[mdasen]

I can explain why a smartphone costs more to add-on than a basic phone. If you buy an iPhone, you're paying $200 for a $650 phone. If you buy a random dumbphone, you're likely paying $0-50 for a $100-200 phone. As such, the carrier has a much smaller subsidy to recoup. If Americans bought phones without a subsidy, then data would be data. However, that isn't the case.

In the end, it probably comes out around the same. Over two years, you pay an extra $240 ($10/mo) while getting a $250-$350 additional subsidy up-front.

In terms of the price difference between laptops and tablets, I can't see a reason for that. At least the iPad is sold unsubsidized and so I can't see why they would want to charge more for it. Maybe they're assuming the laptop users will (due to the nature of having a full computing interface) use more data and that they'll make up the low add-on fee with additional usage. That logic seems a bit weak to me, but it might be what they're thinking.

[detst]

Of course you're right about basic/smartphone difference. I'm not sure how I overlooked that. It'd be nice to see a lower base rate but they've convinced the average consumer to be happy to get a "free" phone every two years.

It's actually $10/mo more for non-tablets, which results in the absurd situation where you're paying $10/mo more for the right to use a device where you'll likely need to pay more, again, for data. Of course, the average consumer won't notice this absurdity, which I believe is the basis for all of their pricing logic.