I got another phone.
A few days ago I dropped my Nexus 5 and shattered the glass. When I signed up with T-Mobile the sales rep assured me that the insurance deductible on that device was only $50, but come to find out Asurion actually charges a $150 deductible for the Nexus 5. I simply won't pay a $150 deductible to refurb-swap a device that retails for $350; that's just outrageous. And then I'd have yet
another $85 monthly bill to pay a few days later. After looking around for deals I decided to cut my losses and cancel my service. I told T-Mobile I'd just have to owe them the balance.
So, I walked into Best Buy yesterday and bought a new Moto G on Boost. I've already unlocked it and installed
Carbon ROM, which is quite nice on this device.
$59.99 full retail price, plus Best Buy gave me a $5 gift card that covered sales tax. No contract or equipment plan. Right now Boost is doing a $35/mo unlimited-everything promo w/ 1GB of high-speed data and I went with that, so my monthly bill is much more reasonable at $38 and some change after taxes and fees. I recieve roughly the same level of service I was paying T-Mobile $85/mo for.
Additionally, all non-LTE Moto G buyers get a free 50GB Google Drive extension for two years; just make sure you launch Drive and redeem it before wiping the stock ROM
Now for the phone itself... I've actually been very impressed considering the price. It's on-par with the Nexus 5 as features and capability go. While being roughly half as powerful as the Nexus, the screen resolution is also halved at 720p so you barely notice the lack of processing power. The screen density, while lower, is still on-par with Apple's Retina devices. Overall, it's plenty fast enough; it can be sluggish at times, but my Nexus 5 was also sluggish in the same situations.
The Moto G really shines in call quality and the rear speaker; it blows the Nexus 5 out of the water in both departments. The main detractors are 8gb of internal storage vs. 16gb on the Nexus, and the display isn't as bright as the N5's in full sunlight. Still, for the peace-of-mind a $60 phone brings and the added bonus of cutting my monthly bill in half I can happily live with the drawbacks.