AFAIK iPhone has not released in India yet even I'm waiting eagerly for its release btw what you can do is Buy a Unlocked IPhone online
LG prada ( http://www.pradaphonebylg.com/) is as good as if not better than iphone ! its just the arrogance of the dominance of ipod that apple is treating the buyer like sucker or shud i say iSucker
At ebay, iPhone is way way over-priced. I mean now the retail price is only about $430 in the US (in the locked condition). But in eBay, most offers start at $500 (unlocked) and the bid continues. Also another factor you should worry about is that some iPhones at eBay which are claimed to be unlocked are not completely unlocked. Here is a clause from the description of an iPhone auction titled "BRAND NEW APPLE IPHONE 8GB * UNLOCKED* NO CONTRACT" at eBay. "**UNLOCKED IN THIS CASE MEANS THE PHONE CAN BE SETUP TO USE WIFI, IPOD AND SOFTWARE FEATURES WITHOUT GETTING AN AT&T 2 YEAR CONTRACT!!!! TO USE THE IPHONE PHONE FEATURE YOU MUST HAVE AT&T!!!" That means all you are going to get is an advanced PDA. No phone functionality. Is it really worth the money?
What will you do if your phone needs some repair. ? So dont invest in something for which you dont have service option
If you want to get it legally, then you will have to wait for at least a year. But there is another way. iPhone can be unlocked in two ways - hardware and software. While hardware unlocking is meant for experts only, anyone can do a software unlock. So far two hacking groups claim to have developed a software based unlock but only one of them have released a video proof. Based on that video, software based unlocking is going to be easy. But you will have to pay for the unlock software. The price will be around $50 per unlock software and one software can be used only on a single iPhone. And the group says they will start selling the unlock software to the resellers tomorrow onwards. You can also checkout their FAQ and find out what all will be working on an unlocked iPhone. What I am planning to do is to get a friend of mine in US to buy a legal iphone from apple store and bring it with him when he returns. Once I get it, I will be purchasing the unlock software from the net for about $50 and hopefully will be able to start using a fully unlocked iphone.
Apple products are normally free of complaints or troubles for at least the first 2-3 years. I bought iPod Nano last year from the black market and till now I don't have any issues. And people hardly use the same phone for over 3 years and therefore I don't think service is something to worry about for an Apple product.
ive never seen or actually held one in person but the pics and reviews look very good. as soon as they are launched in the uk ill be buying one.