That's true, but still incorrect because you've munged handset
comparison part. The simple comparison metric is to look at the
boilerplate of a 2 year contract to see what the 'premium' is for an
iPhone vs. Galaxy while using the same service plan from the same
cellular provider. As such, even if it comes down to a $199 (new
iPhone) vs $1 (free Android), the math is:
($199 + 24 * ($XXX/month contract)) versus ($1 + 24 * ($XXX/month
contract))
For your above example of a $110/month plan from Sprint, it comes out
to $2839 vs $2641 ... a difference of 7% (or $8.25/month). YMMV on if
this is worth it or not (BTW, earlier this year on my cellular
provider, I found that they were offering me an iPhone5 for $99, not
$199, presumably because I'd been out-of-contract-lock and they wanted
to lock me back in).
And then, as you then go on to illustrate, simply shopping around for
a better service contract is a better way to save money: even
assuming a $600 iPhone, the Virgin plan you cited works out to $1752
for the same duration, which is 33% less than even the 'cheaper'
Android under Sprint.
-hh