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Comment by Falkon1313 | Hacker News Reader

I've always gone with the no-contract plans. I pay $35/month for the same phone and unlimited service that one of my family members is paying $100/month for. Really I don't see the point of the contract plans.

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I got my nexus 4 for 'free' on a contract and even if I bought it outright and got on the cheapest plan with roughly the same features, I would've only saved $5 a month. 5 * 24( 2 year contract) is only 120 so by going on a contract I saved at least $100 on the cost of my phone. If you are smart you can save money by going on a contract.

I don't think you researched well enough, 5$ saving is nothing. tell us which plans you were deciding between.

For example Straight Talk, is 45$ / month, everything unlimited. And you can use either AT&T's coverage, either T-Mobile's or Verizon's (and their phone too).

And that's for everything unlimited, you can find cheaper if you don't need unlimited.

Well I'm in Canada so straight talk is unavailable. As far as I know there is no provider that offers unlimited plans for everything at a reasonable cost. I'm with Fido and my plan is $45/month with 200 mb data, 200 weekday minutes canada-wide, unlimited evenings and weekends, unlimited SMS and MMS. The cheapest plan they offer that includes data is $39/month. The cheapest plan period that isn't prepaid that I've seen from any canadian provider is $35/month. So if I spent $10 less a month which is $288 for 2 years, it would just barely cover the cost of the phone and I wouldn't have any data either. So in the best case I wouldn't save any money by buying my own phone.

Right, I took it on the chin to buy my phone, but overall the cost is much less. Some months I pay nothing at all.

Can you share what plan you use? From my experience no-contract plans usually have some issues like no off network roaming. Maybe this isn't a deal breaker, but it is a different level of service.

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