T-Mobile has become the first U.S. carrier to announce pricing and availability of the Samsung Galaxy S4. The carrier will begin selling the smartphone on May 1 in retail stores and online for $99 down with $20 added to your bill over 24 months.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 features a thinner and lighter design over its predecessor. The smartphone has a 5-inch 441 ppi (pixels per inch) 1920 x 1080 full HD display protected by Gorilla Glass 3, Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, 1.9GHz quad-core processor or 1.6GHz Exynos 5 octa-core processor, depending on the region, 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of internal storage, 2GB of RAM, microSD expansion slot with support for up to 64GB microSD cards, 13-megapixel rear camera with auto flash and zero shutter lag, 2-megapixel front camera, full HD 1080p video capture at 30fps, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n//ac, Bluetooth 4.0, 4G LTE radio, infrared LED universal remote control, will be offered in choice of Black Myst or White Frost, and will be powered by a large 2,600mAh removable battery.
The new pricing is part of T-Mobile's new "un-carrier" branding: it wants to offer its customers the latest devices without making them pay the full subsidized price up front like Verizon, AT&T and Sprint currently do. T-Mobile will let you pay a $99 down payment to get the Samsung Galaxy S4 home and tack on an extra $20 per month on your bill for 24 months to pay off the smartphone. AT&T, Verizon and Sprint have not announced pricing or availability in regard to the Samsung Galaxy S4, but each carrier is expected to begin offering the smartphone around the same time T-Mobile does.
It will be interesting to see if consumers switch to T-Mobile to take advantage of this new "pay over time" model in order to get a popular device without having to shell out the full price up front. It's definitely an interesting concept for consumers, so let's see if they bite.
