An employee of mine asked me why I bought a droid phone instead of a new iPhone 4.

First off, I despise Apple's contempt for their customers. I complained about Apple making me pay for a charger for the iPod in a previous article. And Steve Jobs denial of a problem with the iPhone 4 recently has not changed my opinion of the company.

Given a choice between an Apple product or a knock-off I will choose the knock-off because I will be treated better by that manufacturer, I will not be locked into buying peripheral products at inflated prices, and I will have a greater choice of colors, sizes, and models than with any Apple product.

With a droid, I am not locked into only one cell carrier or into one plan that is more expensive because it is Apple-sanctioned. With the droid I get a choice of screen sizes and the APPS do not have to be APPLE-Approved. In short order, the droid will have ten times as many APPS.

Here's the suggestion I made to my employee: buy an unlocked, unsubsidized GSM phone which allows you to swap out your SIM card when traveling so you can buy the cheapest SIM card of whatever country you are in. In addition, in certain circumstance it can even save you money with AT&T's data plan.

If you ignore my advice and sign up for new service with AT&T you can get iPhone 4 for $199.00 with $25 per month limited dataplan for two years. This comes out to $799 without taxes and fees over the 24 month period. But if you listen to me and instead buy a Samsung Galaxy S for about $535 from overseas (which includes shipping) you can get on AT&T's family data unlimited plan for $10.00 per month. This comes to $775 with much less taxes and less fees. In addition, if you need to tether your laptop to your phone there is no charge with your Samsung whereas with the iPhone 4 AT&T will charge you an extra $20 a month for this service whether you use it or not - now that's a scam.

Worse, with the iPhone 4 if you go over the 2 GB limit, you will be charged $10 extra for every GB you go over - a fee you will not incur with your Samsung.

Having such a phone will also allow you to easily switch to T-Mobile if you ever become unsatisfied with AT&T. Should you travel abroad the Samsung can be used with foreign-bought SIMs, something you definitely cannot use with the iPhone 4.