Good: AT&T not ending 2-year contracts, only their 3rd party retailers are.

[ZombiePete]

Honestly, I think you're better off paying it off fully and selling it on Ebay. I bet you could get way more than what AT&T will give you. I don't know what the number is, but you have to have a certain amount paid off before being able to trade it in.

Don't completely discount the convenience factor of being able to just walk into the at&t store and swap out one Next phone for another every year (I'm on the 12 month plan). I don't mind paying to be able to avoid messing around with third-party reseller sites and stuff. It's not for everyone, surely, but that is certainly a factor for me and my decision to use Next.

 

[ZombiePete]

30Gb is not even close to unlimited.

I hate to repeat a corporate talking point, but I have to honestly believe that it's a very select group of people who would be using more than 30GB of data per month. I tether my other Apple devices all the time, use streaming media a lot, use Splashtop to manage my stuff at home, download apps and podcasts, etc. and I still don't use my entire 40GB per month*. With rollover now, I generally have between 50-60GB of data available per month, which I would consider to be a lot.

It may not be "unlimited", but it's pretty damn indistinguishable for most users I would say.

*EDIT: Shared between two data-heavy users and a third light-user.

 

[AZhappyjack]

$10 savings isn't significant for me unless I needed to tether.

More correctly, my monthly bill is $10 less, including 3 Next phones. My actual cellular bill (talk, text, data), excluding any equipment charges is actually just over $100/month less.