The funny thing is I surg a ton, download tunes, listen to podcasts, view movies, videos, etc and it NEVER skips, stalls or gives me that horrendous buffeting crap. The network is great. I highly recommend this type of phone for anyone who decries all of the bloatware that the majority of Android devices come pre-loaded with. Plain vanilla Android, for me at least, is the way to go.
As for price, my wife was already on T-Mobile so adding a second phone was a snap. I was paying $100 per month with the all inclusive date plan and my wide was paying about $85. Now with the Family Plan we are paying less (combined) then were were under two separate contracts.