[Causality]

These prices really may not reflect reality, merely your perception of them. I was an alltel import to the verizon world... And not too happy about it either. but thats another thread. Yesterday my roommate and I went to the mall here in Tucson to return some oakley sunglasses my mom got me for Christmas and while it was processing he went out to one of the al la carte shop things in the middle of the mall isle.

Anyway, I'm halfway through my alltel two year contract with the HTC Touch Pro, which I've despised regardless of the rom I threw on so I talk to the guy. I used my 'annual upgrade' to get the phone for $399... Then he took $30 off, then they used flipswap to take my POS Touch Pro for $75, then they took $100 mail in rebate off then phone so all told, I paid $95 dollars ($195+tax until it comes) for my Droid with NO extension to my contract. It still expires next December.

Anyway just thought I'd throw that out there... The place I went to was Diamond Wireless in the Tucson Mall. Obviously unless you're here thats irrelevent BUT the point stands that there are options out there.

OH! Additionally I went with the Diamond insurance in lieu of Verizons because that plan is indeed crap as well. With the third party insurance (which, really, they all are) I pay the $100 for a new replacement but also am allowed to upgrade should there be one available at the time of the claim... Something Verizon's absolutely will NOT do. They replace with a refurb.

Hope this helps a bit. One more positive. I was running silence ROM 6.5 on my HTC and they didn't care, they used a device to sync all 4188 texts, al of my contacts and all pics saved on the phone directly and accurately indexed to the Droid. No hassles. Then we hard reset and the HTC and I parted ways.

It worked out well for me. Might be worth the effort to inquire as to whether your locality has a comparable deal.