T-Mobile is not particularly shady in my experience, just a bit disorganized about Nexus pricing. T-Mobile is moving toward clearer pricing plans that are more

T-Mobile is not particularly shady in my experience, just a bit disorganized about Nexus pricing. T-Mobile is moving toward clearer pricing plans that are more like the rest of the world and much more straightfoward: http://gigaom.com/2012/12/06/t-mobile-ceo-confirms-the-iphone-and-the-death-of-phone-subsidies/ http://gigaom.com/2012/12/06/t-mobile-ceo-confirms-the-iphon... For the lowest cost and most freedom, you can buy the Nexus 4 directly from Google or on Craigslist, eBay, etc. (I'm not affiliated with T-Mobile in any way; I'm just a customer who buys a lot of Nexus phones)