Yesterday Apple began selling an unlocked iPhone 5 on the Apple website, with prices starting at $649 for the 16GB model. What's the advantage of an unlocked device? In the long run you may save money, since you don't have to sign a contract with a carrier. There are a lot of carriers these days that offer pay-as-you-go minutes. Let's say that you don't make a lot of calls on your phone and you're often in range of a wireless router. You'd likely save money with an unlocked phone.