I have been thinking about upgrading my iPhone 4S for almost a year now. The battery is dying and the phone randomly shuts itself down if it gets below 30% charge or the ambient temperature falls below 10C, and I have been afraid to update the last two or three iOS upgrades because the phone is so wonky, so all my apps are out of date, too.
Upgrades are scary though. Change is scary. I don’t need the newest, shiniest iPhone, but I do need one that’s reliable. I came close to jumping up to the 5S this summer when I heard that the 6S was coming out this autumn. I like to stay in the middle of the pack with technology and scoop up the deals on slightly out of date tech rather than get the latest and greatest devices but I have to tell you that when I started reading about the new camera on the iPhone 6S, I was tempted.
Both Rogers (with whom I have my current wireless plan) and Telus (with whom I have a plan for Beloved’s and Tristan’s phones) were offering nearly identical plans and prices: approximately $400 out of pocket for an iPhone 6S, with a commitment to a $70/mos plan for two years. Since I’m paying nearly that anyway for my 4S data plan, I thought maybe I could save a few bucks if I could lump my new iPhone in with Beloved and Tristan’s data-sharing plan and ditch the Rogers plan entirely.
The people at Telus were AWESOME. The first person I spoke to looked at my account and said based on usage, Beloved and Tristan were paying too much, so she dropped them down to a plan with fewer calling minutes that they never use anyway and saved me $20 a month. Then she found me a plan that was almost $20 less than what I was paying with Rogers, so the new iPhone basically paid for itself in a year.
Yay!
And then, I got transferred to the sales department, and completely unprovoked, the agent said that since I’ve been a Telus customer for more than five years, they would drop the price of the iPhone itself by $100. I was so pleased and excited about the deal that I tweeted about it, and in return Telus tweeted this back to me.
@DaniGirl We hope you love your new iPhone Danielle! pic.twitter.com/u3SJTkttXj
— TELUS (@TELUS) September 29, 2015
Then they direct messaged me and said for my praise and positive attitude they were happy to DOUBLE the data on my plan from 1GB to 2GB.
Is that not awesome? So in the end, I ended up paying only $300 out of pocket for the device, and will save almost $40 per month on cellphone bills with four times the data that I had with Rogers.
The new iPhone arrived Friday night and it took about 15 minutes for me to fall in love with everything about it. Unexpectedly, I love the fingerprint recognition TouchID feature – no need for a numeric swipe lock screen, as the home button recognizes my thumb print. It gave me the opportunity to clean house, so I have a lot fewer apps, and some of my photos were mysteriously ported over from my 4S. Speaking of porting, it took one easy phone call and about 15 minutes to have my old Rogers telephone number ported over to the new Telus phone.
And the camera. Sigh. Love, love, LOVE the 12 megapixel camera on the 6S. Here’s the first photo I took, of a rainbow ring around the sun Saturday morning.
I’ve been so incredibly impressed with Telus this week. I only wish I could get more utilities through them – I’d switch everything over in a heartbeat. And no, this is not a paid post. I have just been so badly exasperated with Bell and Rogers over the years that this experience has been worth praising at every stage of the process. I genuinely felt that the Telus staff were trying to ensure I had the very best possible deal for me. Kudos for excellent and praise-worthy customer service, Telus.