Buying a new phone outright is always a daunting task. The graph above shows prices (including shipping) for deals reaching 5 or more votes for the Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy S II, iPhone 4S and the HTC One X.

All of the above phones declined in price over time but the iPhone 4S did so in a smaller percentage. In a 4 month period, the iPhone dropped only 13% in price from $758 to $659. The SIII dropped 26%, the SII 23%, and 17% for the One X.

There isn’t an exact best time to buy but it’s clear that you should never buy a phone on release.  For the iPhone, buying it any time 1 month and onwards from release will net a similar discount of around 10%. Meanwhile, the S II, S III and One X demonstrated that after 4 months the price drops around 22% of the initial price. With the S IV rumored to be released in February or March 2013, we will probably see the price of the S III be between $400 & $500.