Is it really more cost-effective to rent an iPhone for less than 3,000 yuan a year than to buy one?

Is it really more cost-effective to rent an iPhone for less than 3,000 yuan a year than to buy one?
The latest iPhone 7 series has improved camera performance and waterproof features. The powerful hardware and the better iOS experience are naturally more attractive. However, for consumers with limited funds, it is not easy to pay the official price of more than 5,000 yuan in one go. If you want to buy a version with a larger capacity, the price is even more unacceptable. However, more and more mobile phone rental companies have begun to appear. By paying a small amount of rent every month, you can enjoy a latest model of iPhone for a long time. Compared with buying a new iPhone directly, it is still quite interesting. However, these mobile phone rental companies are all independent institutions, and you must pay a deposit of almost the same amount as the phone to rent an iPhone. If the deposit is not returned after the expiration or the rental company runs away directly, these potential risks have indeed led to a lack of trust in users. Recently, Alipay has also begun to cooperate with these mobile phone rental companies to carry out rental business, and it is also directly linked to the Sesame Credit points under Ant Financial. If the points meet the standard, the deposit can be waived, and it is more reassuring to be affiliated with Alipay. Alipay has recently launched a mobile phone rental service in cooperation with "Quxianxiang". It is currently only in trial operation. In fact, under the more service options of Sesame Credit, you can see that Alipay has also cooperated with two other rental companies, which means that Alipay has cooperated with as many as three mobile phone rental companies. However, since the amount of the deposit paid by the "Quxianxiang" platform is not clearly written, we will skip this platform and choose to analyze another platform with a similar monthly rent. We see that this platform also requires a certain amount of Sesame Credit points to rent a phone without a deposit. Here, you only need a Sesame Credit of more than 600 to meet the conditions, which is not very demanding. For example, for a 32G iPhone 7, you have to pay a monthly rent of 239 yuan per month, and the rental period can only be 10 months or 12 months. The full rental fee for one year is 2,990 yuan. However, it should be noted that in addition to the monthly rent, there is also a mandatory purchase of accidental protection service, and the premium will increase accordingly according to the capacity version and the rental period. If you rent the 32G version for one year, you need to purchase an accidental insurance service fee of 192 yuan, which means that you need to pay at least 3,182 yuan to rent it for a full year. This calculation seems to be more cost-effective than the 5,388 yuan sold on the official website. You can use it for a year with peace of mind at only 3/5 of the price, and meet your own needs with the least money. However, 5,388 yuan is only the price of the Apple official store, but some domestic e-commerce platforms have already reduced the price of the full network version of the iPhone 7 to a more acceptable price . The price of the 32G version is 4,699 yuan. This price is actually not much different from the 3,182 yuan rental fee required by the rental platform for one year, and most importantly, the rented phone still has to be returned, while the one you buy yourself is truly your own private property. In addition, the value retention of the iPhone is still quite stable. As long as you are careful in daily use and take protective measures, basically after one year of use, you can sell it second-hand at half or even higher prices. If the phone is well kept, the cost of using the 32G version of iPhone 7 for one year is only about 2,349 yuan, which seems to be more economical than the 3,182 yuan of the rental company. Even if we put aside the cost comparison, the phone rental platform may not rent you a brand new phone. Although these new platforms that have only emerged recently are more likely to get brand new phones, it is hard to say after a while. Generally, these rental platforms will also have special recycling and cleaning before renting, but it is hard to say to what extent they can be cleaned, and you don’t know what the previous owner of the phone did with it, and users with mental cleanliness may not accept it. The most important thing is the deposit issue. Although Sesame Credit can be used without a deposit after exceeding a certain score, this setting is more for promotion needs. Use the social influence of Sesame Credit to attract a group of high-quality users for yourself. If a platform has enough high-quality users, it will naturally attract other users with low credit scores to pay a deposit and use the iPhone rental service. Imagine that if we can get the deposits of many users in the future, the deposit for each mobile phone will need several thousand yuan. In this way, the amount of deposits actually held on the rental platform will be quite impressive. At present, the laws and regulations of Internet finance are not very perfect. If there is no third-party credibility platform responsible for supervision, users actually have no way of knowing where the deposits in their hands are misappropriated. When users request the return of the deposit after the expiration, there may be a delay in the return. Alipay is only a partner of Sesame Credit in this regard and does not actually bear the responsibility of third-party financial guarantee. If the rental company really runs away, it will be difficult for consumers to protect their rights. Of course, this does not mean that this new type of rental service has no meaning at all. If your Sesame Credit points are sufficient, your mobile phone happens to be broken and you have not found a suitable mobile phone for yourself, and you need to borrow a mobile phone in a short period of time, then this is when the rental mobile phone service really comes into play. However, these rental services can only be rented for 6-10 months or more. This regulation is largely because the rental platform wants to reduce the number of rentals and inventory rates to keep the value of the machine. After all, if you rent a new mobile phone for two months, what you get back is a second-hand mobile phone, which is not easy to continue to rent out. In addition, short-term rental services also mean that the labor costs required will be higher, so merchants will naturally not give priority to opening short-term rental services. If you are really short of money and cannot pay the cost of buying a mobile phone in one go, you can still consider choosing credit card installments or installment payment services provided by e-commerce platforms. Although these installment services require a certain amount of interest, at least after paying off the installments, the mobile phone will truly belong to you. In any case, renting is always worse than buying. Although this rental method can exchange the latest products at a lower price and satisfy your own usage needs and vanity, in fact, after paying so much, the mobile phone is not yours in the end. It is actually not worth it if you calculate carefully.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.

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