I am shopping around for a good phone! HELP!

Nobody can help you in this matter because its a thing only with your liking. If i am going to pick a phone now, i will certainly look for 'Nokia X3-02 Touch and Type' only because i feel it looks nice.

Hubby has his thru Virgin Mobil. He pays a bit less than $30 for unlimited data, text, and 200 min a month. Only catch is you have to buy your phone outright. And if you think about it those other carriers charge you so much because they are breaking down the cost of the phone IMO during the duration of your contract.

I am going to give you the same advise I give everyone who is searching for either their first phone, or a new phone. The first thing I usually say is don't upgrade for the sake of upgrading. Quite often its not worth the time or money. bare in mind upgrading isn't for everyone and shouldn't be done so frivisully. Now that I have that out of the way I can get onto my pointers for upgrading, or buying new. Sit down and look at what features you use on your phone. What can you live without, what features are a must-have? Look at what you're spending verses what you use. Then look at the features of the phone. Compare them to phones you want to buy. Each phone is different, and not all features are the same. So you need to compare and see which phones have the features that are found on your must-have list. Second look at price. What can you aford, and what can't you? What services do you need and what services can you do without? Keep in mind, voice mail, call waiting and caller ID are common features found on every cell phone so you can eleminate those. Focous instead on features that will cost you such as text messaging, web browsing, streaming video, e-mail and music streaming (all features commonly with data use) and figure out what you use and what you can do without out. Carriers often charge big bucks for data, so if you can figure out where you need the data and where you don't, you'll save money and time. You mentioned text messaging is important to you as well. While providers often charge per text, they also offer text messaging plans that for one flat rate you get so many texts a month. Go over that limit and you pay per text for every message you send and recieve that's over your cap. If you're like me and can easily use 1,000 plus messages/month look for an unlimited text messaging plan. Most carriers provide them and the price can range from ten to twenty/month depending on carrier. Also keep in mind, most carriers also offer pricing plans that give you talk, text and data for one flat rate. So look into and research into those. I would look into going to wal-mart and look into streight talk powered by T-mobile. Its almost like a pre-paid phone, but you get charged a monthly rate . Try metropcs, and other smaller companies as well. Compare coverage area, otherwise your phone will be useless. Fallow thease simple tips, and you should have the perfect phone that should last you quite a bit.