Samsung tonight has confirmed the release date and availability for the Galaxy S4 for Australians. The new smartphone will come out this Saturday, April 27, on all major carriers (Optus, Vodafone, Virgin Mobile and Telstra). However, get ready to spend a lot of money, because it will cost a lot of money
The Galaxy S4’s base model – the 16GB model – will cost $899 outright.
Yes, $899 outright.
That’s a lot of money. Especially considering that the Galaxy Note II is just $745 outright in some retailers (and even cheaper elsewhere).
So, what will this mean for plans? Expect the plans to feature probably a higher handset repayment fee than, let’s say, the HTC One as the carriers need to recoup their costs somewhere. And, according to CNET’s Nic Healey, there will be no special exclusives to lure you in purchasing the phone.
A little recap on the Galaxy S4: it features a 5-inch screen, 16GB of memory and is LTE compatible. However, because of the LTE support, it does not feature the “eight-core” Exynos 5 Octa processor. Instead, it has a 1.9GHz quad-core Snapdragon CPU.
Customers can preorder the phones from tomorrow either through the carriers, or through the Samsung Experience Stores in Melbourne and Sydney. Another “pop-up” store will be opened inside the Sydney Opera House – because Samsung is its new principal partner (playing into that whole musical theme).