Uptown, about 8 months ago I got me a Samsung Impression A877 which has a touchscreen and a fold out qwerty mini-keyboard. It surfs the internet, email, text messages, music/video, video messages, 3MP Digital camera (which takes pretty good pictures!) and a battery that seems to last forever... oh yeah.. it does phone calls too.
Before I say more about it, let me tell you a bit about myself. Before this, I hadn't had a cell phone in about 8 years. I simply didn't need one. I got this one because I was planning on moving soon and considering that I didn't know the future of my housing status (wife left me about a year prior) it would be easier to just get a Cell phone and not have to worry about disconnecting, transferring, and setting up a landline. Cell phone technology just didn't interest me.
Anyways, back to the phone. It cost me NOTHING to buy up front. If I had to pay for the actual phone it I wouldn't have gotten this one. Now don't get me wrong I know I ended up paying for it one way or another. I had to agree to two years of service @ 27.99/month and three months of an unlimited data plan @ $40. I also added unlimited texting for $10/month for the heck of it, so the first three months cost me about $83 with taxes and all. After the three months were up, I ended up canceling the unlimited data and I dropped down to a reduced texting plan ($5/month for 200 texts), so my bill now is less than $40/month... and I have a cool little I-phone wannabe to play around with. I paid $10 for a texas hold'em/sudoku game package so that gives me something to do when I'm waiting in line, etc...
I also found websites that let you download free apps (albeit lesser quality) that is kind of fun to play with. I actually downloaded the original NES Zelda game for free! I just don't see a need to actually 'PAY' for a phone upfront personally.. I don't care about the latest and greatest...
And this was from newegg.com going through AT&T.