I'll also add that spending habit data is very valuable in terms of advertisement. We are in the age of very targetted advertisement. Just a random example: *user14555* on our T-Mobile app eats at a restaurant for lunch every Thursday. Have the app pop-up with a coupon from one of our participating restaurants on Thursday morning.
Restaurant will pay or give exclusive coupons to T-Mobile in exchange for these benefits. T-Mobile then hopes to entice more users by listing their app and "exclusive coupons" as unique benefit to using them as a cellphone provider. All the major providers have more or less settled at similar prices for cellphone plans so they lean on these extras as marketing tools.
Asus zen phone had received great reviews. You can use it as stock Android or with Asus' slight customizations. It's on the smaller side but it's a good price.