On Aug 16, 2011, at 9:40 AM, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: > On Tue, 16 Aug 2011 10:53:24 EDT, Christopher Morrow said: > >> anyway, they do these donkey things because they can :( people have no >> real option (except not to play the game, ala war games). > > My brother recently tried to get a smartphone without a data plan (as the > phone he wanted was also Wifi-capable, and he was *quite* willing to be able > to do data-type stuff only when in range of an access point because he's in > range of one 95% of the time he'd want to use data features). But at least > one vendor said they wouldn't activate a phone under those conditions. > > Anybody got a good pairing of Android-based smartphone and vendor willing > to play that game?
Buy a stand-alone device. Plug your t-mobile sim into it. The subsidy on a nominally $600 phone is predicated on you spending $80 or so a month on service. last lightly used nexus one I ebayed was ~$200, you can accumulate a whole stable of them for what you'd otherwise pay the carrier for the privledge.
