Or you could just buy an Android phone supported directly by Google, like the Nexus One or Nexus S, get first dibs on OS upgrades, and not be locked into a carrier contract, not pay extra for tethering, and not pay a subsidy tax every month for two years...
I know, I signed up for an ATT plan soon after landing in US, I already had a GSM Phone that I wanted to continue using. However, choosing to use my own phone did not reduce my phone bill in any way nor was i offered a cheaper plan.
So, why not take the free phone that comes with the contract anyway?
It's much easier to get a month-to-month contract when you're not getting the free phone. That in turn gives you nice leverage when you call to cancel in four months, complaining that you're paying too much.
Except on T-Mobile, whether you need it or not, take the free phone. Then sell it for more then it's upgrade price (people not eligible for upgrades will be happy to pay $100 or more for a phone if they need it, even one you got for free, because its cheaper than what VZW/ATT will charge them).
carriers want you to take the subsidy bait. because it makes you less likely to jump ship than if you were only paying the monthly usage fee. I hope that having ~4 providers on compatible LTE bands will reverse that behavior.
With iOS, you get one choice of hardware and (for US markets, at least since it´s come out) one choice of carrier. The hardware and software are controlled by the same company and you can get updates.
With Android, this option is also available in the form of the Nexus series... you get Google hardware, T-Mobile, and you can get updates. However, you can also get hundreds of other phones across different carriers and manufacturers and also varying upgrade options.
Stick with the single company option if you don´t want to get ¨screwed¨ as it´s available too.
iPhone is also one special phone, so why compare it with the whole range of Android phones, rather than particular Android phones?
If one maker produces a crappy Android phones, all Android phones are bad?
It is a disadvantage that there ARE bad Android phones, but there are also good ones. You probably have to invest a little bit more research then when you just buy the latest iPhone.
If virtually all Android phones stop receiving updates before their 2-year contracts are up, the Android ecosystem is bad compared to the iOS ecosystem. Much of this thread has focused on the problems this causes for users, but it's worse for app developers to have so many phones out there running old OSes.
Where in the US can I get an unsubsidized Nexus S that won't cost me a couple hundred over the retail price? Can I just go to Best Buy and say I don't want the contract - just the phone? I find it odd that Google sells dev phones but only the ADP2 and the Nexus One. Why not sell the Nexus S directly to devs as well?
Edit: Thanks for the responses about being able to go to BB and get just the phone at the unsubsidized price. This was the answer I was looking for as it wasn't clear to me that this was an option and I was just more confused that Google wasn't selling it as an option for devs in their marketplace.
The options on the Best Buy website seem to imply that you have the option of purchasing the phone for $529 without signing a two-year T-Mobile contract.
The site actually breaks though if I try to proceed further than this, so who knows.
I'm not sure which price you are referring to as "the retail price" here; if you are referring to the $199 subsidized price that comes with signing a two-year contract then by definition any unsubsidized phone will be hundreds of dollars more.
I bought my Nexus S from Best Buy, no contract or anything to sign except the receipt. I don't even have a plan with T-Mobile; I use a local carrier that runs on T-Mobile's frequencies. I paid retail price ($529+tax), and walked out of the store in less than 10 minutes.
I find owning a Canadian iPhone in the US to be a great proposition. I never worry about "on-air updates" one day bricking my phone. I have no mobile contract. I can also resell my phone and expect to recover a lot of the value.
Combined with a Google Voice account it's just awesome!
I'm currently on T-Mobile pay monthly and have EDGE, which is enough to use with Google Maps. When I need faster service, there's often WiFi, or I can fire up my Clear mobile WiFi hotspot, which also doubles as my home internet.
Google could help things by releasing a umts band 5 version of the Nexus S like they did the Nexus One. The current Nexus S isn't an option where I live.
Not 5-band - umts band 5, aka 850MHz. The first Nexus One supported only umts bands 1, 4, and 8. Bands 1 and 8 are European. Band 4 is North American AWS, but only T-Mobile in the US and Mobilicity and Wind in Canada operate band 4 networks.
Band 5 is the more common 850MHz band used by AT&T in the US and Rogers, Telus, and Bell in Canada.
The first Nexus One supported bands 1, 4, and 8. The next one supported bands 1, 4, and the critical 5. The current Nexus S supports bands 1, 4, and 8, and is mostly useless in Canada. And all of us up here would just really, really, really like it if Google would release that band 5 version.
My Droid Incredible got 2.2 pushed out within a few weeks of when I bought it (mid september). Get your Droid from a quality company and expect good results. Get your Droid from some second-rate gadget company and expect to be stuck with 1.6 forever. Seems like a buyer-beware issue, not an Android issue.
Really? Where? Every last unlocked phone store on the web that I've checked is out of stock with the AT&T compatible version (which shouldn't be a surprise given that it's out of production).
