We all know by now that Apple announced the iPhone 3GS, an upgrade to 3G (the S stands for speed) which will be available this Friday (June 19th). Its faster and takes videos (reviews here and here). They also announced the upgrade options which produced a lot of uproar amongst people who purchased an iPhone 3G; they are now required to pay $400 (or $500 or the 32GB) to do an early upgrade. These people that still have a year left on their contract and they still are upset because at&t won’t allow them to upgrade for the full subsidized amount of $200. Now, I don’t blame at&t, and they’ve even announced a 3 month grace period to try to appease some clients, but hey, they don’t need to lower the price even further; the demand is there.

So, let me let you in on a little tip on how to get a new iPhone 3GS for $200 (or less) if you have a regular 3G.

SELL YOUR OLD ONE!

Put it on Craigslist or eBay or just offer it to co-workers and friends. There are plenty of people who’d rather pay $200 for a used iPhone sans-contract, rather than $99 (which comes out to about $145 out of pocket) with a 2-year contract.

I know I’d be doing that if I still had my iPhone 3G, which was stolen about 6 months ago. I’ll be upgrading one of my lines that is elegible in order to get a 3GS for $200 (came out to $257 after all fees and taxes). Thats the advantage of paying for your parents phone bill, I’ve got 3 lines and I can effectively upgrade every 8 months if I want to. It only costs me $10 per line a month to put them on my account and they don’t really mind older-gen phones. Got plenty of rollover minutes too (about 5000 at this point), so I don’t need to worry if my mom decides to call everyone in America.

[photo credit - Giz]