Starting today, you can go to your neighborhood Walmart store and pick up an iPhone 5 from Walmart’s own house-brand carrier, StraightTalk Wireless. With it you’ll get a $45 unlimited talk/text/data plan. Instead of a phone subsidy, you’ll be paying the unlocked-phone price for your handset: $649 for a 16GB iPhone 5. That’s the same price you’ll pay for an unlocked phone straight from Apple, but Walmart offers something extra: you can finance your purchase and pay $25 per month with no interest…for 26 months.

Yes, there’s always a catch. If you don’t lose, damage, or need to replace the phone before that, you might still come out ahead. If unlimited data is important to you, that’s still a better deal than many contract carriers, and you don’t have to wait around for T-Mobile’s iOffering this spring. Virgin Mobile also offers iPhones, but only the older 4 and 4S. If that price is too steep for you, you can also buy the iPhone 4S for $549, or the iPhone 4 for $449.

iPhone 5 [StraightTalk]

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