With the upcoming release of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge phones on April 10th, fans of this series of model phone are clamoring to find the best deals and discounts.
While I’m not an advocate of buying the latest model smartphones, since it’s not particularly frugal; for those that are interested in purchasing a new Galaxy S6, I’ve taken the time to curate a list of some of the best promotions, deals, and discounts from various wireless providers and mobile phone sellers below.
T-Mobile – 1 Year Free Netflix Deal
T-Mobile CEO, John Legere, sent a tweet out over the last few days saying that anyone who buys the Samsumg Galaxy S6 or S6 Edge will get a free 1 year subscription of Netflix.
ATTENTION! If you get the @Samsung Galaxy #S6 from @TMobile you can get a year of @Netflix. #BOOM #bingewatch #HOC pic.twitter.com/FIArMJ0Tqk
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) March 25, 2015
It’s an interesting promotion and considering that Netflix costs $8 per month, the deal would be valued at $96 bucks. It’s not bad, but considering you’re paying $680 retail for the regular S6, you’re still shelling out almost $600 for a smartphone, on top of the regular monthly plan payments.
Fortunately, T-Mobile tends have some of the cheapest cell phone plans amongst the top 4 carriers, and have instituted rollover data which is a nice feature. Speaking of data, could offering Netflix be a way of enticing it’s customers to use more data by watching streaming movies and shows on their fancy new Samsung device? Hmmm.
Sprint – Free Galaxy S6 Lease with 24 Month Commitment
Sprint’s approach to giving a deal to buyer’s of the Galaxy S6 is to give it away for “free” if you lease with them under their new Unlimited Plus Plan as indicated in the following Sprint tweet:
Get a FREE Samsung #GalaxyS6 when you lease with the new Unlimited Plus Plan! http://t.co/RiEjVutYYG pic.twitter.com/6VLro0XgaO
— Sprint (@sprint) March 26, 2015
First off, before I even dig into the details of this “deal”, I’m not sure Sprint understands what the word “free” means. If you have to lease the device, aka pay for it, then I’m not exactly sure how that is free.
After reading over the Sprint promo page for this deal multiple times trying to decipher what appears to be a deliberately confusing price model, I think I have it figured out, but please correct me if I’m wrong in the comments below.
Essentially what it comes down to is that you can get the Galaxy S6 for free to use, however you must sign-up for the $80 per month Unlimited Plus Plan for 24 months. In addition, there is normally a $20 extra payment on top of that when you lease a device, however with this “deal”, Sprint gives you a $20 credit each month which essentially nullifies the lease payment, except you’re still getting killed on the $80/month charge.
So really, all this talk about a “free lease” is nothing more than a veiled attempt at locking you into a 2 year contract with a high monthly $80 payment. And on top of all that, you don’t even own the phone at the end of the 24 months, you have to send it back!
T-Mobile vs. Sprint Promo Twitter War
To add a little drama to this whole thing, you’ll love the Twitter war between the CEO of T-Mobile John Legere and the CEO of Sprint Marcelo Claure:
We’ve been fighting for transparency in this industry and so @sprint creates a new, more expensive rate plan to hide a “free” #GS6?! #comeon
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) March 27, 2015
.@marceloclaure Your unlimited plan = $60. Your unlimited plan for iPhone = $50. Your unlimited plan for "free" #GS6 = $80. That's simple?!
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) March 27, 2015
@JohnLegere no more tweets…will let the numbers speak AGAIN. I am sure lots of people love to save 450 a year pic.twitter.com/19CHaGYN2O
— MarceloClaure (@marceloclaure) March 27, 2015
@marceloclaure #trickery you made my point thank you.. You didn't mention lease vs buy and one ends with no ownership #fineprintlies #bs
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) March 27, 2015
.@marceloclaure and I repeat it is omg horribly slow and spotty and unusable network #leaselies #SloworNoNetwork #sorrynotsorry
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) March 27, 2015
Like sands in the hourglass, these are the days of our wireless lives 🙂
Best Buy Free Wireless Charging Pad Deal
Other than the T-Mobile/Sprint showdown, retailer Best Buy has announced that they will offer a free Samsung wireless charging pad when you order a Samsung Galaxy S6 or S6 Edge through them.
The Samsung charging pad is said to be valued at approximately $60. Honestly, I haven’t heard of a charging pad before but it seems to be a nifty device which allows you to simply lay your Galaxy S6 phone on the pad and it will charge without having to plug it in – pretty neat.
The one caveat of buying through Best Buy though is that in order to get the phone for $200 as offered on their sales page, you’ll need to sign-up or be an existing customer to the AT&T Next service which will lock you into a 2 year contract… ugh.
The other option, if you still wanted to purchase through Best Buy is to get an unlocked Galaxy S6 which you’d be able to use with another carrier, but you’d have to pay the full retail price of $685 – yikes! Not exactly the best price on Samsung Galaxy S6.
Note that this offer is only available until April 11th.
So far, it seems that the best Samsung Galaxy S6 deals is the T-Mobile offer, but obviously this is dependent on a number of factors for most people, like network coverage for starters.
However, since this is a blog about being frugal about one’s phone choices, I wouldn’t really recommend buying such an expensive phone to begin with. You’d be better off going with an earlier model of Samsung Galaxy at a discount or an even cheaper smartphone like the Moto G or Moto E for example.
That said, I will be updating this deal list on a regular basis as new offers are presented. If you happen to know of an offer for the S6 by either a carrier or retailer that is not already listed above, please let me know in the comments below so I can add it to the article for everyone’s benefit.