iPhone 3G cost vs. its competitors

I was gearing up to do this exact same analysis today, but Gizmodo came along and saved me some work. Specifically: We've established that the iPhone 3G is going to be more expensive than the original iPhone over the course of its life, but how does it compare to other smart phones on the market?

Jason Chen ran the numbers against the HTC Tilt, the HTC Mogul, and the XV6800, all hot smart phones geared toward consumers. The results are all pretty close. Just $220 over two years separates the most expensive phone (XV6800) from the least expensive (HTC Mogul), not including the now-discontinued original iPhone.

Gizmodo notes that the new pricing does indeed bring the iPhone 3G exactly in line with other AT&T 3G phones. Now that data and voice plans are the same price for all these phones, the only differences you'll find are in the cost of the hardware and the cost of SMS messages. Sprint is the only carrier that includes them with the data plan. For everyone else you have to pay extra.

But Gizmodo didn't run the numbers against two other big smart phones, specifically the BlackBerry and the Treo. I pulled the same figures for two representative devices out of curiosity, to see how they stack up. 

RIM BlackBerry 8820 (AT&T) (no 3G)
Hardware: $300
Cheapest voice plan: $40
Data plan: $30
SMS plan: $5 for 200 messages
Price over two years: $2,100

Palm Treo 755p (Verizon) (3G)
Hardware: $250
Cheapest voice plan (only sold combined with data plan): $80
SMS plan: $5 for 250 messages
Price over two years: $2,290

Versus these guys, the iPhone 3G still comes out ahead: Over $300 cheaper than the crazy-priced Treo 755p and it's too-expensive combo voice/data plan.

Bottom line: Yes, the iPhone 3G is significantly more expensive than the original iPhone once you factor in the extra cost of text messages, but compared to other smart phones it's actually a pretty good deal.