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Before I start, let me explain what this entire category is about.

While it's fun to play with your phone and there are many sites dedicated to such activities, there aren't any that specifically chronicle the experience of shopping around for a phone from start to finish (and beyond).

You will read plenty of updated information as I take you down this journey of a fairly unpleasant experience...

(Oh, by the way, this journey is a continuing saga-of-sorts and what you're reading now is probably anywhere between two weeks to one day behind until I get to the present.)
I've been a cell phone owner/user since the days just after the Motorola brick phones started to phase out of existence.

I remember when cell phones were for the uncommon man - not everyone had one and if you did, it was most likely a sign of exuberance or your were busy "doing business". Point is, we've come a long way, baby!

Nowadays you can comparison shop for phones using sites like this one to understand how the phones _really_ work in the real world, then go to Shopper.com to find the best price, get confused reading over the carrier's marketing jibberish, and then finally "pulling the trigger" and buying a phone and plan.

I hadn't even thought of buying a phone from an online affiliate etailer store like Ushopwireless, Wirefly, or Letstalk until a friend reminded me. So off I went to the stores to check out pricing. Places like Wirefly run affiliate programs so perhaps a site you've never heard of really only acts as an order gateway for Wirefly. These places also like to employ tricks like the "offer expires today" when in fact it doesn't. Another thing to watch out for is the availability of plans offered by each place. For example, Ushopwireless will "give" you a phone for free (after rebates) but they don't offer 1-year T-Mobile plans and of the 2-year plans available, they're most likely not the one you were looking for. Pass.

(5/10)

I had heard of Letstalk since the early 00's and decided that they were the way to go. Places like Amazon didn't have great deals, so they were also a "pass".

So off I went to purchase 2 T-Mobile MDAs with a 1-year Family-talk plan. I placed the order over the phone and in the end, the offer was each phone would cost $100 after rebates. Pretty good deal! This deal expired the day I called in (5/9) quickly.

The sales guy was helpful with MDA and data-related stuff and after 30 minutes on the phone, the order was placed. I had two numbers to port over (read: number portability) from another carrier (non-gsm). My phone was dying anyway, so I wasn't using it much at that point in time.

The guy said it would ship the next day via FREE two-day UPS service. Cool. I was looking forward to it!

You may wonder why I didn't buy it from the corporate store? Well, they require s 2-year contract to get the MDA for $299. Ouch. That's why. Sure, it's more convenient to deal with a local store, but at this point I'm convinced that I wouldn't have to deal with any phone issues (since I've never had to in the past)...

Elapsed time: 5 hours

If you make minimum wage ($8.50/hour) = $212.50
If you're a hot-shot partner at a law-firm ($400/hour) = $2,000 (crazy, right?)

Maybe this should be a sunk-cost since it's not directly related to the experience of phone ownership. Let's zero it out.

Overall satisfaction meter: :)