EDITED ON 2/15/2012
Since my original review I have received a couple of comments informing me that T-Mobile has dropped their web daypass option. Furthermore over the past year there has been an explosion of cheap android phones released to be used on cheap pre-paid plans. Given these two changes to the market since my original review, I no longer feel that the T-Mobile Comet represents the best value in this segment and have lowered my rating to a merely "average" 3 stars.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
Between home and the office, I spend a lot of time within reach of a land line and a computer with internet access. So as much as I may have wanted a smart phone previously, I just haven't been able to justify spending upwards of $80 a month for one. I've been waiting a long time for a carrier to offer a smart phone with a pay-as-you-go pricing model and after about two weeks of use I can say that I am very happy with the T-Mobile Comet.
I've been using T-Mobile's 10 cents per minute pre-paid plan for several years previously with a cheap, extremely basic Samsung t209 phone. While I wouldn't really call T-Mobile's call quality or coverage "great", I would definitely say that it has been "good enough" for me while living around Boston and San Francisco, and the price has certainly been reasonable. Historically I have spent about $10 to $12 per month on average on my cell phone bill. I also have family members on the same plan who spend even less.
A lot of reviews that compare the Comet to iPhones or other Android phones that can be purchased for $100 to $200 dollars (or even for free) along with an expensive post-paid plan and a two year commitment really seem to miss the point. A $100 phone on an $80 dollar per month plan is going to end up costing more than $2,000 over the lifetime of the two-year commitment. On the other hand, a person who purchases a $200 Comet and spends about $20 a month on average in prepaid minutes and web access is going to spend about $700 over that same period. Is there *any* smart phone out there that's good enough to justify the 3x price difference? For my needs, definitely not.
The real utility of this phone and T-Mobile's pricing structure is the ability to purchase a "Web Day Pass", which gets you 24 hours of data access at the cost of $1.49 on the days you need it. As I mentioned before, I don't need internet access on my phone most days but there are times when it can be a real life saver. For example when you're out on the road in an unfamiliar city, use it to look up restaurant reviews and save yourself an unpleasant experience. Or use it to get directions if you're lost. Check prices and reviews on Amazon when you're shopping, or retrieve some important piece of information from your inbox or the web that you forgot to write down before leaving the house. Having access to the web in any one of these situations is well worth the $1.49 cost.
I should note that if you're a bigger talker than me (i.e. you have friends) and worry that paying 10 cents per minute would add up pretty quickly, then you might also want to look at T-Mobile's pre-paid $30-per-month plan which includes 1,500 minutes and 20 MB of data access. 20 MB isn't a lot, but you could probably stretch it a long way if you were to lay off the youtube and use it sparingly. If you do happen to use up your 20 MB before the month is over, then you can resort to buying Web Day Passes to get you through the rest of the month.
I should also note that for a few dollars less you can buy a Nokia Nuron, which probably offers a roughly equivalent set of features, but without the advantages of running Android or having a capacitive touch screen (I've read that browsing the web and using the touch screen in general on the Nuron can be quite painful). Or, for a few dollars more you can buy an LG Optimus T which according to CNET is considerably nicer than the Comet. Both of these phones should work on the T-Mobile prepaid plans, and therefore offer excellent value.
A couple of other features that I have found useful are the ability to make Skype phone calls over Wi-Fi, the Google Voice Search feature (it's surprisingly accurate), and the ability to store and play mp3s (it comes with 2 GB of storage, and is expandable to 32 GB. Sound quality over headphones is not as good as an iPod though). One negative that you should be well aware of is that the camera is a piece of junk. This is something that I read about in almost all of the reviews but even then I was surprised at just how bad it is. Think late 1990's web cam, and you should have an idea of just how bad this thing is.
Overall, though, I think that this phone and especially T-Mobile's pay-as-you-go plan is a fantastic value, and would highly recommend it to anyone who is a) not a millionaire, and b) doesn't have their monthly cell phone bill paid for them by their employer or parents.
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