Wanting to buy my first smartphone, need a bit of help and advice on stuff

[Terahertz]

In terms of pre-paid services well... if you go that route just make sure you understand your data usage. Most pre-paid services are designed to be cost-efficient only for the most conservative of users. In terms of lowest costs for greatest volume your best monthly plan is probably through T-Mobile. You lose some quality of service with them (or Sprint) though ... so if your primary concern is having a signal then your best bet is AT&T or Verizon.

Hmm, thanks for the tips about looking out for the app store variants on Androids.

As for what you mentioned about pre-paid; how do they calculate the data usage? My only concern with data usage on a data plan was if they counted data usage while near wi-fi, which apparently there's a work around for by disabling the cellular network(?).

I'm also considering looking for other deals besides just pre-paid, but let's say I do still go for pre-paid.. I can still use my own wi-fi on my phone, right? Like without a contract or data plan or anything?

[Spalding]

As a salesman who does sell phones from time to time there are many options.
1. buy a cheap one outright to get the feel of a smartphone. if you like, then upgrade to a bigger one.
2. iphones are simple and easy to use, not much customization on one, great for a new user.
3. big screen, power, loads of things you want to do? android is your man, with sony phones, as you mentioned the z2, but my recommendation lies with the Samsung phones. which im using right now.

Again this all depends on budget as well.

[smpJest]

I went from using Android to Iphone back to android and now am using a Windows(Nokia Lumia 928) and I love windows. Next upgrade will be a windows for sure.

[isuridedes]

I don't have much experience with prepaid... With contract or month-to-month you HAVE to have a data plan, even if you never use it. All modern smartphones are designed to use WiFi over Cellular when available.

[Reeve]

Thing is, from what I've heard and read, having a data plan is useless when you're near wi-fi constantly or am I incorrect? I won't be using it to call much either and when I do I'll be sure to have some prepaid on my phone. Also I'll be profiting off of the ziggo wi-fi hotspots, unless I'm misinformed I won't need a data plan here either, correct?

I use my data plan constantly. My greatest usage of it is in streaming podcasts while I'm driving places, but it's just generally useful whenever I'm anywhere I've never hooked up to wifi before. Even if the location where I am has wifi, which is never certain, I'd still need to deal with signing in, which can sometimes be a pain. Then of course, the quality of the wifi is often questionable.

4G LTE, on the other hand, gives high speed internet every damn place everywhere, and it's not even very expensive.

[Ghazan Julio]

I like my LG G Flex OLED screen great battery and games look gorgeous.

[Wyrllish]

iphone or bust