Cell phone recommendations

I'm at the end of a two year contract, which was my first cell phone actually, and the one thing I learned was that I didn't use it nearly enough to justify paying the 450 minutes/month with Verizon.

I am thinking about going to a pay per use/day phone, and wanted to know if there had been any particularly good or bad experiences with this set up, and if certain providers are better than others.

I have also thought about a cool smart phone since browsing the web on the run would be fun and helpful. However, I cannot find any sorts of plans that would allow me data access, but allow a pay per use voice rate, since I see my data use on the device being more relevant than the voice minutes.

Does anyone know how to negotiate or ask for such a setup? I did go to a Verizon store, but they looked at me like I was a Martian.

Thanks!