iPhone News Updated

Hong Kong, the place where you can buy anything (of have someone make a copy of anything) now has unlocked iPhones for sale. As you can see from the screenshot, these are official, direct from the Apple Store itself.

They’re not cheap: Those prices translate to $700 for the 8GB and $800 for the 16GB, but as the blurb says, you can slip in any SIM card you like:

iPhone 3G purchased at the Apple Online Store can be activated with any wireless carrier. Simply insert the SIM from your current phone into iPhone 3G and connect to iTunes 8 to complete activation.

That means you could seriously reduce ongoing costs, perhaps forgetting voice altogether and using the iPhone as a data-only internet tablet. That said, a quick google turns up this rather extortionate data plan from mobile carrier 3: $$65 (US) will buy you just 30MB. Still, we expect these unlocked phone to become a hot export item: Where else can you buy an unlocked, contract free iPhone (*cough* Ebay *cough*)?

Product page [Apple Hong Kong via Engadget]

Or you could opt for a pay and go SIM.

[Thanks: http://blog.wired.com]