No need to spend hundreds of dollars; just sit behind the curve a little bit. Spent $68 on an Optimus S with Ting a year ago, and it gets everything I need to do done at less than the cost of my Verizon dumbphone contract. It's as fast as the computer I took to college not that many years ago, and I got a lot done on that. Battery runs for days too, even with considerable use.

Looking forward to upgrading to an S2 or S3 when prices drop to frivolity. A larger screen will be nice.

Tools needn't be new nor flashy to be powerful.