Do not buy: Any of T-Mobile’s Windows Phone 7 devices or a Blackberry.
Verizon
I was hoping Best Buy would continue the Cyber Monday free sale on the 5″ LG Intuition, but alas, it’s not to be. You can, however, find the phone on Amazon for $99. Unless you upgrade, in which case, it’s only a penny. Yes, you have to pay an activation fee this time, but that’s an amazing savings on a phablet. Amazon has several other Verizon phones with pricing disparities: the Motorola RAZR M is $80 if you’re buying it new, but if you buy it as an upgrade, the price goes down to a penny. In a reverse example, the aging-but-usable Galaxy Nexus is a penny new, but $30 as an upgrade.
To be fair, you can probably get this for free by asking someone who just upgraded nicely.
If you want to try a Windows Phone, check out the Lumia 822 for free at Walmart Wireless, with a $40 activation credit and a $100 Walmart gift card.
Best Buy isn’t offering much in the way of Verizon products, but you can find a 32 GB iPhone 4 for free on the store’s website. Yes, the Apple phone is refurbished and can’t run turn-by-turn or SIRI, but it’s a lot of storage for no outlay of cash or activation fee.
Finally, there’s the brand-new Samsung Stratosphere II with overnight shipping and no activation fee for free at LetsTalk.
That’s a fairly good range of choices for Verizon users with a phablet, an iOS device, a Windows Phone unit, an Android 4.2 phone, and a physical keyboard device. Not bad at all.
Do not buy: Anything from Pantech. Ever. I know people who have been happy with these lower-end devices, but I have yet to be impressed enough to tie a two-year contract to one.
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