Now that the three ring circus has rolled out of town we’re all patiently awaiting July 11 and the promise of $199 USD 3G iPhones, that is unless you’re in Europe.

With all the talk of “Twice as fast, half the price” you would be forgiven for expecting the bargain basement smartphone to leave some loose change for other activities but Vodafone Italy has already dropped a 499/€569 ($773 8Gb/$881 16Gb) price tag for the non-contracted devices.

Th UK fares slightly better with the O2 network even giving the device away, under contract of course, but with the additional charges through the life of the contract they are still locked in to a minimum of $1580 USD.

So while Apple happily drops sound bites it looks like that 3G, GPS beauty is going to drop some green so you may want to hold off doing anything drastic to your old iPhone