Samsung opens US preorders for unlocked Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus, starting at $724.99 for the 64GB unlocked S8 and $824.99 for the 64GB unlocked S8 Plus
Starting at Best Buy and Samsung.com — Samsung has opened preorders for the unlocked variety of its new Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus smartphones.
Context & Ripple Effects
Samsung put the Galaxy S8 on sale through carriers first: carrier preorder pricing opened March 30 at $720–$750 for the S8 and $840–$850 for the S8 Plus, bundled with a free Gear VR and an April 21 ship date. Today's move extends that to the unlocked variant, sold through Best Buy and Samsung.com rather than a carrier checkout.
The unlocked track is now a fixture of Samsung's US launches, not a one-off — it followed the same script with the unlocked Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge at $670 and $770 last June. What changed this cycle is how narrow the unlocked premium has become: $724.99 undercuts AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint's $750 carrier price and sits only about $5 above Verizon's $720.
First-order effects
- US buyers who want a SIM-free Galaxy S8 or S8 Plus can now order directly from Samsung.com or Best Buy at $724.99/$824.99 for 64GB, without committing to a carrier installment plan.
- Samsung's own storefront gains a second revenue path for the same hardware, letting it capture the full device price instead of routing the sale through carrier subsidies.
Second-order effects
- Carriers lose their default role as the S8's purchase point for customers willing to pay upfront, so their differentiation shifts to financing terms and bundles like the Gear VR preorder promo rather than exclusive access.
- With the unlocked price effectively matching or beating three of the four major carriers' sticker prices, Samsung compresses the arbitrage space between locked and unlocked units, pressuring carriers to justify any markup.
Third-order effects
- If each flagship generation ships unlocked at near-parity pricing — as the S7, S8, and later the Galaxy S9 preorder round all did — the US market keeps drifting away from carrier-locked purchasing toward full-price devices bought direct, weakening the carriers' grip on the upgrade cycle.
- A durable unlocked channel also gives Samsung pricing flexibility independent of carrier negotiations, a structural advantage smaller Android vendors without comparable retail reach cannot easily match.
The trend: Samsung is normalizing unlocked, direct-to-consumer flagship sales in the US, steadily eroding the carrier-locked model that long defined smartphone distribution.