This story was updated on January 5th. Update below.
It’s not just Google Pixel owners who are being showered with discounts, Samsung has also slashed prices of its current line-up before the Galaxy S24’s imminent launch.
Buyers who don’t want to wait for the Galaxy S24, which Samsung is hyping as a generational leap thanks to its apparent AI abilities, can pick up a significantly discounted Galaxy S23 from the company’s online store. The catch is that the best discounts are only available at the U.K. shop.
Right now, shoppers can get the S23 Ultra for £150 less ($190.54) alongside a free pair of Galaxy Buds 2 Pro. The base Galaxy S23 is also £150 cheaper without the freebie, while the Z Flip 5 price has been slashed by £300 ($381.09). These are part of the company’s January sale deals for shoppers in the U.K., but U.S. buyers can pick up the Galaxy Z Fold 5 1TB for $200 less.
Save your money for now
That Galaxy S23 Ultra deal is solid, especially if you need a new pair of headphones. A discount like this, coupled with a freebie and the company’s high trade-in prices, is rare outside of a major shopping holiday like Black Friday.
But with the launch of the Galaxy S24 right around the corner, bigger discounts for the S23 are on the horizon. Looking at the pricing history of Samsung flagships (via Price Spy), the S22 dropped by over £100 ($127.03) at third party retailers roughly a month after the launch of the Galaxy S23. The Galaxy S21 also dropped by £77 ($97.81) almost exactly a month after the S22 launched on February 25th.
Of course both of these older devices continued to see price drops over months and years. But the perfect balance between a discounted phone—and it still being current—is shortly after its successor releases.
Samsung will continue to provide software support for the S23 range until 2027, so holding out for a bigger deal could be the best way to go (which might come as soon as February 17th if we go by previous trends). We might even see some of the Galaxy S24 AI features make their way to older Galaxy phones, which is something Google likes to do with its Pixel range.
For people who have their credit cards ready for the Galaxy S24, Samsung will likely give out some freebies with pre-orders, while upping its trade-in prices for a limited time when the device launches. Perhaps we’ll also see a longer free trial for Abode Lightroom, or YouTube Premium, through its Boost rewards program.
The trade-in prices are particularly one to watch because the company can be very aggressive here, especially when it comes swapping-in your old iPhone. When the Flip 5 and Fold 5 launched in August last year, the Korean company was offering up to $900 for the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
But beware, the terms and conditions of that deal stated that once you send your old phone in to Samsung, you might not get it back, even if you returned your new device for a refund. Read my story on it here. Stay tuned for more details on the Galaxy S24 and Samsung’s discount plans by hitting the follow button below.
Update January 5th: Samsung has unveiled its first pre-order deal ahead of the Galaxy S24 launch on January 17th, with interested buyers getting a $50 store credit if they register with Samsung.com.
The deal means that when the new device is launched, people who sign-up will have a $50 voucher to spend on the Samsung store. There’s no commitment to buy anything right now, although it looks like the voucher can’t be used on the actual phone itself according to the terms & conditions on the reservation page.
The small print says that the “reservation gift cannot be applied to pre-ordered device(s)” and that it must be used towards “purchasing additional eligible products,” which sounds like accessories to me. $50 is roughly how much one of Samsung’s official cases costs, so it’s clear where the company is pushing buyers to spend their vouchers.
Pre-ordering the phone also nets a storage discount, which means people who purchase the Galaxy S24 during the pre-order period will be charged the price “of the next lowest storage level.” The Korean company will also throw in a store credit of between $25 and $100 depending on the device that is bought.
This might be a hint that we’ll see a range of devices launched at the Unpacked event, with smaller vouchers issued for cheaper purchases of potentially new earbuds, or a new wearable device. We’ll know more in a couple of weeks.
