So I've been a Verizon customer a while now (I got the original droid when it came out. Good phone in my opinion.) And to be clear I love the service. Good coverage, relatively fast data rates, very few dead spots. If you want an iphone, I think this is one of your better options. A little highly priced, but you get good service. I am disappointed when Verizon cancelled my unlimited data when I upgraded to the galaxy nexus, and I'm constantly coming close to my data limit. I would upgrade it, but it costs money.
Now the complaints begin. My last phone was the HTC Thunderbolt which I got right when it came out. I saved an upgrade for it and bought into the LTE hype. LTE on it was great, when it worked. I went through a number of LTE outages back in the day which was a bit inconvenient. Then, the phone's software had a really hard time holding onto a signal. I'd be dumped down to 3G or 2G all the time, even when not moving. Plus updates were pretty much unheard of. And the battery life was just awful. I heard a rumor saying that HTC abandoned the Thunderbolt when it started having problems, and I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. That was certainly the buggiest phone I've ever had. Automatic restarts were a nearly daily experience. Every update took a long time to be released, and I found myself hoping each update would solve problems. Usually it just swapped the problems for other problems.
So, learning from my mistake with the Thunderbolt, I decided to get a nexus device, expecting fast updates. I also dumped HTC since the sense UI crashed on me pretty frequently, causing me not to trust proprietary software on phones. I passed on the Galaxy S IV in order to get a vanilla android experience and fast updates. I am somewhat regretting that decision, because it seems that the S IV is a higher priority as it has already received android 4.3, while we're still waiting for it. Don't get me wrong, I like the galaxy nexus, I'm just disappointed that the updates aren't coming, and have been soured from slow updates since the time of the thunderbolt. In the long run maybe it doesn't matter too much since 4.4 is never coming to the gnex anyway.
So, since I've been continuously disappointed in Verizon's phone support, I have begun investigating other services. I picked up a cheap unlocked 3G GSM phone, and a T-mobile sim card to test it out. With potentially the chance to get a nexus 5, which looks awesome.
So, in a nutshell my concerns in a phone are:
1. Find a phone that I want (upper end) that will be supported in the future
2. Get more data for a reasonable price (I really want at least 4GB)
3. Maintain a reliable LTE connection when in a good coverage area
I've found T-mobile will lower my overall price and give me unlimited data back, and I can bring an unlocked phone. I'm worried about the coverage, so I may try out AT&T since I'm expecting theirs to be a little better. At this point, I see very few reasons to stick with Verizon minus the $250 early termination charge left on my account. So, I'd really like to be convinced otherwise.
