[Desire General] quicksite:
mroek -- it's a very good question. The same one I wrestled with when I bought my European GSM Hero. But there were 4 factors that "sold" me on doing this:

(1) I am a T-Mobile USA customer and they did not offer the Hero (I think they had deals with Motorola for the Cliq and prob had a deal with Google to not carry the Hero,so that t-Mo USA would then get exclusivity for Nexus One -- this is how it all works). So if I wanted the Hero, I had to suck it up. But looking at what t-Mobile offered on their 3-G network in USA? mytouch? forget it. Cliq? I looked at it and tried it -- awful and cheap feel. An older G1? So factor 1: Carrier constraints, and my desire to have the Hero and SenseUI

(2) Battery Drain -- The more I read, the more I learned over and over that 3G usage drained battery at hugely faster rates than 2G access.. And this was a huge mitigator for me... But only when coupled with #3 ...

(3) 70%of the time, maybe 80% of the time, I am at a wifi spot, and so 3G is utterly irrelevant in 70-80% of my usages. And 90% of the rest of my usages are in the car... And frankly, I am fine with 2G using Opera Mini to stay in touch with email... I;'m surely not going to browse CNN or BBC when driving. The other small percentage is walking around. Similarly, I don't need constant connectivity in my life... So, based on the largest argument being "who cares about 3G when I have wifi that blows it away anyway?", I was fine with that decision, and happy that someone pointed it out to me.

(3b) Eventually, in October or Nov 09 Telus of Canada was set to offer the Hero on a GSM network... I was a day or two away from ordering my Hero from Europe, and quickly investigated. Nope. Only offering 3G on the ATT network in USA.

(4) So many reports from places across the nation in USA would say "Yeah, I have 3G, theoretically -- when I can connect, and when I am in a zone where I get that reception"... with many complaining that in NYC for exmaple, they rarely could make use of 3G.

So, all of those same reasons apply in this case.

I really think the whole 3G/ 4G thing has been such a marketing hype ... 3-4 years ago Google proposed to City of San Francisco to let them provide the whole city with free wifi coverage everywhere. Who do you think intervened in the 11th hour to prevent the Mayor from accepting this offer -- which actually had an emergency communication system advantage in addition to convenience and "digital divide" access argument?

Right. AT&T and Verizon. Damn if a competing pipeline is going to crap on their carefully guarded profit structure. But the dam is cracking. Google's selling of the Nexus One any bypassing the carriers is another volley in the battle for FREEDOM OF CHOICE in bandwidth providers, with no special protections given to huge telcos (who happen to also spy on all US citizens at a fiber optic hub here in SF, but that's another story). AT&T was negotiating with Google to get the Nexus One next, with an AT&T rate plan, but they dicked around so long and probably insisted on a ridiculous percentage of subsidy from Google for the cost of the phones that Google finally said F*** IT, we don't give a **** about your rate plans, we are now offfering the Nexus One on AT&T 3G bands for anyone who wants to buy this phone. LOSER: AT&T

So, these are my arguments why it is very smart to get the phone I want -- vs -- play hostage to USA carriers who are always dicking people around.