Shopping for Droid and provider.. Laptop replacement

[mystic1]

In June I will be taking a job driving long haul truck in the USA and I'm in need of a new phone. Considering the money grubbing providers did away with the unlimited data for laptops at a set rate I need the best replacement I can get. I'm not tied to any carrier ATM. In fact I am using a basic Straight Talk phone as I have the net at home. But thats changing.

I know little about smartphones. Only one I had was a Verizon BB Pearl. Liked the coverage hated the phone. I will not consider an iPhone.

What I must have:

-Unlimited Data/Talk/Text-Pic messaging (no limits on handset use MANDATORY)-Skype and video messaging would be nice too
-Best coast to coast talk coverage. I can deal with slower data in BFE but must have talk.
-Price isn't going to be a big deal, everything will be a tax write off
-WiFi
-Tethering to laptop option
-Ability to pay phone bill online using phone.
-Ability to use my online banking ((Bank Of America) I'm sure they probably all do this; right?))
-I'm fine with signing a contract

I like the Atrix but I have read that the dock is really slow; true?

Basically I want as close to a laptop replacement as I can get in a phone. I have been mainly using a HP Netbook at home and that fits all of my needs for the most part.

Please recommend phone and provider.

Thank you for your time.

[Steve.G]

Wirelessly posted (Steve's phone: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9650; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.1+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.431 Mobile Safari/534.1+)

Atrix being on att means no unlimited data.

[i0wnj00]

What I must have:

-Unlimited Data/Talk/Text-Pic messaging (no limits on handset use MANDATORY)-Skype and video messaging would be nice too
-Best coast to coast talk coverage. I can deal with slower data in BFE but must have talk.
-Price isn't going to be a big deal, everything will be a tax write off
-WiFi
-Tethering to laptop option
-Ability to pay phone bill online using phone.
-Ability to use my online banking ((Bank Of America) I'm sure they probably all do this; right?))
-I'm fine with signing a contract

I like the Atrix but I have read that the dock is really slow; true?.

Highlighted in bold.
AT&T doesn't offer unlimited data for smartphones anymore to new sign ups. Secondly, AT&T charges extra for tethering and recently began enforcing their TOS in regards to tethering. AT&T used to turn a blind eye towards tethering on the wrong data plan, but not anymore.

If you want to use the loophole to get iPhone 2G unlimited data plan then it might work on the Atrix, but once you start tethering they will warn you use the $45 4GB Data Pro /w tethering plan (or you can just pay more for the $60 5GB Dataconnect).

At this point you should look at other carriers besides AT&T...

[mystic1]

I'm not looking at any one carrier over the other. I thought i heard something on TV that AT&T was offering unlimited. Might have miss heard might have been old info, I don't know.

The fact that AT&T does not offer unlimited takes them off the table completely for me. I understand tethering costs more and I'm ok with that. Also I understand tethering has bandwidth limits and I'm fine with that too.

I just want to make sure that what ever I do from the handset its self is unlimited. I would be willing to pay a larger amount if I knew everything is unlimited thats not a problem. I just want to make sure that I'm locked in at a set price and there is no way for them to say I went over any imaginary limits and charge me more.

Last time I was in a trucking job I was smoking threw at least 6/7k minutes a month and who knows how much bandwidth as I never paid any attention.

I guess this leaves me with Verizon. My only problem with them is I have never had them honor their insurance plans. This is why I left them before.

Thanks for the responses.

[mystic1]

Sorry to have wasted peoples time with this thread. If I had just gone to AT&T I would have seen that they don't offer unlimited data. That with the fact that their coverage area isn't as good as Verizon I guess I'll be stuck going back to them. I keep leaving them. I wish there was someone that would take them out.

Unless something bigger and better comes along I'll be going with the Thunderbolt in June. Unless of course I don't get in before they do away with unlimited then I'll just upgrade to one of the garbage Straight Talk BB phones and buy unlimited threw them for $45 a month. Slower yes but I'm not gonna be ripped off. I'll just hunt for WiFi with my laptop.

Thanks for your time once again.