What I'm wondering is if you can still get an unlocked phone for $199 if you sign up for the plan. It would be more attractive to know that you can still walk away from the plan with a phone you can use elsewhere.

Elsewhere geographically, sure. But you'll still be stuck with a contract early termination fee.

True, but if you have to move for whatever reason that just becomes a cost of the move. It would be a shame to have to get a new phone on the other end of the move (in addition to the early termination fee) if you've got one that works perfectly fine now, no?

The bootloader should be unlockable all the same. They're not going to go in and lock down the bootloader on phones after they've shipped. T-Mobile will give you the unlock codes if you're a customer.

Hell, I bought a G1 and wanted to unlock it to sell to some guy and all I had to do was get a family friend with a T-Mobile to call up and ask for the unlock code for a phone with ID blah-blah-blah. They handed it right over. T-Mobile is VERY reasonable about this kind of stuff.

Hm. Same with Sprint.

I walked right in one of the stores and asked for my MSL for my phone. They looked at me and said "If you use it, we're not responsible for what happens. That could mean bricking". After I agreed, he wrote it down.

2 hours later, at a Windows programming machine, I loaded up QPST and changed the tethered NAI so now my machines can get online easily (without using tethering programs as a shim).

This is a good question. I am also curious if it will be in Canadian Best Buy stores, and if so, how much and when?

Do you really think that an unlocked phone will end up in Canadian Best Buy stores? Besides, 3G on the phone will only work under Wind. So far as I understand it, it breaks down as such:

    Canada          U.S.
    ------          --------
    Wind            T-Mobile
    Rogers,Bell     AT&T
  

All GSM phones will work for phone calls and Edge for internet, but 3G tech is outside of GSM. Due to controls over frequencies by the government, each of these networks has carved out their own band to use, which puts different hardware requirements on phone manufacturers (this is in addition to CDMA vs GSM).

Mobilicity and (in Quebec) Videotron run on the same band as Wind, so should be on this list as well.