Looking for a cheap smartphone plan that favors talking over browsing? T-Mobile just rolled out an entry-level plan that lets you talk or text all you want, but limits you to 500MB of high-speed data for $40 a month.
The Simple Starter plan's 500MB of 4G LTE doesn't follow T-Mobile's usual practice of throttling users to slower data speeds once they've passed their cap. Instead, Simple Starter lets users buy day- or week-long data passes after they've hit their limit. Simple Starter also qualifies for T-Mobile's offer to pay your early termination fee if you switch from another carrier.
That $40-a-month price tag makes Simple Starter notably cheaper than Verizon 1GB and AT&T's 2GB bottom-shelf plans, both of which offer unlimited talk and text for $60. T-Mobile is quick to point out that other carriers' plans involve overage charges if you exceed the (pretty low) data caps.
T-Mobile's outspoken CEO John Legere says today's announcement is the first in a three-day spree of new offerings. Guess we'll see what the rest of the week has to offer from the "uncarrier." [T-Mobile]
Update: We originally reported that Simple Starter adhered to T-Mobile's data throttling once users passed their data caps. Several readers alerted us that this isn't the case, and Re/code confirms. We've updated the post.