If you’re mostly in places where you can get a free WiFi signal, you could get an iPod Touch and continue to use your crap cell phone for calls. Most of the iPhone apps are available for the iPod Touch. (Or, buy an older iPhone off-contract and use it as a pay-as-you-go phone, although you won’t get 3G services that way.)
Think of it as a mobile computer, eBook, camera (video and pics), gaming device with the Internet wherever you go, that also makes phone calls to round it all out. If that sounds appealing to you, you might see the cost as worthwhile. Especially if your job centers around anything more than taking calls.
Moved Cafe Society --> IMHO.
Verizon’s new plan structure can hold up to 10 lines sharing 20 GB. Is there anyone in town willing to go halfsies with you? It is way cheaper than having two separate accounts but you do have the problem of who is going to be financially liable.
In answer to the original question, my fiancé lets me borrow his laptop if he doesn’t need it but having my iPhone lets me do a lot more internetting and it’s way faster than my six year old Mac Mini- which admittedly is still at my parents and not at my place. If you look at my posting history it’s a lot more vibrant right now that I’ve got my own Internet source.
I love being able to read public domain books like the Sherlock Holmes series, watch Netflix when I have wifi available, and spend all day on Wikipedia.
Additionally this camera is way better than my last point and shoot box.
Visited my brother at his new house on the weekend. GPS navigation got me there without a hitch. Took some pictures of the kids playing together, shared a couple on Facebook so our parents could see them, emailed the rest to SIL.
Stopped at McDonalds on the way. Used the app to check my balance, realised I hadn’t put any money in the account linked to my card, so transferred some across.
There’s a thousand little things that just make life a tiny bit easier for me - like posting this from the couch while my toddler climbs all over me. Couldn’t do it with my laptop, don’t have a tablet. Smartphone fills the gap.
Think of a smartphone as 6 devices rolled into one:
a) phone
b) music/video player
c)camera
d)GPS device
e))portable gaming
f) web connectivity
I use my Galaxy Note for all the six of the above and it’s better at some than standalone devices. It’s worth every penny I paid for it and then some.
My primary use is probably web-reading. The Note has an excellent 5 inch screen and with the right apps I find reading on it about as comfortable as reading on my PC. It’s also a great gaming device. For the kinds of casual games I like, it’s probably a better mobile gaming device than the standalone ones from Nintendo and Sony.
Just to add to the list of useful things, I look up recipes while at the store. Something good on sale, but don’t know what to make with it? Google it! Paperless shopping lists for each store I frequent, I update the lists at home as I take the last of something I stock. I haven’t run out of stuff in a very long time because I don’t forget to buy things any more.
There are game apps for people like me who aren’t “gamers” and I find them fun and useful for killing time in waiting rooms, or places where internet is spotty. I use public transportation and my phone is worth every penny just for knowing when every bus and train is coming, plus being connected to Twitter where CTA sends updates about bus re-routes and train delays and why they’re happening, like a fire under the tracks. Useful knowledge I can share with other passengers.
I’ve also had use at work to be able to take pictures and email them to people immediately, or for fun to take pictures and upload them to facebook immediately. I used to carry a separate camera in my bag, but since I got a phone with a decent enough camera and flash, I’ve been able to ditch that weight from my bag. The other camera still takes better pictures under certain circumstances, but the camera on the phone can be pretty darned decent, so I haven’t used the Cannon in probably a year. The convenience of the phone is just too good to bother with hooking up the other camera once I get home.
I use Google maps on mine far more than the phone part. And the music player part.
A real winner is airline apps. I fly Southwest a lot, and you get your lineup number 24 hours before your flight. If you don’t have your computer with you, this is a big pain, but with my SW app I can do it from anywhere.
Standalone GPS is fine in a car. I’ve used my phone to direct me around cities while walking. And it’s free.
I presume you’re looking at like Straight Talk or Tracfone to get verizon service prepaid ? It’s going to be more expensive than a t-mobile or AT&T reseller, but you can usually get verizon data prepaid via Page Plus http://www.pagepluscellular.com/. Unfortunately verizon is the difficult one as far as other options - if you had say, AT&T available you could buy a smartphone and just not buy data at all to start, and see if talk & text cellular service plus wifi data would be enough. But I don’t think that is possible with verizon - I don’t think you can even register a verizon smartphone with Straight Talk or Tracfone, and you have to have data on Page Plus or Verizon Prepaid.
For me, the most useful aspects of having an Android smart phone are:
Email access
Calendar synched to personal and work calendars
Google maps / GPS location
Turn by turn navigation (but bring a car charger, it eats up battery life)
Camera
Find, reserve and even lock/unlock the nearest Zipcar
Internet browsing
and some other useful nice to haves:
Ferry schedule / ticketing app
Flight tracking
In my old job, I could enter my expenses right in the phone
Barcode scanning (and then finding reviews and comparable prices on that product)
Yelp! restuarant reviews
I can also text and call people
The wife and I use a shared google calendar - which we use our smartphones to both access and update.
Before this, there were issues where she would make plans involving me and/or the kids when I already had something else planned.
Now she or I can check our shared calendar to see if the other is available for whatever - and when I or her plan something in the calendar, it emails the other with a notice about whatever event.
Plus my phone is set up to show me - on the home screen - whatever event is coming up next. Right now it’s showing me that tomorrow I have to watch the kids, feed them dinner, and get them to bed on my own because she has plans.
She has a Dr. appt - I have to watch the kids a couple hours. Automatically added to my calendar. I get an email.
My fantasy football draft is coming up. Automatically added to her calendar. She gets an email.
She wants schedule family dinner with the in-laws, but she sees I have a hockey game that night - picks a different night when I’m free. Automatically added to my calendar. I get an email.
Etc…
The point of a smart phone is to settle bar bets. Full stop.
Well, I’m like you and don’t have a smart phone. I don’t talk or text much and I have full access to the internet at work and home. Even the cheapest smart phone plans aren’t cheap enough for me to want to add the cost to what I already pay for internet access at home. Besides internet/email the other big smart phone advantages seem to be for GPS, games, and a media device. I’ve simply found that in my daily life I rarely need these things in any sort of immediate sense or can’t make due with some alternative. Smart phones are great and everything but the bells and whistles aren’t worth it to me.
The smartphone functions is what a portable communication device should have been all along, the phone and txting was just a stop gap measure. It is the ability to communicate seamlessly with people, get information in real time, and play angry birds.
YMMV
The weather app is pretty good. It clearly showed the impending thunder clouds by radar which got us to hustle to finish our round of golf. The iphone is more of a mini computer with a telephone app.
no, the prepaid you buy your minutes at the store or online. they have to use the same towers as Verizon but you don’t go through them.
everything is very confusing but I understood that much.
a lot of things people talk about would make sense in a city, but I don’t live anywhere near one. in fact, it’s pretty darn rural. so, again, it would only be FUN stuff, no restaurant reviews (I’ve been IN them all!) or ferry schedules.
to make things more confusing a friend just offered to send me a free Chocolate Touch (!!) that her Mom doesn’t want anymore and she says it will work with Verizon.
so if the phone is free…I might have to try it. 
I felt much the same way - I got a smartphone solely because it wasn’t much more per month than the most basic dumb phone and plan.
I found, quite quickly, my ‘needs’ expanded to what my smartphone could do. That is to say, my needs are much the same as they were, but they were met more easily by pulling my cell out of my pocket and having…
Sorry, no what I mean is that for prepaid verizon you have at least 5 options, but only 2 of them will actually let you use a smartphone at all
1 & 2) Tracfone (and Net10, etc - all the same company) - only dumbphones/feature phone can connect on the verizon network, and you have to check to make sure the phone you are getting is a verizon phone.
3) Straight Talk - only dumbphones can be on verizon - straight talk offers prepaid smartphones but you have to use AT&T or T-Mobile.
4) Page Plus - prepaid, uses verizon, you can bring a verizon 3G smartphone and use this network
5) Verizon Wireless Prepaid - the name brand prepaid, obviously you have the full set of options for smartphones the same as if you were connecting to verizon postpaid.
My intention here was to point out Page Plus as an option, since they don’t usually have as much presence in the store as the others do.
SmartPhones are awesome, I wouldn’t want to live without them, but it is possible to get by without cellular data- they retain a large amount of functionality even if just used over wifi at home & when you can get free wifi such as at mcdonalds’, etc. But with verizon based prepaid you don’t really have the option to go without data.
I have a rooted Android device running a custom ROM, and I rarely bother getting out the laptop anymore. For me at least the smartphone was a life-changer. No matter where I am I am connected to nearly everyone I know and have the collected resources of the Network at my fingertips.
I happen to be grandfathered in on the defunct Sprint SERO plan, but right now the best deal in smartphones is the $350 GSM Galaxy Nexus through the Google Play store coupled with the $45/mo Straight Talk plan. Unlimited talk and text with about 2GB of data/mo before they complain is enough for light to moderate use. Plus, stock Android on a easily-rooted device is superior to all those carrier/manufacturer reskins.