T-Mobile is actually really great in this regard (I also use them, now), since once you need a data plan, you can just use their month-to-month plans without a

T-Mobile is actually really great in this regard (I also use them, now), since once you need a data plan, you can just use their month-to-month plans without a contract. My month-to-month is ~$90, for unlimited voice/text/3G-data. But my impression remains that if you buy a "prepaid phone", it will probably be very low quality.