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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

Buy the unlocked 4S a few weeks from now in November. (Yes, Apple will be selling it officially!)

Use either the AT&T or T-Mobile prepaid plans. (You are pretty much guaranteed to save money over the cost of a two-year contract.)

Sell your 4S on Ebay after a year, and buy your new phone.

Voila. First-world problem solved. (This is what I'll be doing, anyways.)

Bonus: if AT&T or T-Mobile turn out to have bad reception in your apartment, you can effortlessly switch to the other carrier.

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As far as I know, the 4S still doesn't support T-Mobile freqs for > 2G..

This is true, but they make up for it with a $30/mo plan that includes 100 minutes of talk and unlimited text and data. There's a $50/mo plan that includes unlimited everything. Personally, that's a trade-off I'm happy to make.

I can't find either of these plans on their website. I went to buy a Micro SIM card, and the only unlimited everything plan is 105$ a month. There is no 100 minute plan or 30$ plan that I can find.

Both are right here. The $30 plan is available online or through Walmart. Pre-paid monthly, no contract required.

http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/monthly-4g-plans

Thanks, no idea why I didn't see this list before.

The $30 plan is only available at Walmart, even though it's still through T-Mobile. The $50/mo plan gives you unlimited everything, but requires going to a T-Mobile location to ask for it.

I'm confused. As I understand it, they are Monthly plans - you can get them online. I just did it two weeks ago:

http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans

Don't forget about the used market. There's a slew of people selling their iPhone 4 to upgrade to the 4S, and people are still buying the 3GS. If you really need to upgrade, but don't care if you're getting the latest and greatest, it looks like you can sell your 3GS for $200 and buy a 4 for $400 right now. If you're going to use it on Tmo's pre-paid, just make sure the new phone has an unlockable baseband.

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