Why I Switched to Windows Phone, Part 1.5

I know a lot of you are anxiously waiting for part two of this series. I’m going to publish it eventually! It’s not an easy post to write, and I had to scrap another draft an hour ago. Someday…

In the meantime, I present a follow-up to part one, where we discussed the absurd price difference between an iPhone and a Windows Phone in Canada.

I’m sure by now you’ve heard that I moved.

I switched my HD7 to an American plan this weekend. That’s a fun story in and of itself, but it got me thinking about how much trouble I’d be in if I had gone the Rogers/iPhone route.

For one thing, Wind has fantastic roaming rates. This has been very useful, since I gave my number to a bunch of moving and relocation contacts before leaving Canada, and had to keep it to stay in touch with them once I arrived. You can’t really beat 20¢ per minute.

Were I still on Rogers, these calls would have cost me $1.45 per minute. That’s over 7 times as much!

It gets even uglier if you look at text. Wind doesn’t charge anything for incoming text messages — even here in the US — and they still only charge 15¢ outgoing. Rogers charges 75¢ each way, so for one incoming and one outgoing message, Rogers is 10 times more expensive.

Of course, worst of all is data. Assuming no prior arrangements are made (though Wind wins there as well) Wind charges $1/MB. A little high? Yes. But Rogers? A whopping $10.24/MB.

Unreal.

And then there are the early termination fees.

Do you know how much Wind charged me to cancel my contract with them? Nothing. Even though I signed up for a 12-month promotion, they don’t consider that a contract and it cost me absolutely nothing to cancel my “plan” 3 months in.

If I had gone the iPhone/Rogers route, it’s a whole other story.

I would have signed up for a 3-year plan on a brand new 4S, and I would have done it about a week before Rogers (slightly) lowered their early cancellation penalties. That wouldn’t have applied to me, since the new rules are only effective for contracts starting on or after January 22nd.

Under the old scheme, I would have paid the lesser of of $400 or $20 times the number of months left in my contract ($400 is lower), and the lesser of $100 or $5 times the number of months left in my contract ($100 is lower). Plus tax.

All told, I would have been out $565 for my early cancellation.

I was really happy with Wind. I heartily recommend them to anyone in the Canadian cities they cover. But I am really, really happy I didn’t go with Rogers.