Samsung Galaxy S 3

[yuusha]

That's for the Nexus series of phones, the S series are all locked

[!MiKrofT]

Originally Posted by RuzzFuzz

Does anyone know if I could buy this unlocked directly from Best Buy?

I got a gift card a couple months ago and was hoping I could buy it straight up without a plan, since I still have a 2 year contract with Fido.

and any speculation on the cost?

The Galaxy S3 will not come unlocked unless you buy the international version which Bestbuy will not have.

Originally Posted by unit

last year i bought a nexus s from koodo at bestbuy, it was unlocked and sold contract free

The Google Nexus series is the only exception where it comes unlocked from all carriers.

[sonick]

I think the Nexus is an exception rather than the norm.

[terkan]

the s3 will come locked to carriers, and i'm going to say 99.9% chance you wouldn't be able to buy it from any of the retailers out right for at least a month minimum.. no way they'll be willing to sell a unit without a contract not even on a month to month because they know how easily they could sell that on a contract. the cost speculation will be somewhere between 699.99-749.99 which is what the galaxy note is retailing for.

[Simplex123]

Originally Posted by RuzzFuzz

Does anyone know if I could buy this unlocked directly from Best Buy?

Sometimes you can get it from BestBuy w/o a contract but you gotta look around. And you probably won't be able to do that within the first week or two.

[!MiKrofT]

Originally Posted by terkan

the s3 will come locked to carriers, and i'm going to say 99.9% chance you wouldn't be able to buy it from any of the retailers out right for at least a month minimum.. no way they'll be willing to sell a unit without a contract not even on a month to month because they know how easily they could sell that on a contract. the cost speculation will be somewhere between 699.99-749.99 which is what the galaxy note is retailing for.

Never had too much issue buying outright at Costco. Dunno if they still do that though.

[RuzzFuzz]

Originally Posted by Simplex123

Sometimes you can get it from BestBuy w/o a contract but you gotta look around. And you probably won't be able to do that within the first week or two.

Thanks for the reply, I don't mind waiting a couple weeks or even a month, as long as my gift card works, ahahah.

[i-VTEC]

Can you buy the phone outright from futureshop or bestbuy mobile? instead of signing a contract?

[Tim Budong]

Originally Posted by terkan

the s3 will come locked to carriers, and i'm going to say 99.9% chance you wouldn't be able to buy it from any of the retailers out right for at least a month minimum.. no way they'll be willing to sell a unit without a contract not even on a month to month because they know how easily they could sell that on a contract. the cost speculation will be somewhere between 699.99-749.99 which is what the galaxy note is retailing for.

Nope
Dealers of course wont sell outright
but Corporate stores, Best Buy, FS, and Costco do.
Some dealers will sell the phone outright at a premium to make back the "loss"
Best Buy is a good bet

[Gh0stRider]

can be pre ordered online but its 750USD

[!MiKrofT]

Originally Posted by darthchilli

Nope
Dealers of course wont sell outright
but Corporate stores, Best Buy, FS, and Costco do.
Some dealers will sell the phone outright at a premium to make back the "loss"
Best Buy is a good bet

Most of the retailers I've seen won't sell it outright. Of course YMMV though.

The premium fee for their "loss" eludes me. How are they losing when I'm buying it at full price? lol. Ran into that at a Telus store.

[parm104]

Originally Posted by !MiKrofT

Most of the retailers I've seen won't sell it outright. Of course YMMV though.

The premium fee for their "loss" eludes me. How are they losing when I'm buying it at full price? lol. Ran into that at a Telus store.

Because the majority of these stores are independently owned businesses that are authorized resellers. They do not work on a win/loss ratio as a standard business but rather on commission structure receiving credit for contract renewals, data packages, and new customers.

Selling the phone at full price is a loss to them because they are now short a highly demanded product that would almost certainly be sold to someone who wants to renew or start up new services. Although I'm against these practices, the only thing to do is to report individual stores to the cell phone carriers and create an on-going record against them.

PS: Even Best Buy and Future Shop have a policy not to sell these new phones outright. If you find a store that does, it's sheer luck and not something that is done at all stores.

[Simplex123]

Yeah if you want to get an s3 outright the best bet would be going to the few Rogers Plus stores that are remaining. Where are the other corporate stores in the lower mainland though?

[Simplex123]

There are independent reports from multiple sources today that the Galaxy S III will only launch in marble white on May 29th, as the pebble blue model has been suffering from an unspecified manufacturing issue.

According to several Samsung representatives who don’t want to be named, the company has destroyed upwards of 600,000 pebble blue backplates due to colour inconsistencies and other malformations. Ironically the white version is not affected; Apple had problems with their white iPhone 4 for several months after the initial launch, despite promising to ship with both in June 2010.

Many international retailers are reporting that the white version will be the only one available to them until at least mid-June, when Samsung is expected to reach production parity again with the white version. Samsung Sweden have confirmed the delay, but claim the delay will “only be a matter of days,” disputing earlier claims.

The evidence came to light last week when the Galaxy S III went on sale early in Dubai, but retailers were tight-lipped as to why only the white version was available. Hopefully Samsung gets everything in order for the Canadian launch.

Pebble blue Samsung Galaxy S III reportedly delayed due to manufacturing issue, shipments to resume in mid-June | MobileSyrup.com

[!Yaminashi]

Interesting, destroyed 600k blue backplates due to color inconsistencies?
Maybe they're upping the QC on this one?

......NAAAHH

[terkan]

you are going to have a tough time getting a phone outright at any store that's going by commission. best bet is bestbuy as they are not commission based and the staff there wont' care as much. i mean technically all places sells phone outright without contracts, but at the end of the day it's up to them if they want to sell it outright without a contract. it's going to be ymmv, coz i know my store i won't be letting any S3 go without a contract and there's already a pretty good wait list on it. IF you really want the S3 without a contract, prolly just call your service provider and get them to mail you won't as it becomes available and save yourself the hassle going around store to store or phoning around.

[Teh Doucher]

Originally Posted by terkan

you are going to have a tough time getting a phone outright at any store that's going by commission. best bet is bestbuy as they are not commission based and the staff there wont' care as much. i mean technically all places sells phone outright without contracts, but at the end of the day it's up to them if they want to sell it outright without a contract. it's going to be ymmv, coz i know my store i won't be letting any S3 go without a contract and there's already a pretty good wait list on it. IF you really want the S3 without a contract, prolly just call your service provider and get them to mail you won't as it becomes available and save yourself the hassle going around store to store or phoning around.

OR you could just switch to a company say like... wind? and buy any phone outright any time you want.

[parm104]

Originally Posted by Teh Doucher

OR you could just switch to a company say like... wind? and buy any phone outright any time you want.

...you realize that Wind USUALLY releases phones much later than the big 3 carriers...and their models are not identical to the NA versions that Rogers/Fido/Bell/Telus carry...Usually their versions of the phone are inferior to the NA versions that gets released.

Wind currently carries the Blackberry 9790 and the Galaxy Nexus as their top smartphones. The rest of fairly garbage in comparison to most other carriers.

[!MiKrofT]

Originally Posted by Teh Doucher

OR you could just switch to a company say like... wind? and buy any phone outright any time you want.

Uhh you can just buy a phone outright at full price from your own carrier..why would he need to switch carriers?

[shenmecar]

If I'm interested in buying the international s3 with the god almighty exynos. Where can I buy one? Any reputable online retailers?

[terkan]

i ordered mine from the bell store at lawnsdown they carry import phones too apparently and prices are ok if you pay in usd.

lol i dunno why you fail me, but business is business at the end of the day you need the number to show for it. if say both store a and store b have the same amount of phone first shipment. store a sells all of them on a contract and store b sells half of them on contract and the other half out right. second shipment store a will get more than store b.. it's just how company works. the bigger you are, the better your store do, the more allocation you get from the head office. that's why i suggest ppl to order directly on the phone from their carrier. solve their headaches of trying to find one in store.

and ya.. go ahead and buy one outright with wind and use it on robellus if that's what you want

[Simplex123]

More delays for Pebble Blue

Sad news breaking this afternoon for anyone in the UK -- or abroad if you just couldn't wait -- that has pre-ordered a new Samsung Galaxy S III from Clove Technology. Just over 24 hours before the first appearance of the phone, the latest update from Clove has put the shipping dates back for both white and blue versions of the latest Samsung flagship.

If you've ordered a white one, the delay is less. Instead of shipping on May 30, they will now begin shipping the following day, June 1, instead. It's the Pebble Blue variant that has a slight ring of alarm bells around it. But only slight.

The first stock is now expected to arrive at Clove from June 5. The uneasy part, is that this date is still to be confirmed.

For now, lets try not to panic too much. Yes, there have been rumors all over the interwebs about issues with the Pebble Blue Galaxy S III, and subsequent delays because of said rumored issues. At the moment, it is only Clove that have published details of any stock delays.

We've reached out to our friends over at Clove to see if we can dig out some more details on this one. But, in the UK it's now out of office hours, so we may have to wait until morning. Sit tight folks.

Update: The plot thickens, as it's now becoming clear this is a widespread delay --

Things are the same over at HandTec. They're on track for a May 31 release of the white version, but have no date available for the Pebble Blue. ​

​​Digging through the UK carriers, it's clear that there is a blanket delay on the Pebble Blues. Three are showing a pre-order button for the white version, but "out of stock" next to the blue. O2 is the same story. Orange haven't changed from "coming soon" since the product page first went up, and T-Mobile still seem to be taking pre-orders for both versions. Over at Vodafone, the blue Galaxy S III is on back-order, with the aim to deliver within 2-4 weeks.

There are some small nuggets of good news though. The official Samsung store at Westfield has told us that they will still be holding their early launch for pre-order customers tomorrow, ahead of general release on May 30.

A press release from Carphone Warehouse today indicates that the retailer plans to stage an "early" launch on the evening of May 30, ahead of the Galaxy S III's general launch across its stores nationwide on May 31. No word on which colors will be available.

Supermarket giant Tesco -- who also have a phone network -- have added the following message to their website: “Please note: we have been advised by Samsung that stock of the Samsung Galaxy S III in Blue has been delayed. We will despatch your pre-order as soon as stock is available.”

Pebble Blue Samsung Galaxy S III delayed across the UK | Android Central

[cctw]

^fail...has 6 s3 coming in from clove...got order delayed notice this morning..

[parm104]

Originally Posted by terkan

lol i dunno why you fail me, but business is business at the end of the day you need the number to show for it. if say both store a and store b have the same amount of phone first shipment. store a sells all of them on a contract and store b sells half of them on contract and the other half out right. second shipment store a will get more than store b.. it's just how company works. the bigger you are, the better your store do, the more allocation you get from the head office. that's why i suggest ppl to order directly on the phone from their carrier. solve their headaches of trying to find one in store.

I personally failed you because you said Best Buy isn't on commission so it's the best bet. That however is inaccurate because they are still on commission for mobile phone sales. Gross margins are often set and met by their contract phone sales and new activations just like every other store. Whether or not the employees are commissioned or not has nothing to do with it; it's a store-level decision from their GM and they will make less by not selling it to contracted customers so your chances are not any greater at Best Buy than other stores.

[parm104]

double posted somehow