Nexus 5 isn't offered on T mobiles no contract so you're comparing a full contract phone with a no contract phone, apples and oranges.
Hell if you're on 2 year contract there's always been no end of phones out there, and the Nexus 5 looks like a beaut.
Have fun with that $17x24 + $$$$ a month ****.
FWIW the S3 is $468 on T mobile. Their plans are also pretty wienie. Like that $30 plan seems engineered so that the 100 minutes is just a little too few a month to stay under.
I agree however with the coverage issues. Hasn't been a big deal with my 3g Triumph but I may soon be moving up to 4 lte and San Diego like I suppose Seattle still isn't officially a 4 lte region on Sprint- though many users are now reporting 4lte on a spotty basis. Allegedly by spring or so they will be complete. I think that's what "roll out" really means is that by them they can guarantee 100% coverage.
(off topic?) Doesn't help I see stuff on the news a lot about homeowners rallying at city council meetings to block cell tower installs when they hear one's coming to their neighborhood. You KNOW every one of them owns a cell phone, what selfish NIMBYism. If I had the time I'd attend all the meetings and speak in rebuttal and ask them all to empty their pockets and say "shame, shame, shame".
(real off topic)Besides it's dumb! If you understand how a transceiver works, you know that the risk from the amount of power the cell station puts out when it's 500 ft from your house is inconsequential to the risk from the amount of power from the phone stuck to your ear when it transmits back to it. And if a house is real close to it it will be below the plane of altitude of transmission from the waveguide.
(super real off topic) Now walk around with a cell tower stuck to your ear and we'll talk about health risk.