Best Buy Phone Upgrade
I'm a bit confused as to why someone who is looking to upgrade to say the iPhone 12 Pro would do it through Verizon compared to Best Buy? For instance right now my wife has an iPhone X on a Get More Unlimited plan, and both Verizon and Best Buy pre-order page states it is worth $440.
best buy phone upgrade
Verizon path: you have to mail the phone in, so who knows if you get unlucky and Verizon rejects it for whatever reason, screwing you out of $400, and then you are stuck with the phone for 24 months with at least Play/Do More unlimited to get the full $440 in monthly credit form.
Best Buy path: you get to bring the phone to a physical BB location, whereupon they take it, and immediately deduct the $440 from the price of the iPhone 12 Pro, at which point you are free to do whatever you'd like with the phone, including changing to a cheaper unlimited plan or selling/upgrading phone before the 24 months are up.
Seems like the Best Buy is a much much much better deal. Am I missing something in the fine print? The best buy page is very vague and just says "qualified activation and trade-in". Does that mean you have to activate a new line? Must stay on a premium unlimited plan for a certain amount of time?
Best Buy's move to expand its Upgrade program comes as monthly financing and subscription schemes have become increasingly popular across the tech industry. Apple, for example, doesn't offer a similar upgrade program for its computers, but it does for iPhones. Other companies, including software giant Microsoft, have increasingly turned to financing and subscriptions as well to lure in new customers with low upfront costs for its Xbox video game consoles.
Environmental advocates believe these subscriptions may have another benefit as well. Companies and retailers are effectively incentivizing people to turn in devices when they're ready to upgrade, which may help create "closed loop" recycling, in which older machines are kept out of landfills. Instead, they can be torn down for parts or refurbished and reused by someone else.
I suggest keeping an eye out for deals, bundled offers, discounts and trade-in values that bring the prices down by $300 or more. Both phones will have fluctuating prices throughout the holiday season -- check out CNET's guide to the best Black Friday phone deals. Samsung prices tend to fall as the months go on, so your chance of snagging a deal are high. Plus, a surprise recommendation at the end if you're not sold on using the S Pen stylus daily.
There's no curved screen on the Note 20 the way there is on the Ultra. That doesn't bother me, but the edge-to-edge display on both phones means there are still plenty of accidental screen presses when you're simply holding the phone. For example, if you're passively watching a video and shift your finger to find a more comfortable grip, you may wind up inadvertently triggering a button.
The final design difference worth noting is the 120Hz screen refresh rate on Ultra, compared to the standard 60Hz rate on the Note 20. It won't make a difference if you're switching from a 60Hz phone, but it can feel comparatively "slow" if you're switching from a phone with a 90Hz or 120Hz display.
The Ultra's has a massive and protruding camera array on its back to accommodate larger sensors and perhaps help it stand out. Meanwhile, the Note 20's camera bump makes the phone less top-heavy and prone to rocking when you write on it while it's on a flat surface.
But the Note 20 Ultra took better photos overall. You're going to get great great shots no matter which phone you use, when you're taking photos in brightly lit conditions: saturated color, crisp edges, the works. But if you're at all interested in zoom photography, the Ultra's 5x optical zoom takes the crown. Not only does it get you very good telephoto images up to 5x, it can also go up to 50x.
Most people will be happier with the cheaper Note 20 over the Ultra, but again, I think Samsung has overcharged for both phones at their full retail price, and I find the Note 20's $1,000 price tag for what is essentially a plastic phone cheeky at best and insulting at worst.
Here's another alternative within the Samsung cosmos. The newer Galaxy S20 FE (Fan Edition) is a middle way. It merges some of the Ultra's best features with the Note 20's cost-cutting trade-offs, bringing you a 6.5-inch display with a fast 120Hz refresh rate, a big 4,500-mAh battery, 3x optical zoom and a rear plastic backing. There's expandable storage, too, and of course, support for 5G data speeds.
Best Buy today announced a new financing and upgrade program called "Upgrade+." The program involves a combination of interest-free financing through Citizens Pay and an option to upgrade to a new Mac laptop after three years.
As an example, Best Buy cites a base M1 MacBook Air priced at $999.99. Through the Upgrade+ program, a customer can pay $19.99 per month for 36 months toward the machine. At the end of 36 months, the user has the option to make the remaining $280.35 payment and keep the machine, return the machine and leave the program, or upgrade to a new Mac laptop. If they return the machine, either to leave the program or upgrade to a new Mac, no final payment is required.
Keep in mind that our cell phone promotions change often, and phone prices and offers are subject to change overnight without notice. To ensure you receive the price, promotion, or offer displayed, activations must be completed in-store on the same day you see the offer.
To make sure you walk out of our store with your phone ready to go, a Mobile Advisor will also help you set up features on your new smartphone, insert the SIM card and verify you have active service, teach you some cool tricks, and answer any questions you may have.
The very best phones offer great cameras, the kind of performance you need to multitask and enough battery life to last the whole day. And we have our own web surfing battery test to put company's "all-day" endurance claims to the test.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is now our top phone, beating out Apple in our Galaxy S23 Ultra vs iPhone 14 Pro Max face-off.In addition, Apple has announced a new yellow color for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus, though the features remain the same.Keep an eye out for a possible new Pixel 7a this spring, as the official start date of Google I/O 2023 is May 10.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is truly the ultimate Android phone, and it starts with a 200-megapixel that seems like overkill but delivers truly stellar results. You can reframe your shot after the fact and still get sharp details. Plus, this sensor offers brighter and richer photos overall, and you get an improved 12MP front camera.
In terms of performance, nothing can touch the Galaxy S23 Ultra among Android phones, thanks to its blazing Snapdragon 8 gen 2 for Galaxy processor. This chip beats the iPhone on graphics performance and is a blast for playing games. Another plus? The more than 13 hours of battery life we saw in our web surfing test.
Other highlights for the Galaxy S23 Ultra include smarter OneUI 5.1 features, including Bixby Text call for screening calls for you. And the display is now flatter for easier S Pen use, though we still don't think the panel needs to be curved. Note that there are complaints about S Pen Bluetooth connectivity issues, but hopefully that will be fixed with an update. Although we'd like to see faster charging overall the Samsung S23 Ultra is the best Android phone yet and easily one of the best phones overall.
Other highlights of the iPhone 14 Pro Max include a powerful A16 Bionic processor that smokes most Android phones and a powerful new 48MP camera that gives you the choice of brighter images or sharper resolution in ProRAW. See our ProRAW photo shoot to see the results. And the new Action Mode for video is super smooth and compelling. The best part is the battery life, as we saw over 13 hours in our testing, making this a total beast and worth the premium.
Video is another strong point for the iPhone 14 Pro, as you get a super smooth Action mode along with a sharper 4K Cinematic Mode. Add in a very clever replacement for the notch with Dynamic Island and an always-on display and you have one of the best phones you can buy. We just wish Apple offered faster charging, which likely won't happen until the iPhone 15 Pro.
The Google Pixel 6a runs on the same Tensor processor that powers the Pixel 6. That means the same AI-driven features on that more premium phone are available on this sub-$500 model. And Google even ups the ante by introducing new capabilities to its stellar Magic Erase photo editing feature.
Samsung improved the phone in other ways as well, boosting maximum brightness on the Galaxy S23's 6.1-inch display to 1,750 nits. You certainly won't have a difficult time viewing that screen outdoors in bright sunlight. We've also seen improvements to low-light photography, even if the Galaxy S23 still lags other top camera phones from Apple in an overall photo face-off. At a starting price of $799, the Galaxy S23 offers a good mix of premium features and a relatively low price for a flagship device.
Tensor G2 offers some nice upgrades across the board, such as Photo Unblur, Cinematic Blur, and Active Stabilization. Google Assistant has also gotten a lot smarter, offering improvements to Direct My Call, transcription for voice texts, and better contextual understanding for voice typing.
With 5x optical zoom, the Pixel 6 Pro can pull off some fancy zoom tricks in combination with the enhanced Super Res Zoom. But we think the colors are a bit dull on the telephoto shots, certainly less vibrant than the iPhone 14 Pro in our testing. Regardless, the Pixel 7 Pro is the Android phone to get if you want the best cameras. 041b061a72