T-Mobile offers iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S4 and No More Contracts

In a move which many hope will become a trend among cell phone and wireless providers, T-Moble announced this week that they are moving away from contracts with their customers. Additionally, the company was pleased to announce that on April 5th, it will offer both the iPhone 5 and, starting in May, the Samsung Galaxy S4 to its customers.

But there is a catch. Traditionally, providers use multi-year cell phone contracts as a way to recover the costs for new smart phones provided to new customers at a discount. To get the iPhone 5 or the Samsung Galaxy S4, without a contract, consumers will have to buy them at full price. The purchase, however, can be paid in $20 installments over 24 months after $99.99 down.

The good news here seems to be that, while you may be obligated to pay for your phone for 2 years, is you don’t like the service, you are under no obligation to stay with the provider.

According to the company, T-Mobile plans, which include unlimited talk and text, start at $50 per month. This would give users 500MB of data usage over the 4G network. For $10 more, the data is upped to 2GB, while and unlimited data plan sells for $70 per month.

The prices are very competitive, even if you add in the extra $20 per month if you purchase a new phone. T-Mobile also announced that it is expanding its 4G LTE network and expects to cover areas to include roughly 200 million users in the U.S. by the end of the year.