I've been considering switching to T-Mobile, and have come to the conclusion that much of the "uncarrier" business is just advertising hype, unless you already have a phone you're bringing to T-Mobil. But if you're starting from scratch:
Yes, you're not paying for a subsidized phone in your monthly bill. But you're paying 1/24th of the price of the phone in your bill every month for the first two years. Comparing total monthly payments, Sprint subsidized plan to T-Mobile, the total monthly charges were pretty much the same.
Yes, you don't have a two year contract, but if you're buying the phone on a payment plan, and cancel your service, you need to pay off the balance of the phone. If you cancel in the first year, on a high-priced phone, that's going to be as much or more than Sprint's ETF.
Yes, you can upgrade early. Essentially a year early based on the 50% of price policy. But you've already paid $120 over that year, plus half the cost of the phone. As an example take a $650 phone: Over the first year, you pay $375 in payments, plus $120 in fees, for a total of $495. And you need to give T-Mobile your old phone as a trade-in when you "jump". On Sprint, you'd have to pay full price for a new phone, another $650. But you can then sell the old phone, probably for a couple of hundred bucks, making your total cost only $450. It's CHEAPER to upgrade every year on a Sprint subsidized plan than a T-Mobile jump plan.
The only way this plan saves you any real money is if you keep your phone longer than 2 years, not shorter. It's a great marketing scheme, but it's not saving you any money or letting you do anything you can't do on other carriers.
