Not to be outshone by Google’s aggressive new pricing strategy for its Pixel 8 range, Samsung is throwing new freebies and discounts at people who pre-order the Galaxy S4.
The deal, which is exclusive to the Samsung Shop app, knocks 5% off the Galaxy S24 range when the code “APP5” is added at checkout. I managed to get this to work on the U.K. app, but it’s worth trying in other territories too. Crucially, this code is stackable on top of the existing £100 ($127.53) discount Samsung is offering during the pre-order period.
Altogether, that brings the Galaxy S24 Ultra 512GB down by £162.45 ($207.18) to £1,186.55 ($1,513.25). That isn’t the only app-exclusive discount. In the “vouchers” section of the app (you have to be logged in to see this) there’s another code for a free Galaxy Watch 6 with your Galaxy S24 pre-order, which expires on January 25th. Unfortunately, you can’t combine the free watch with the 5% off deal.
The fact that you need to download the app and have (or create) a Samsung account to redeem these deals is of course deliberate. Samsung wants you baked into its ecosystem as deeply as possible because it’s hard to switch over once you’re in. For example, as I was going through the check-out process for the S24, the app threw a last minute discount at me: 15% off a Samsung monitor when bought with a Galaxy Book laptop.
The company is making its hardware as accessible as possible through repeated deals and extended software support. In the last couple of weeks Samsung has slashed prices of its existing stock, added several years to its software support policy to match Apple and introduced webcam functionality to the S24. Samsung never explained how it was suddenly possible to promise seven years of Android updates and security patches (I asked). But I suspect the answer for that—and all of these discounts and freebies—is in the small print of Galaxy S24 product page.
“Galaxy AI features will be provided for free until the end of 2025 on supported Samsung Galaxy devices. Different terms may apply for AI features provided by third parties.” The product page reads. There’s a good chance that Samsung decides to put these features behind a paywall as it finds ways to monetize services that are expensive to develop and run.
Samsung wouldn’t be alone in doing this, Google is likely introducing a premium tier of its AI chatbot, Bard, and Microsoft will do the same for Copilot. How we use our phones might change dramatically in the near future if we’re forced to rent certain features, which might explain the extreme hardware price-war Samsung and Google are engaging in right now.
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