[fluxquanta]

I can't comment on New York City's cell service, but I can talk about Sprint and a phone that fits your criteria.

I've been with Sprint for just over two years now. Started with a Palm Pre which I replaced last December with their "Epic 4G", which now is only $99 with a 2 year contract. Last time I checked, this phone was the only Samsung Galaxy S model with a slide out keyboard. Of course 10 months in the phone world is a long time, and now there's the Galaxy S II's coming out, but it looks like AT&T is the only carrier that will have a slide out keyboard version, and I'll never go back to them.

But anyway, my Epic is still going strong after daily use, and in fact increased usage lately since I did away with my standalone MP3 player and now run a media server on my PC that I access via the phone, and I have yet to run into any real problems, and I haven't felt the desire for anything "more powerful" (although I do have the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which I actually use a lot less than the phone for music playing and web browsing -- the tab is basically a bedside PC). And I'm with you on the slide out keyboard front. It just feels better. But I do find myself using "Swype" half the time for typing, which in itself is pretty neat. New York City would likely be even better for the Epic, because of the 4G coverage that my area probably won't see for another decade. Samsung/Sprint are pretty notorious for not putting out very speedy updates to their phones, so I run the "CyanogenMod" and like it a lot.

As far as Sprint goes, my bill, while I still consider it pretty high for what I use the phone for (hardly ever any voice calls, mostly internet and e-mail, some texting), is cheaper than my AT&T bill ever was (about $80/month compared to about $100/month I was paying for a 2G Blackberry). Never hit a bandwidth cap or anything like that. The only time I ever felt truly ripped off is when I sometimes go to Canada, where I managed to rack up a $220 bill one month, and $150 another time. But really, that's my own fault. Plus, at least for my subscription, and it may be true for new subscribers as well -- I can roam to Verizon towers for free. Sprint doesn't have "the network", but if you can use Verizon for free for significantly less money, it's a no brainer.