mouring says:

Honestly the plan costs for AT&T side depends on what you need. My total bill (after tax, before discounts) is rarely more than $100. I have a cheaper voice plan and I rarely use my minutes (helps most of my friends/family are on AT&T =). I don’t do a lot of text messaging so I opted out of the text messaging plan (I may send/receive 10 messages a month).

So my cost is more inline with the Sprint/Palm Pre then the one marked as AT&T.

I know they have to make a simple chart, but wonder how many people are like me.

mikem says:

My wife and I oay $112a month TOTAL for our phone service. ther is NOW WAY we would EVER pay $150 a month for just 1 phone with the same capabilities at $112.

You AT&T Iphone users are the SUCKERS.

GigG says:

I have 2 phones (and iPhone and a regular phone for the wife) on an AT&T plan and 7500 shared minutes and UL data and messaging for the iPhone and my bill is $118/month with all the taxes. Add the $199 I paid for the phone and that comes up to $2359/year + sales tax on the phone.

Somebody_Else says:

The Pre looks pretty cool, although I’m happy with my iPhone 3G.

I have to use AT&T to get service at my house, so my options are limited anyway.

Stu Mulne says:

I’m using a Samsung Omnia – after returning a Blackberry Storm…. The Storm is a “touchscreen only” sort of thing and my fingers were just too big. The Omnia pretty much demands a built-in stylus, but comes with a little lipstick-ish thing that hangs off the side. Very high PITA factor without any stylus, but you can find ‘em easily enough with pocket clips. The best is a Cross refill for an old Cross pen….

The kid’s got a similar candy bar phone with pop-out keyboards (I can’t figure out how to make it dial ), and the whole mess – unlimited data and something like 750 minutes – is just a shade under $200/month. (I did pay about $400 for the phones initially.)

The Omnia’s a half-decent phone, but the engineers apparently never actually used it. Many features don’t work as described in the manual, the USB cable really doesn’t charge the phone when connected to a PC (although setting up sync with Outlook is easy enough), and a sort of anti-cheek-dialing feature makes things like “Press 1 for English” frustrating, as you have to click the “mouse” (which is itself useless), then (sometimes) click “keypad”, before you can press the “1″…. And you have to do that QUICKLY or start again….

Other functions suffer from inconsistencies – things work somewhat differently in different places in the phone’s system. Kind of like having to turn your automobile’s key to the right to start the car if you locked the doors first, but to the left if the glovebox was opened…. (Impossible to explain this one .)

Something else next time….

sargasso says:

Technically speaking, all three are unremarkable.

gquaglia says:

I pay $75 a month total for my iphone plan, and I’m swimming in rollover minutes.

Me as well. I didn’t think anyone really used the phone part anymore, aside from SMS. Unlimited voice plans are really un needed.

Wretched Gnu says:

Cephus — Completely agree. But what’s wrong with your Palm? I still use my T|X. It does everything I need for 0$ a month, including email.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz says:

NO SMART Phone for me until they I can activate one without rip off DATA Plan!

Business will pay a tons of $$$ for data plans but for consumer its not worth it.

Named says:

30,

I was thinking Pre too. But its not GSM yet, and I like to pretend I’m a world traveler. That being said, check out the HTC Magic (G2). Like I said prior, I was extremely impressed with the whole package.