I need help getting a new cell phone carrier

[mostlyghostly]

I recently decided to kick my budget into shape, starting with my cell phone bill. I am a high data/texting user, not too much talk. I lost my iPhone 4 a couple weeks ago so I'm looking for a good replacement too. I've come up with three potential solutions but I have no experience with the carriers I'm looking at. Here they are:

Plan A
Ting Mobile. Their rates are here. They were suggested in the Communications Superguide on the forum and they seem like they have good customer service and could keep my costs lowest. Ideally my usage would fall in at $3/month text + $3/month messages + $12/month data. I'd get an iPhone to take advantage of iMessage and use a VoIP client over my home wifi to get more time to talk. I don't know how good their coverage is though and if 500 MB is enough data. Anybody with Ting have any experience to share?

Plan B
Virgin Mobile's BeyondTalk plan for $35/month. It's got unlimited text & unlimited data (well, first 2.5 GB are at 3G/4G speeds, then I've heard they throttle hard) and 300 minutes a month. With this I could go with a cheaper Android handset since I wouldn't have to worry about texting limits and I'd use VoIP at home. I've seen some downright terrible reviews about their customer service though, and their coverage looks to be second-rate. I do live in Chicago though and don't travel frequently, for what that's worth.

Plan C
T-Mobile's $30/month prepaid plan. It's got unlimited text and web, but this goes up to 5 GB before they throttle the speed. Only 100 minutes though so I might end up overly reliant on VoIP. I know next to nothing about their customer service or their coverage. 

To make it difficult, each carrier only wants you to bring a carrier-specific handset and there's no room for crossover. I've also heard worrisome rumors about Google Voice so I'm concerned my plan to use VoIP/SIP for talking won't work. Anybody have any experience with these carriers or plans? Or any other, similar plans for people on a budget. I'm anxious to start working those frugality muscles!

[Shade00]

Well - if you can't get by on 500mb or less your options are limited for budget phones. A Moto G on Republic Wireless gets you unlimited Sprint 3G data, but that's not a whole lot of good. You've named some of the better options, but another good one if you have strong T-mobile coverage is Brightspot Mobile. It's Target's Tmo MVNO. They have a $35 plan with 300 minutes/unlimited texts/3gb data. Using the Target Red Card gets you 5% off and you get a $25 Target gift card for every six on-time payments. To me it's a much better deal than the Tmo $30 prepaid plan because of the extra minutes. An added benefit is voice and data roaming is included on Brightspot.

To get close to that data on other plans you'll have to jump to $45 on something like Cricket for unlimited talk/text/2.5gb data.

A good all-around phone for either Tmo or AT&T would be a Moto G (I like the Moto E as well, but the G has an LTE model).

[Daley]

Here's my thoughts:

If you're seriously willing to do $30/month or more (two of those three plans run $30+ and Ting will be just shy of $30 after fees and taxes) and you can get by with 500MB of data a month or less, why are you bothering with Sprint or T-Mobile based options given they're the two smallest networks? Best deal and best coverage will be with an AT&T MVNO. Airvoice or H2O Wireless will give you "unlimited" talk, text and 500MB of data for $30/month, then you don't even have to worry about offloading to VoIP. If you want to go with a T-Mobile MVNO, $35 gets you into the 500MB high-speed and/or unmetered 2G data territory. This also lets you bring any dang carrier unlocked GSM phone you like to the party.

The coming suggestions of Republic is silly, because any mobile data is going to stick you into the exact same price range and it'll lock you to a proprietary provider and handset, and Sprint's data network leaves a few things to be desired.

As for replacement "smartphones", don't bother with an LTE capable handset, you don't need that much data throughput given modern 3G (sometimes billed as 4G) being more than plenty (I get by just fine on 2G EDGE speeds), and true 4G LTE services aren't typically available to MVNOs... not that it matters much anyway, the faster the connection, the faster you'll blow through your data and the more you'll use anyway. Embrace the throttled speeds. If you need/want help with cutting your data usage, give this a read.

If you have to buy new, the Moto E is a reasonable choice for the money even if I hate the non-user replaceable battery... but you should probably take the time to just shop used/refurbished. It's a more responsible and frugal choice all around.