are bloody stupid.