Yes, just as anywhere else -- such as when buying a TV in Comet -- how much it's worth to you to get a warranty, depends on what you reckon the likelihood and expense of a failure within the warranty period is. Do phones actually ever fail -- have I just been lucky? The first phone I had, a Nokia 8890, had an internal plastic piece fail after about five years, which was easily fixed with superglue and lasted a further three years. (Plus some of the buttons and catches had worn down a bit, and I eventually replaced some exterior panels with ones from a free cast-off phone from a friend.) No imaginable warranty would have helped with any of that.

Frankly, I'll be surprised and disappointed if I don't get the same 8-year lifetime from my second phone, a Mark 1 Iphone, especially as it has far fewer moving parts.

Peter