Owing to employer billing suckiness, I'm thinking of getting MetroPCS service -- unlimited minutes/LD/texting/web for $45/month.

Anyone have any good or bad experiences?

Anyone have any recommendations on decent phones?

as long as you dont care about service and dont travel much, its a good buy. best local idea out there for the money. but all my friends and associates who go out of town get the shittiest signals trying to call me on theirs.

I've had MetroPCS for a few days now. In random driving, service has been reasonable. It's not as nice as my old AT&T GSM coverage, but mostly works and isn't leading to billing headaches for my particular situation, so I'll live. I don't travel as much lately, so I should be able to live with its limitations.

I got the Samsung SCH r410 because it has QWERTY keyboard and I got a deal on it. For most people, the phone would be sucky, as would all of the MetroPCS-sold phones. But it does what I need it to do so I'll live with it. I've mostly made it my bitch, with the notable exception of the camera.