I ditched my plan and dealing with upgrades and insurance years ago. Since I don't care if I have the newest F35 with GPS guided missiles and built in light sabre it's no problem. I now have one of those monthly plans. $30.00 a month unlimited everything. I have an Android something it's probably one or two models back from the newest. I need or want a new phone I go buy it. I generally get whatever is the newest gadget on the shelf. Typical cost $100.00.

Done. Thanks again.

If you're only paying $100, you aren't getting the same phone as the rest of us, but if you don't care, and are happy with the phone that you've got, then that's fantastic.

And keep you on the treadmill of "must have the new shiny thing". There is no catch other than they get to sell another phone.

I'm not judging, if you need/want a new phone go for it. My $200 android got wonky and they just tossed me a new one under warranty, while I was in the store waiting for the switch I went over and drooled over the new Samsung's... the new LG's look pretty cool too.

IN the old days, Verizon gave you a new phone every 2 years to renew your contract. Then it was $99. Now it's full price and they suck in people by letting them make payments. (that's the Catch for many).

That's why I still have a Iphone 5 and tend to use things till they quit. I'm cheap also.

There are better plans out there, but Verizon has the best coverage in my rural area....

I just upgraded from a 4S to an 8.

My 4S was almost a brick. Very slow and couldn't do a lot on the web with JavaScript turned on.

The 8 is slightly bigger and FAST!

Should have done it years ago.

The $20-30/month was baked into the contracts. In the war on ever lower prices, T-mobile for one, and possibly some of the others have removed that $20-30/mo from their contract and you pay it, but you know exactly what you're paying for. If you don't want an iPhone 8 or X or Samsung Note8 for $25 or $30/mo, then you find one of the other much cheaper phones and maybe add $10/mo to your bill or just outright pay for the phone. If you manage to get a smart phone to last 4 or 5 years, then you get 2 or 3 years of bills without the extra phone upgrade surcharge.

For many years even through my first 3 smart phones (Google G1, G2 and HTC something) I managed to make my phones last 3-4 years. So I guess I was paying the phone surcharge, but not taking advantage of it by upgrading.

I kind of like the new system.

Wow, yeah, holding out with the 4S was a bit crazy. I've got a 6Plus (that's the first gen 6, but the giant sized phone). I don't plan to upgrade this year unless the phone explodes. I finished paying it off early last summer. It's still ticking along without any problems. It hasn't gotten slow, the battery still lasts me a day and I'm not missing any must have new whizbang feature. When any of that changes, I'll reconsider.

I got to play with an 8 and 8S today. It turns out my phone isn't that slow. For the most advanced, "superest" chip Apple ever put in a phone, I was not impressed with the 8's. Certainly not $700 impressed. Or even $200 impressed. If I got one for $100, I'd be OK with that.

I will try Steve's recommendations on cleaning up my phone and wait for something that's truly fast.

I don't understand how an 8 could be slow. My 6S seems to do everything pretty much instantly. Obviously, loading pages in Safari and checking mail is dependent on internet connection speed.

What are you doing that seems slow?

It’s not so much that it’s slow as it’s not that much quicker to open apps than my 6

Opening an app that hasn’t been open on my phone is pretty slow. Once opened and closed, it opens instantly. Same on the 8. I wasnt impressed with how quickly the 8 opened an app the first time. Faster than my 6 but not by much

60???????? Woah!
We pay 10 Euro for that here, t-mobile, no "contract".
40 Euro per month for the whole family.

Now you know where the catch is ...

Sorry, back to topic.