Phandroid
Sprint’s “One Up” early upgrade program leaked, and it actually looks better than everyone else’s
With three of America’s four largest carriers already offering early upgrade programs of their own, you had to expect Sprint wouldn’t be far behind. The Kansas City-based company is gearing up to announce One-Up, an early upgrade program that will allow customers to upgrade sooner. Beyond that, the program seems to have some added value, with the early details from CNet suggesting Sprint will give folks a $15 discount on their rate plans for going this route.
If you don’t remember, we chastised the likes of Verizon and AT&T for not offering a plan discount for choosing to buy off-contract devices at full MSRP. That’s their right, obviously, but they aren’t exactly looking out for consumers’ interests. We’re glad to know Sprint will reward those who decide to upgrade their devices through the One-Up program.
So what is Sprint One Up, anyway?
Here are the quick specifics:
- Buy devices with 0$ down payment
- Pay for the devices in 24 equal monthly installments
- Trade in your smartphone every 12 months to upgrade (or keep it and pay it off if you want)
- Enjoy savings of $15 off your monthly rate plan
- Wash, rinse, and repeat
Sprint says the value proposition is quite attractive compared to everyone else. For instance, Their rate plans become even cheaper than T-Mobile’s, their point-of-sale cost is cheaper than T-Mobile’s and Verizon’s, and they don’t have a monthly fee like T-Mobile.
You can take a look at the savings breakdown in the chart above, one which we imagine Sprint will be using to train their employees when it’s time to start presenting these plans to customers.
The Caveats
An early upgrade plan wouldn’t be an early upgrade plan without a couple of minor caveats, of course. For starters, you must be a Sprint customer for at least a year before you’re eligible. If you don’t have an upgrade available, you must trade your current smartphone in before you get your first phone under One Up.
If you do have an upgrade, you can get your first smartphone without trading in your old one. The phone you’re trading in has to be in good working condition, natch, which likely means no broken display, no water damage, and can accept electrical currents from a charging cable. Finally, this plan is only available for those under Sprint contract plans — prepaid customers need not apply.
Who’s buying?
And that brings us to the big question — are you in? This is honestly one of the most attractive early upgrade options on the market at the moment. With Sprint offering a plan discount and allowing you to keep your unlimited data, it actually seems like a pretty good deal (unless you don’t like the idea of having to fork your old smartphone over each time you want to upgrade early).
If you’re a Sprint customer, be sure to drop a vote below and let us know if One Up is something you’ll be taking advantage of. We also wouldn’t mind hearing from you in the comments section. We’re not sure when this plan will eventually be available, but it never hurts to start talking about it ahead of time.
BBM for Android APK leaked with launch under a week away (but you still can’t use it)
We’re getting extremely close to the “by the end of summer” date Blackberry promised us when mentioning the launch window for Blackberry Messenger. If a couple of previous leaks weren’t enough to convince you, then perhaps this useless APK that leaked today is. That’s right — you can download Blackberry Messenger for Android and install it right now.
And no, I didn’t call it useless as a way of saying no one living in 2013 will care to use it (as many of you echoed in an earlier poll of ours). The APK is actually quite useless as it won’t connect to Blackberry Services, the network used to push all these bits and bytes around in real time.
You’ll have to use it on a whitelisted device in order to get it to work, though we imagine there aren’t many of those running around far outside of Waterloo, Canada at this point.
We saw the application leaked on video a couple of weeks back, with one lucky user giving us a nice run through of everything we can expect. It’s full-on Blackberry, with the company’s design time ditching Holo for an experience that matches what you can find on their own devices.
You can download it anyway if you just want to check it out. Grab it here, poke it a few times,then let it rest as we await the real deal in the days to come.
Rumor: Samsung already working on Galaxy Gear sequel; original product just a “test run”
When Samsung revealed the Galaxy Gear smart watch September 4th, we were a bit vexed. It wasn’t quite what we were expecting in a couple of different areas, including design, compatibility (it will only work with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Note 10.1 2014 Edition to start, and will work with older Samsung flagship products after a software update), and an unattractive $300 price tag.
Thankfully, it looks like Samsung is already hard at work on a sequel that should be more all-around pleasing. That’s not that surprising considering Samsung had already revealed that the Galaxy Gear line wouldn’t be a one-stop affair. What is surprising is that Samsung apparently considered the first Galaxy Gear as a test run of sorts, with its main purpose being to gauge consumer demand.
The sequel is expected to be more diverse, with Samsung said to be working on bringing functionality for more than just their own top-line smartphones. We’d begun to wonder whether Samsung has gotten too big for their own good, but thankfully that doesn’t seem to be the case… yet.
We’re not sure how long Samsung will look to box out potential smart watch fans who aren’t necessarily fans of Samsung phones, but it wouldn’t seem like a wise long-term business decision. Samsung is also said to be working on bringing functionality for the current Galaxy Gear to more smartphones, though the South Korean company wasn’t ready to make any promises.
All told, it sounds like this thing was rushed just a bit too much, as not even Samsung seems sure of their exact plan of attack from here on out. We’ll definitely be keeping an eye on the little guy as it is slated to launch alongside the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Note 10.1 2014 Edition later this month. Be sure to take a look at our early hands-on with the thing, and see how it fares up against other big-time smart watches that are either already seeding the market or set to do so sometime soon.
[via SamMobile]
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