Phone Plans: 2011 Edition

After much debate and research I've finally determined my mobile phone plans for 2011.

I'm giving Sprint until mid-June to wow me with something.  Anything.  I'm already paying the extra $10 per month by virtue of owning an Evo 4G so their new smart phone pricing requirements do not effect me adversely so that is a non-issue.  I am still very much perturbed by their announcing that come April of this year the change of their Premier membership requirements.  One of the main things that kept me with Sprint was the upgrades every year.  That is a big one for me as I tend to average two smart phone devices per year and it was nice knowing one of those devices would be subsidized.  Because of that one change I will not be using my upgrade before April, I just do not want to extend my contract any further.  It currently expires in twelve months (February 2012).

I have two lines with Sprint (the second contract ends in December this year) and based on some budget calculations I can afford to eat a pro-rated Early Termination Fee come June and jump to another carrier.  Actually, I could afford to eat it now if I really wanted to but I would rather give it a few more months to see if Apple announces an iPhone for Sprint and T-Mobile as well as the two carriers it's on right now.

That's right, I said I was waiting to see if the coming iPhone 5 would be on Sprint.

Now don't get me wrong, I love Android very much.  In fact I would say that I probably like Android more than I do the iOS that powers the iPhone and iPad.  However, Android is starting to fragment due to various manufacturer customizations of their devices.  My honest preference would be a "stock" Android device with no such manufacturer changes but that is just not in the future, sad to say, and I do not feel like I should have to go to all the trouble to "root" a device and install a custom ROM to get it.  I simply do not trust customer ROMs as you have no idea what the hackers that create them are really putting in there.

With all that being said there is also the fact that I now have quite a bit of capitol invested in the Apple ecosystem in the form of hardware, software, and media.  Just in TV shows and movies purchased from iTunes I have more than 1TB collected so far.  It would be nice to be able to take some of that with me when I'm out and about.  Granted, I could bring the iPad with me but at almost 10 inches that is a little too large for daily schlepping and I do not want to get an iPod Touch as then I would be carrying TWO devices anyway (smart phone and iPod).  I've also deliberately purchased universal apps for my iPad as a hedge against a day when I may get an iPhone.

I also have to admit to seriously considering getting an iPhone 4 on Verizon sooner rather than later due to the limited time availability of unlimited data plans.  No one knows just how long such plans will be around and I don't expect them to last more than a month, maybe two, at most.  Getting in now would let me grandfather in for future devices.  I'm thinking of maybe getting it in the next couple of weeks and just carrying two phone lines until the summer.  The cheapest plan offered by Verizon would allow me to swing this from a budget perspective at which point I could cancel my Sprint plans, pay the ETF, and sell my Evo to recoup the costs of the ETF.

So, that's my 2011 mobile plans.