Orange slashes iPhone 4 handset price

Orange may have struck the first blow in an iPnone 4 price war

Orange has lowered the iPhone 4 price for those buying the device on a contract, and has added more tariff options in a bid to provide more choice than rival operators.

A 16GB version is now available for free when customers sign up to a £50 per month, 24-month contract. Previously, users would have had to shell out £75 a month for 24-months if they wanted to get a handset without paying an upfront fee.

Orange has also added tariff options giving extra data allowances in place of call time for the same price. The operator already offered a £35 per month 18-month contract with 600 minutes, 500MB of data and 500 texts.

An alternative package also priced at £35 per month offers 750MB, access to Orange Maps and 50 photo messages per month. The catch is that customers have to sacrifice some call time, with 400 minutes included in the bundle.

Meanwhile, Orange continues to offer "unlimited Wi-Fi", but qualifies this with a fair use policy of 750MB per month on BT Openzone Wi-Fi.

Customers debating which price plan to opt for may want to check out Three, which appears to be offering the best value for money when it comes to the iPhone 4.

Looking at a mid-priced £35 per month, 24-month contract for a 32GB handset, Three charges £189 for the handset, £30 cheaper than Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone, and £20 less than O2.

Three bundles 900 any network minutes and 5,000 Three-to-Three minutes, while the four other major networks offer a total of 600 minutes each. When it comes to data allowance, the 1GB on offer from Three is matched only by Vodafone, with other operators offering 500MB as standard.

O2, Orange and Vodafone offer unlimited texts, while Three has a 5,000 message allowance and T-Mobile just 500.

Operators are likely to continue experimenting with handset and tariff prices in a bid to win customers, as controversy surrounding the iPhone 4 antennae issue appears to have subsided and the device remains popular.

Orange announced last week that it is likely to have white versions of the iPhone 4 before the year is out.