UK phone contract

Is a mobile phone bill still typically $70 in the US?
Here in the UK things are sometimes crazy. A friend of mine got a new phone with a 12-month contract, and get this: it's a Samsung 19300 Galaxy S III. It has HD screen and everything. And she gets free UK calls, unlimited texts, and 100MB of data... all for about $25 a month!
That's just crazy! Why the heck did I spend $700 when I bought a Galaxy Note SIM-free?

High-rez, 5-inch screen. Good camera. Etc. Apart from my slight dislike for Android, this is a beautiful phone.
I love the new phones with 5-inch screens for reading (and web surfing, video, etc). Apple is shooting themselves in the foot by not making one.

Update:
Bruce said:

Mobile bills in the US are still that high or higher.
I got my S3 last April and love it. Its a GSM and I took it to Eastern Europe with me, switched out the SIM and was up and running. 4G was everywhere, so I had good internet the whole time.
I used it as an e-reader and took lots of photos of the grandkids. 
It seemed to do everything I needed and saved me having to carry three other devices, an e-reader, a camera, and a pad/tablet for e-mail. In today's restricted carry on environment, that was a big help. Security ignored phones, but gave laptops and pads close looks.

Just so!
I always want reading material with me. Which means an iPad Mini at least, which means I need to bring a bag, and keep an eye on that continually. A 5.2-inch phone would need that the majority of the time I would not need that.

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I'm trying to update the software in my G Note 1. But it refuses to do so without a SIM. So I'm trying to put in my SIM card, but it seems that the sim-to-micro-sim adapter is stuck in the slot inside the Note! Durnit.