no you dont have to pay extra to use the i776 or the i9 on that $50 plan. as a dealer, i can tell you that porting the number has been flawless for most of my customers coming from att,verizon, tmob,alltel,cricket and pocket. most of them go through within half a day. i've had some ports transfer in about an hour and half.

now on to the personal opinions. i find value on the $50 bc i use it mainly to talk and the latency on walkie is great, reliable. the texting is not great, especially if you've ported your number in, or even with the boost prefix. i let my customers know from the get go that the texting is not all that great. usually the first response i get is "i dont use that much, that's for kids". most people wud b disappointed with the texting. it is what it is. plus just about every carrier has some sort of issue with something, so no surprises here.

other than that most customers are happy with the service.