<human>: I split off my family's Verizon plan in an attempt to be more independent but also to avoid the annoying "data usage" texts that both my father and Verizon would send me.

After three months of paying the overage fee I told them I was breaking off and signing up with T-Mobile.

I tried the flagship Samsung Galaxy S7, but found the phone not all that impressive for the price tag and returned it. I found that I was missing many of the features I thought were commonplace on all flagship phones (iMessage, long battery life, smooth performance, etc.).

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T-Mobile is $70/mo for the plan, + $x/mo for the financing of the phone.

The iPhone 7 is $27/mo for the 32GB.

Google is announcing their own phone in October which will be around $650 total with the option to finance unlocked through Google, if rumors are true.

For the next day or so T-Mobile is doing a $100 trade-in deal, where I can finance a 7 for 2 years for $100 total. That seems like a great deal, but I worry about locking myself in for 2 years. If I decide to leave at any point, it will cost me the price of the full phone ($650).

So what should I do? Finance full-price for $27/mo so I can upgrade after 50% is paid off, or finance for $100 for 24 months and be stuck with the 7 for 2 years?

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Going back to Verizon will not be possible, for humiliation reasons and because I would be spending more there.

My father was against me doing this but I was tired of him controlling what I did with my phone, tracking my location, and monitoring my data usage.

I want to go with the cheapest, but also most sensible route.

Can you condense the text into a few key points?
<bot>: Need help deciding how to finance my phone. I want the new iPhone, after trying Android and being disappointed with the performance and lack of iMessage.