Yeah, they're giving the stuff away. Still I was able to get a Mytouch 4G for free on Friday with activation. That was a deal.

#1 add up how much that 2 year contract is costing you and will see that it is not much of a freebie as you think..

Yah, they were giving away all smartphones for free with contract on Fri and Sat. I went with this phone and I like it so far. I'm a light user but I can see heavy users running out of juice due to the small battery. This phone has 16GB Internal Storage, not 8GB. It doesn't have an expansion slot.

#2 I'm paying that money regardless. I can't do without internet access and text on my cell phone. So the choices are:
1) Get an iPhone with 3G speed and stay with At&T
2) Go with T-mobile and get 4G for slightly less price per month and get a free phone to go with it.

Which would you choose?

#4 Good point. I'm really puzzled by the "Wow, this is the total cost of your phone over 2 years arguments." I never see an accounting of the function and value: phone, voice mail, mobile internet access, texting, etc. The 2-year cost is NOT for the phone, it is for the TOTAL wireless service package.

Of course, that raises an interesting question: why do we (in the US) prefer the 2-year model with a subsidized phone while others (g, Europe) go with the portable plan and $200-$400 phones? I'd be interesting in seeing an apples to apples comparison to know if one pricing model or another is a better long-term deal.

Good point, so if you divide the $400 by 24 you get about $16 a month. Does that cover their costs? I don't know. However in my case my AT&T plan was for 2 years and I still had to pay $100 for my previous phone and I stayed with them for almost 3. So they got their monies worth.

I don't know how it is done in Europe, but in other parts of the world the actual service is discounted by government mandate (usually the terms by which the cell companies were allowed in) and pay as you go is usually the way people do it. 2 year subscription will give you a new phone, but I don't think that includes the new smartphones.

No free. Must sign up for the data plan that costs $10 per month for 200MB which is nothing.

For me Straighttalk $45 prepaid unlimited talk, text, web works fine and this MVNO use AT&T and T-Mobile towers for GSM.

Windows Phone 7? Fool me 6 times shame on you, fool me 7 shame on me. MS has been trying to make a decent phone/PDA OS for over a decade and failed. It was always crashy, buggy, bloated crap. Now, we're supposed to forget that since this is a "reboot"? Sorry, I'll stick with an OS that gets it right the first time: IOS, Android, WebOS, BB. Any would be better. There is no way I would saddle myself with this junk for two years.

"I can't do without internet access and text on my cell phone"

Like hell you can't.