After a longer-than-usual wait for new Samsung Galaxy pre-orders to open, the day (or evening) has arrived. Samsung Galaxy S20 pre-orders open tonight, late.
If you were sold on 120Hz displays, new camera setups with up to 100x Space Zoom, larger batteries, and all of the other goods that Samsung packed into the Galaxy S20, S20+, and S20 Ultra, your best deals are about to go live. Most of the time, the pre-order period offers the biggest discounts, best trade values, and most impressive list of freebies. That appears to be the case again with the S20.
Most carriers and retailers have scheduled pre-orders to open February 21 at 12:01AM Eastern. For those of us on the west coast, that means they’ll go live at 9PM Pacific tonight (still February 20).
Below, we’ve done our best to share with you all of the best deals. You ready?
Samsung’s Store (Best Deal)
Samsung, as it has for a number of years and releases, has the best Galaxy S20 pre-order deal, assuming you have a decent phone to trade-in. Samsung is offering up to $700 off with select high-tier trades, $600 off for others, and $300 off for phones that probably won’t sell for close to that on the open market. They are also tossing in up to $200 Samsung store credit to spend on other goodies.
Samsung’s trade-in deals are almost never as high after this pre-order period, so no, you shouldn’t wait to take advantage. Plus, we love Samsung’s trade-in program because they give you the discount off your new phone at the time of purchase rather than make you wait to get the value as a credit or gift card down the road. In other words, you get the value of the trade today, they send you your new phone when it’s ready, and then ask you to trade-in the old one later to confirm you weren’t lying.
With a $700 discount, you are looking at Galaxy S20 starting point of $299.99 (down from $999.99), Galaxy S20+ at $499.99 (down from $1,199.99), and Galaxy S20 Ultra at $699.99 ($down from $1,399.99). Crazy, right?
To get the full $700 in trade value, you will need to you trade-in a Galaxy Note 10 or Note 10+ or iPhone 11 Pro or 11 Pro Max. If you don’t have those phones, you can get $600 off with a Pixel 4 or 4 XL, Galaxy S10 or S10+, iPhone 11, or iPhone XS or XS Max. After that, there are $300 values for a number of other phones.
Samsung Store: Pre-order Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20 Ultra
Best Buy
Best Buy is claiming to offer the biggest overall discount I’ve seen, with an up-to $850 off promo. It’s all a bit confusing, but from what we can tell, Best Buy is giving up-to $700 off with select trade-ins, just like Samsung did. Then, on top of that, they are doing another $150 discount that is applied if you activate the phone with a carrier and lock into a plan.
The fine print says that you’ll get credits applied to your bill, should you sign-up for a device payment plan or lease on your Galaxy S20. If you buy the phone at full retail, they are only giving you a Best Buy gift card that cannot be applied to your S20 purchase. So basically, if you don’t use Best Buy to sign-up for a contract with a carrier, you don’t really get a deal.
In addition to the $850 off, purchases from Best Buy are also available for the Samsung credit that goes up to $200 depending on the phone you buy.
Best Buy: Pre-order Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20 Ultra
Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, & Sprint
Would rather shop at your carrier? That’s cool too, since they are all offering substantial deals. We’ve broken them out by carrier in the lists they sent us.
Verizon
- Buy a Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G or Galaxy S20+ 5G and get $1,050 towards another Galaxy S20, when you add a new line and purchase the phone on a Verizon Device Payment plan. (Stacks with #2 $150 offer)
- New and existing customers can save an additional $150 when you buy a new Samsung Galaxy S20+ 5G. This discount is given in 24 month bill credits. (Stacks with #1 BOGO offer or #3 $300 offer))
- Existing customers can save up to $300 if you upgrade to a new Galaxy S20 and trade-in your existing smartphone and have an active Verizon Unlimited plan. (Stacks with #2 $150 offer)
- Samsung is also offering up to $200 in Samsung credit when you preorder a Galaxy S20+ 5G or Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G. You can redeem the offer using the Shop Samsung application. (Stacks with all offers)
- Finally, if you purchase a Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G or S20+ 5G on Verizon and have a Verizon Unlimited plan, you get a free six months subscription to the Hatch streaming game service. Hatch is a new way to game, giving you instant access to 100+ premium games in one made-for-5G app. (Stacks with all offers)
T-Mobile
- Customers can get up to $500 off any of the latest Samsung Galaxy S20 5G smartphones after rebate when they trade in an eligible device.
- Customers can pick up one of the latest Samsung Galaxy S20 5G smartphones at T-Mobile and get up to $1000 off a second one of equal or lesser value with 24 monthly bill credits when they add a line (new customers must add two lines) and get both devices on T-Mobile’s no-interest Equipment Installment Plan. That means customers can get a Samsung Galaxy S20 5G FREE! Customers can also pick up a Samsung Galaxy S10 and Note10 series device on the same deal.
- T-Mobile for Business customers can also take advantage of these offers, plus more offers just for businesses.
- Plus, customers also receive a Samsung credit of up to $200 from Samsung.com when they pre-order any of the latest Galaxy S20 5G smartphones.
AT&T
- For a limited time, customers who sign up for AT&T Unlimited Extra and AT&T Unlimited Elite, our latest unlimited plans with 5G and 5G+ service included, can get a Galaxy S20 5G FREE and a Galaxy S20+ 5G starting at $200 when they port a line, buy on a qualifying installment plan and trade-in an eligible smartphone.
Sprint
- Switch to Sprint and get Galaxy S20 5G for $0 per month when you trade in your Galaxy S8 or newer in ANY condition.
- Lease Samsung Galaxy S20 5G, Galaxy S20+ 5G or Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G and get a second Galaxy S20 5G on us with Sprint Flex lease.
Other retailers
- B&H Photo will have unlocked models, but it’s unclear what kinds of deals. [Shop]
- Target could go off too, we just aren’t seeing their promo yet. [Shop]
We’ll do our best to update this if we see other great deals.