I'm due for a $200 credit on June 12 and have been exploring options for a new phone. I currently have a HTC Touch.

I use my Touch for everything...email, text and surfing the web, mainly reading news and sports. I have unlimited text and unlimited web browser. No data plan.

I want to upgrade to a HTC Touch Pro but am told I need a data plan with this phone.

Why am I asked to pay for a data plan when I'm already using "data" on a daily basis and not paying for it?

You probably don't. The rep is just trying to tack on more to your bill.

Web activity is web activity, no matter what phone you're on.

(I have the same at the moment, HTC Touch with Unlimited Browser. It is essentially unlimited data, you just can't tether [officially])

i had the touch on that same unlimited plan, about 6 months later they let me get a touch diamond wiht no changes to my plan, kept my unlimited ofr 15$ .. im with telus

If you are on Bell then the Touch is recognized by the system as a normal phone not as a smartphone, the Diamond is considered a smartphone therefore requires a real dataplan as opposed to mobile browser access.

I know it is exactly the same data, but their billing system is told its different, so to your bill it is different.

I upgraded to the Diamond because Bell offered the $35 Smartphone bundle for $20 to Diamond customers. It gave me the same features as my Fun20 bundle, but with 500MB of data instead of unlimited browser. I rarely exceeded 500MB with my Touch, and because the Diamond has Wi-Fi I never even come close anymore.

Alright, so I was told today by a Bell rep, that if I buy the phone outright, I do not have to add a data plan.

Considering both phones do the same tasks, it's ridiculous that one's considered a smart phone and the other is not.

You do not NEED a data plan, but you'll find out quickly "pay per use" data is extremely expensive.