It hasn't caught much attention or focus but could this be the first phone that makes any sort of headway in the US against the two year plan/subsidy model? If yes, that has ramifications for the overall industry much greater than any one phone. Anyone in the US know how much you'd save on a realistic smart phone plan if you bought your own vs doing the two year subsidized model?
Not sure what you'd 'save' - any major carrier you want to use with a data plan doesn't offer any (at all?) savings on monthly service plans. Prepaid pricing sucks for data.
Do you want to pay $199 plus $90 month for airtime and data? Or $299 for an unlocked phone and... $90/month for airtime and data?
T-mobile offers $30/month plan: 5GB data, 100 minutes ($.1/minute overage). Straight Talk is $45 for 2GB, unlimited minutes. $300 for phone, 24 months at $30 is $1020. Most phone plans are $200 for phone, $80/month = $2120. That's a huge savings.
Since the Nexus 4 doesn't support LTE, there's no reason to pay full price for ATT or Verizon.
TMobile offers some interesting prepaid plans (such as the $30/month 100 minute, unlimited SMS, 5GB data plan) as others have mentioned, but if you are looking for a family plan, they do offer some other interesting choices.
I've been using prepaid smartphones in the US for the past two years, and have been paying $30 or less a month the whole time. Previously the best prepaid phones on cheap carriers have been pretty low-end and carrier-locked, but the unlocked Nexuses have changed that, and barely cost more than new carrier-locked phones.
The Galaxy Nexus first was $400 unlocked, then went down to $350, and the new phone is $300; this being the computer industry, prices will only get better from here.
Yeah that's what I was worried about. Seems like the only real benefit then is the ability to switch providers at any point in time vs 2 year lock in. So you'd have to be willing to pay a $15 per month or so premium for the ability to switch at any time?
The 2 year lock in includes MSRP hardware amortization (at least on my provider), so if you attempt to break the contract, you're paying not only the cost of cancelling the contract, but also the remaining 'cost' of your hardware. That could add up to quite a bit, given that I've seen carriers state that a Galaxy S3 is worth 650. Breaking the contract halfway through its term might result in you paying 300+ for hardware that you actually wanted to get rid of.
