Maxis or DiGi iPhone 4?

One of the very famous question that I receive from friends about iPhone 4 is which one is better / cheaper to get? Maxis or DiGi? There’s no better way of comparing the two than by placing them next to each other.

The table below shows the information for the most basic plan of iPhone 4 that you can get from each of the 2 competing telcos.

	iValue 1	iDigi 88
Free local calls	333 mins	200 mins
Free data	1 GB	1 GB
Free SMS	200 SMS	200 SMS
Free MMS	20 MMS	20 MMS
Call rate	15 sen/min	10 sen/min
SMS rate	10 sen/SMS	10 sen/SMS
MMS rate	25 sen/MMS	20 sen/MMS
Phone price	RM1990	RM2490
Additional charges	RM400 prepayment1	–
Start-up cost	RM2390	RM2490
Monthly commitment	RM100	RM58
Minimum contact period	12	24
Total commitment2	RM3190	RM3882

¹Will be refunded to account over 5 months period
²Phone price + (Monthly commitment x Minimum contract period)

It looks like no matter whether you are choosing Maxis or DiGi, the start-up cost; i.e. the amount of money that you have to pay before getting your iPhone 4 is about the same.

Maxis seems to offer more free minutes for the local calls, and DiGi’s call rate and price per MMS is cheaper by 5 sen.

DiGi’s monthly commitment seems cheaper, but you have to do this for 24 months. Adding up the monthly commitments that you have to made with the price that you pay for the phone, it seems DiGi is almost RM700 more expensive than Maxis.

What does the RM700 extra that you are paying DiGi gives you? You get cheaper call rate and price per MMS. Also, DiGi has this “iGet no bill shock after exceeding monthly quota” where there is no extra charge after monthly quota. Maxis is charging 5 sen/10KB for additional data usage, but is max capped at RM250.

Back to the original question. Which one is better? Maxis or DiGi iPhone 4? Well, after plus here, minus there, both are just the same. It is a matter of which telco that you want to be loyal too 🙂