It's simply a loan on the device. Just like a car loan, I don't think you can just stop paying and return the phone. There'll be penalties.
The difference is that the loan terms are plain out in the open for everyone to see. And that they don't keep charging you after 2 years.
That, and you can pay it off anytime you want, if you want or need to.
...
not a big deal to "buy" a free on contract phone every 18-24 months so you don't "waste money"
So, waste technology instead of money. If you have a phone that works and you don't want to upgrade, then by buying a new phone just so you're not wasting money, you are, actually wasting both money and being conspicuously consumptive.
Further, what if you want to upgrade your phone after only a year (or 18 months, etc.)? With AT&T and Verizon, your only option is to pay full price for the new phone, whereas with TMo, you can now simply pay off your old phone and finance a new one.
All around, it seems to me the only people who don't come out ahead with TMo's plan structure are those people who like to upgrade on a completely set schedule, once every two years, exactly.
No, it's a $219 savings over 20 months. You can't just declare that the ATT "subsidy" is $450 because then you are valuing the iPhone much higher than what T-Mobile charges for one.
T-Mobile:
$60 x 20 + $580 = $1780
ATT:
$90 x 20 + $199 = $1999
Also, unless I'm mistaken, because of the way that AT&T charges, you pay telecom taxes on $90 for them, whereas you only pay telecom taxes on $60 per month with TMo.
$210 savings vs $150. Ain't going to make much difference to most people at that point.
That's like $10/month. Not enough for people to switch unless Tmobile offers same coverage for them
Oh, yeah, saving more than 10% never interests anyone...
Seriously, maybe a few extra dollars doesn't matter that much to you, but most of the people I know would consider a $10 to $30 (if you've already paid off your phone) to be a significant savings.
I've been with Verizon for a long time. I wish they had a phone running straight Android to try out. Or maybe Apple will eventually sell an iPhone with a larger screen, something in the Nexus 4 and Galaxy S3/S4 size range. The iPhone just looks so small now.
Well, while I certainly respect your right to have your own opinion, I couldn't agree with you. I hate how big phones are getting these days. Frankly, I am not overly fond of how big the iPhone is.
t-mobile is not that much cheaper than AT&T
Alas, saying it doesn't make it so. My wife and I just recently switched to TMo (and we're looking forward to getting new iPhones in the coming months), and our phone bill dropped by nearly 1/3. Now, some of that will be lost when we add new phones in, but even then our bill will be about 12% lower. So, I guess I would argue that TMo is that much cheaper than AT&T.
As an interesting aside, I've heard a lot about the question of coverage, including some people who live in my area saying that TMo has lousy coverage compared to AT&T. Well, from my experience, it depends on what measure I use. If I base my observations on the number of bars that my phone displays, then AT&T has the better network. If, on the other hand, I base my observations on the quality of phone calls, etc., then TMo has the better network. There were times when my phone showed full bars with AT&T and I couldn't get a call to go through, or I'd get drop-out on the voice when it did go through. Whereas, in similar areas, TMo would show me having only one bar (indeed, sometimes even dropping to no bars but still showing the connected icon), and call go through just fine with little or no voice drop-out. Makes me wonder if AT&T has some way of making the phone show more bars just for the PR aspect of it...