Ditch Your iPhone

With the first wave of iPhone contracts expiring in June, consumers have plenty of other options.

Imagine a smart phone that worked on only one carrier's network. Now add in the cost of a wallet-draining $20 monthly data plan. The thing has no keyboard, and you can't even swap out the battery if you're on the road and want to keep on talking without stopping to charge up.

You don't have to imagine it--it's been here since 2007, and it's called the iPhone. In fact, if you were among the first to buy the original iPhone in June 2007, your two-year contract is almost up. Sure, you could buy the upgraded version, the iPhone 3G, and sign up for a new two-year contract if you're willing to shell out $199 for the phone and another $30 a month for the data plan. But guess what? It's now "the future," and you've got options.

The iPhone 3G is one heck of a phone, to be sure. It's a first-rate digital media player; it can handle e-mail and light Web surfing--oh, and you can use it to talk to people, too. And, thanks to Apple's (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) App Store, it's almost infinitely customizable. Looking for a portable gaming device that also lets you control your desktop computer remotely? The iPhone can do that.

The iPhone, however, is no longer your only option if you want a touch-screen, multi-function smartphone. So if you're not comfortable with AT&T Wireless, for whatever reason, you've got plenty of options.

Verizon Wireless is now countering the iPhone with a raft of touch-screen phones from Samsung, Research In Motion (nasdaq: RIMM - news - people ), HTC and others. T-Mobile carries both the G1, which is powered by Google's (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) Android operating system, and the Sidekick, a Web-savvy smartphone with a slide-out keyboard and a cult following that predates the iPhone.

Sprint (nyse: S - news - people ) will soon be selling the Palm Pre (see "Palm Strikes Back"). And there's more on the way, with a host of iPhone-inspired smartphones introduced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week.

The so-called netbook represents another alternative that has broken into the mainstream since the iPhone's launch. The tiny, low-cost notebook computers are selling fast, driving down the average selling price of computers across the entire PC industry. With a broadband data plan, one of these will still cost you less than an iPhone each month, yet a good netbook includes a user-friendly keyboard and much of the functionality you'll find in a personal computer.