[citation][nom]anamaniac[/nom]It's easy to find contract free phones.My brother uses a prepaid phone. Just bought a $50 contract for a carrier which only covers calls.However, they're usually either extremely expensive, or extremely simple phones.Hopefully, it's affordable, powerful, sleek, sexy, and useful.Good going Google.[/citation]
Contract free phones are getting better and better. Boost and Virgin for example have unlimited everything plans for $50 or less per month, offering decent web browsing, texting, etc. I just bought my son a Virgin mobile Kyrocera slideout Qwerty phone, 1.3MP camera, etc. (which uses Sprint) for $99.
Now, for him I just bought the unlimited text plan at $20/month, but for me I'd probably go for the $50 and save myself $20/month over my contract phone. The only difference is having to pay for the phone upfront. But after 5 months, it pretty much pays for itself.
Yes, maybe the internet access isn't as robust as a contract cell provider yet, but for me that isn't too big of a deal. I also prefer not to be locked into a contract, of which for the most part are really hard to get out of, without incurring gigantic fees.