iPhone available from Vodafone from January

Vodafone has announced that the iPhone will be available from 14 January 2010, adding to the other iPhone providers already in the market – O2, Orange and Tesco.

There are some perks and slightly different iPhone deals in terms of minutes and texts included by each of the iPhone providers but there’s not much to choose from between them. It’s somewhat disappointing that with more providers now in the market it hasn’t sparked some healthy price competition.

The Vodafone cheapest iPhone deal is £30 per month for a 24 month contract. With this deal, the iPhone costs £149 for the 16GB and £239 for the 32GB version.

This Vodafone tariff is slightly more than the cheapest on offer from O2 or Orange, but the upside is it comes with more minutes (300 compared with 150 with Orange or 75 with O2) and includes unlimited texts.

See the Vodafone website for more details – you can pre-order too if you want to.

Tesco offers the cheapest entry level tariff at £20 a month, but there’s the cost of the iPhone itself – £320 for the 16GB version or £407 for the 32GB.

To get a Free iPhone deal, the Vodafone cheapest monthly tariff for the 16GB model is £45 including 1200 minutes and unlimited texts.

Free iPhone deals from the other providers start at

• Orange – £44.04 including 1200 minutes and 500 texts
• O2 – £44.05 including 1200 minutes and 500 texts
• Tesco – £60 including unlimited minutes and unlimited texts.