moss says:

Until I can get pay-per-call, none of the above.

Opus says:

Based on the comparison, Apple made a bad decision to stick with AT&T as the sole service provider.

In Asia phone, messaging, data and streaming digital TV cost a fraction of the US plan. We’re getting screwed by the networks.

Maybe I’ll just stick to an Ipod Touch with Skype and rely on free wi-fi instead.

jbellies says:

If the phone costs $199, and the monthly fee is $100, then isn’t that $2,599 over 24 months? Or are a “contract” and a “service plan” totally different things? No wonder noobs such as I don’t trust manufacturers / phone companies / packagers.

BTW, it sure *looks like* BillShrink.com is in bed with one of the manufacturers, from the way the data is presented. Did I need to say that?

Travis says:

I love my G1.

The micro SD card is hot swappable so the 1GB capacity above isn’t really accurate.

The phone is easy to hack, and there is also a completely open developer version of the phone available from Google.

If you know Java you can write software for this phone.

The bar code application is awesome. I was at Best Buy with a friend that wanted a digital camera. I scanned the bar code and Amazon had the same camera for $260 less.

Another cool application is Tricorder. I initially downloaded it because I’m a trekkie, but instead of being some fake readout of bogus sensor data it actually displays whatever data it can get from the phone. It also is a great little wifi finder. http://code.google.com/p/tricorder/

The battery life does suck, but when you consider that you are running networked applications that are constantly using the radio it makes sense.

Roland says:

Here in Canada, we can get the IPhone without a dataplan… I have a Mega 10 plan ($10 a month for 250 anytime minutes, unlimited evenings and weekends, unlimited in-network calls to any Rogers/Fido/Speakout), plus the dreaded $6.95 System Access Fees (sic) and he 911 fee ($0.50)… all in all after taxes I pay more or less $20 a month… so with a mandatory 3 year contract, my total costs is $720

Named says:

Tried the HTC Magic (G2). It’s the keyboardless version of the HTC Dream. I must say, I went believing that Android was clunky crap but I came away immensely impressed.

Rogers is offering 6GB of data for $30 in Canada, but 25 for 250 minutes unlimited eve and weekend… Not bad at all.

BillBC says:

I have an old cell phone my son in law gave me for free. I pay (in Canada) $15 a month, including system access fee, plus tax. Calls cost 30 cents a minute or 40 cents long distance, and I use it only for urgent calls. $180 a year. It doesn’t play games…it has some sort of access to the internet, but I’ve never used it for that. It’s a phone. I use it to make calls when I need to. Call me a Luddite, but paying $3600 a year seems insane, unless you are charging it to someone else…

BillBC says:

oops…make that $3600 over two years. Still nuts…

Potenza says:

At 6

You can get the Pre with a Sprint plan at $79.99 or 69.99 with employee referral. (450m, unlimited text & data) Info for the referral can be found on google.

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….