The Samsung Galaxy S24+, the latest mid-tier smartphone in the S24 series developed by the South ... [+]
This story was updated on April 26th. Update below.
After giving away a free tablet with Galaxy S24 sales recently, and repeatedly slashing the phone’s price since January, Samsung is now handing its flagship smartphone away for free with select TV purchases.
Samsung tells me that the promotion starts today (April 24th) and runs until May 14th. To get a free Galaxy S24 or S24 Plus, shoppers have to pre-order one of Samsung’s new 2024 TVs, which includes the Neo QLED 8K, Neo QLED 4K, OLED and Frame TV ranges. The one catch is that the deal only applies to buyers based in the U.K.
These are new TVs so naturally they don’t come cheap. Samsung explained that shoppers have to spend over £2000 ($2486.88) to qualify for the free phone, which is added to the basket during the checkout process. It looks like the 55-inch Neo QLED 4K range is the most cost effective at £2,099 ($2609.98), which will net a free 128GB base Galaxy S24.
Buyers will have to fork out for Samsung’s most expensive Neo QLED 8K range, which starts at £3,699 ($4599.48), to get the Galaxy S24 Plus. Unless you’re specifically looking to buy an 8K TV, the 55-inch Neo QLED 4K is the best deal because Samsung is offering up to £150 trade-in for your old box and, of course, you can sell the phone.
The base Galaxy 24 currently sells for £799, if you can get anything close to that, with the trade in, that’s a good chunk of money off of a brand new TV. But it’s worth pointing out that TV prices decline rapidly and these new Samsung units are at their most expensive right now.
It’s interesting that Samsung is now using its flagship phone as a sale tool for other devices. Until now, the company has either discounted the Galaxy S24 range heavily, thrown in some expensive freebies with purchases, or temporarily upped trade-in prices.
We’re just over a quarter of the way through the Galaxy S24’s life cycle, so I imagine we will see more discounts and similar deals in the near future, especially as Samsung launches new products.
There’s a reason Samsung is giving away free phones with its new TVs. The company has focussed a lot of its efforts on synchronizing the experience between the two devices. Right now Galaxy phone users can stream their TV to their phone and vice versa, use the handset as a remote and change some settings. Samsung wants to get you in its ecosystem. Bundling free phones with its household appliances and gadgets is the way to do it.
Update April 26th. It’s not just new TVs that Samsung is releasing, we now have a date for the company’s next major Unpacked event. According to Sammobile’s sources, the summer Galaxy Unpacked event will take place on July 10th in Paris. The site explains that the reason Samsung is holding the event in France is because the summer Olympics will be taking place in Paris later that month, and Samsung is a major sponsor of it.
This year’s Unpacked event will likely see the announcement of Samsung’s new foldable phone line up: the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Flip 6. Alongside the a new Galaxy Watch 7, new earbuds and the long-hyped Galaxy Ring—a wearable smart ring. For deal hunters, I suspect Samsung will announce pre-order offers for its new phones and wearables, while the current Galaxy S line up will probably be discounted too.
Keep an eye on the pre-order pages for voucher codes and bundle deals. As we’ve seen with the TV and free Galaxy S24 offer, it wouldn’t surprise me if Samsung bundled the new Galaxy Ring and foldable phones together, or with the Galaxy S24, because it will require a Samsung handset to be fully functional. Stay tuned for information.
