I prefer unlocked phones any day of the year compared to being locked down for two years. Since I use ATT Prepaid $60.00 Unlimited Tlk and TXT. I dont care about the data plan if I need to get online that is what WiFi is for.

I did a cost comparision with someone and it ended up that I saved a few hundred dollars each year based on a two years a few hundred dollars might not seem that much but in todays economy it is lol

How many times do you change grocery stores? What if you had to pay $500 to use a new grocery store?

There are reasons people don't switch carriers. They are suckered into saving $20 on something and don't realize it extends the contract they agreed to, for example. The industry tries to keep its customers chained down to the same carrier, and they usually succeed. Just because most slaves never escaped was no reason to keep slavery.

If I remember correctly, most of the 'bundles' offered with contracts still work out cheaper than if you buy the phone yourself on credit and get the same plans/services on said carrier.

The real questions being: Do you need all the 'free' minutes and text/data quotas in that bundle?

Don't forget that there are also (unadvertised) clauses in the contract where you can get out of the contract for less money after some short period of service (usually 2-6 months?) and acquire the unlock key for your phone (sometimes for free, sometimes for a low fee of $10 or so); where you can come out ahead with this.

@kaitech: Try out 3G/4G. I think you'll be quite amazed at what 'being connected everywhere' feels like