that was my line of thinking. only benefit for the other way is that you dont need to save that initial 1k and can just sign on a plan and get a phone willy nilly. also in both situations where you want to sell your phone or trade it in, youll come up ahead if you bought your phone outright. for me, i think phones are at the point where they been pretty fast if you bought a high end one like 3-4 years ago. only reason im even contemplating getting a new one is because of how much i dropped my current phone, and how its become a minor inconvenience to use because of the damage.