My AT&T lock-in (courtesy my iPhone 3G, two years ago) is expiring in a few weeks, and I'm basically decided that I'm getting an Android phone. Of course, I'm still entirely up in the air on whether I want the HTC Evo 4G (Sprint), a Google Nexus One (T-Mobile), or a Motorola Droid X (to be formally announced on Wednesday). AT&T is not something I'm considering with any seriousness. While they work quite well here in Houston, their service in the SF Bay Area is embarrassing, and I'm there no small amount on business.

I also need to accommodate my wife's desire for a phone, where she's largely uninterested in having fancy data services (she presently uses my vintage 2007 Motorola KRZR and it does the job nicely, notaly having a battery that can last for days).

Question 1 is what people think about my various Android options. Part of me is keen to have a Nexus One since it's the very same thing that thousands of Google employees have in their pockets. I know I'll be able to reflash it, hack it, do whatever I want to it. However, the siren song of the newer devices with the bigger screens and faster CPUs beckon.

Also relevant are the pricing plans for a "family plan" for the two of us. With Verizon, I'd inevitably end up with another two-year commitment, and I'd probably be able to swing a "normal" phone for free for my wife. The basic family plan is $70/mo. (rounding up to keep the math clean) with a $30/mo. data charge. My employer gets me a 20% discount off that, so I'm looking at $80/mo. with Verizon.

With T-Mobile, I can pay either $110/mo. or $140/mo., with the latter price including subsidized phone purchases and a two-year commitment, versus the former assuming you bring your own phones. These plans also include unlimited data and text messages on both phones (whereas Verizon wants to charge more if you want unlimited text messages). The monthly savings, and our existing perfectly functional Moto KRZR mean that a Nexus One, bought without contract ($530) versus subsidized ($180), becomes the proper decision if you plan to have it longer than 18 months. Now, my employer has no discount program with T-Mobile, but if my wife wanted a phone with real networking, we'd have to add another $30/mo. to the Verizon plan, making the prices roughly equal.

Ahh, Sprint. They're pushing a plan, similar to T-Mobile, with effectively infinite calling minutes, infinite data and text messages for both phones, for $130/mo, which is probably best compared to the T-Mobile $140/mo. plan. Alternatively, a Sprint basic no-frills line is $30/mo. and the "everything" data plan is $70/mo., so that's an alternative path to Sprint.


Given that my wife and I hardly rack up two hours of mobile phone calls per month, any of these plans might as well be infinite phone calling. We similarly have few enough SMS messages than an all-inclusive plan isn't necessary and the $0.20/SMS highway robbery is still a win.

So... am I missing something here or am I destined to become a Verizon customer? The only catch I can think of is the total lack of GSM in any of the phones I'd be likely to get from Verizon, but I'll still have the old Moto KRZR which I can bring with me on my next overseas trip (typically once every two years), wherein I suppose I could get a local pre-paid SIM.

Thoughts?

I'd say try out the Evo on Sprint, that way you can get a feel for their service, and Android in general. With their 30 day money back guarantee, it seems like the best way to test the waters on both fronts. If it works out, you would probably be able to then bring over your wife, and convert the plan to a family plan.

The only downside I can see with this route is the extra $10 a month Sprint likes to tack on to the Evo for 4G, even if you don't plan on using 4G.

You can get "unlimited" data-only service from T-Mobile for $40 a month, with no contract (getting it with a contract is more expensive, for some reason), and just purchase a bare SIM as your "phone" for $10 (free if purchased online).

You can still do voice calling with it; it just doesn't come with any free minutes. For me, I tend to use something more like two hours of voice minutes a year, so the outrageous 45¢/min usage fee is not a big deal. But even if you use 120 minutes, that's still only an additional $54 a month, which, added to the $40 for the data service, is still cheaper than the $110-$140 for the "normal" service from T-Mobile, and competitive with Verizon's $80.

Of course, you still have to have an unlocked phone, which is not exactly the cheapest option. But if you can keep your voice usage well under 2 hours a month, you'd probably make it back pretty quickly. Also, T-Mobile uses a frequency band that no one else in the world uses, so you won't be able to get 3G data anywhere else. However, both voice and 2G (Edge) work just fine, based on my experience with my N1 on AT&T's network.

Hooray! I can tell you that I like my Android phone more and more every month, and that's been the case since I bought my G1 in December of '08.


I think you've correctly identified the best phone on each carrier, though it's hard to say if the Droid X is significantly better than the Incredible. I think it depends on what size phone you want, though the HD video recording and HDMI out are also additional features on the X.


Again, you're right on that one. AT&T f___ed up the Backflip, which was a pretty bad phone to begin with. The Aria is supposed to be pretty nice, but it's not in the class of the phones you mentioned. I will point out that if you are looking at the Nexus One off-contract for T-Mobile, there's also an AT&T version available. But if you're looking for service in SF, I guess you know their capabilities better than I would.


Obviously, I LOVE my Nexus One. It's a speedy little devil and it does everything I need it to. I must admit, however, that those larger screens have definitely tempted me. Right when I bought my phone, rumors of the Evo were coming out, and that huge screen was attractive to me. In the end, I stuck with my N1 and I'm not sad I did. However, if I lived in a current 4G city I might feel differently, so that might be a consideration for you.

It also depends on what you need. For my business, having the WiFi hotspot feature built into 2.2 is a great asset, and as of now I haven't had to pay extra for it.

As long as I'm talking about 2.2, lets talk about software updates. I don't know anything about what the Google employees are carrying, but what I do know is that my phone isn't tied to any carrier, and so I can get updates as soon as they're pushed out. Also, the Droid X and the Evo 4G have Motoblur and Sense UIs, respectively. This means that Motorola and HTC have to update their UI in order to work with newer versions of Android, therefore delaying when you'll be running the latest version of the OS. At some point Google is supposed to divorce the proprietary apps (GMail, Calendar, etc.) from the OS so you can update them separately, but I suspect you'd still miss out on other OS improvements, the likes of tethering, hotspot, and JIT.


The new devices right now have bigger screens, but I believe they're all at the same clock speed at the moment. Most are running on a Snapdragon 1GHz chip. I don't think anyone is on that 1.2GHz dual-core chip they showed off at CTIA.


My apologies, but this is where I don't know much, as my wife and I are on different carriers, and it never made sense for us to be on a family plan anyway, due to our usage cases.


I never send text messages, and I even told T-Mobile to block all texts coming into my cell number, but I can get completely free text messaging to and from my phone, thanks go Google Voice! For the RARE times I do text someone, it's nice to have it, and maybe I'll start using it more now that I'm not paying $500/MB.


They do, oddly, seem to be the ones knocking it out of the park these days in regards to having the hottest phones, which is bizarre given their history for having the worst phone selection around!


So that's about all I can think to say at the moment. Sadly, I can't speak much to your wife's side of things. I really need to get caught up on the feature phone side of the market...

One curious thing about a data-only phone is that, via Android and Google Voice, it might well still be a perfectly functional phone, at least so long as you're in 3G coverage land. That could make for a cost-effective solution.

I just read over my post, and feel I should expand on 2.2.

You may have seen the thread I started on it, but it truly is an incredible speed boost, and the improvement is completely noticeable. I have heard, though that HTC is at least working on getting a 2.2 version of the Sense UI ready. Really, any Android phone maker would be foolish not to get their phones up to 2.2.

Also, if/when you get you Android phone, I must recommend Swype. It's a replacement keyboard that's really been improving my text entry speeds...

The Droid X leaked materials seem to indicate that Swype is installed from the factory. The announcement date is Wednesday, so we'll see very soon.

Woah, gotta stop you there. Sadly, Google Voice still uses your cellular voice network on your end. I believe it's VOIP from Google to the recipient, but it's still the regular voice network from Google to you.

So yeah, Google voice still uses your minutes. But like I said, SMS is completely free to and from your phone.

Yep. And there's only one VoIP provider that Google will allow to interact directly with GV, and they're not taking any new users at the moment.