Back at the end of January, a rumor started surfacing that Samsung had plans to release an upgrade program for the upcoming Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge smartphones that at the time, were only believed to be getting an announcement at Mobile World Congress. The phones were indeed unveiled at the event, and along with the announcement of the phones came the confirmation that Samsung was going to have an upgrade program in place for the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge that would allow customers to upgrade to the newest Galaxy device every 12 months. Just a couple of days ago it was announced that the upgrade program would be going live in South Korea on march 11th.
As of today, it seems that customers in the UK who are planning on buying the Samsung Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 Edge will have the opportunity to set up the upgrade program immediately, as Samsung UK’s web page for the service is now live and plans can be purchased. The phone is still only available for pre-order of course, set at prices of £639.00 and £569.00 for the 32GB models of the Galaxy S7 Edge and Galaxy S7 respectively, but UK consumers can place the pre-order and sign up for the upgrade program now.
The upgrade plans do come with various terms and conditions, part of that being that customers will be expected to pay a monthly fee for the phone spread over a 24 month period from the time they swap out and get the new device. Prices for the monthly fees will start from £24.58 a month, with prices subject to change depending on the device that customers pick up as the retail costs will of course be different. For example, after a 12 month period a customer could upgrade from the Galaxy S7 to the next Galaxy Note device which is likely to cost more money. Customers will not be invited to upgrade until after the first year, which means that there will be no upgrades to a new Galaxy device until around March of 2017. The upgrade program is also subject a credit check and qualifying status, so not everyone will be able to enter the upgrade program. The other caveat is that there is an annual interest rate on the finance part of the upgrade of 14.9%, so customers will need to be OK with technically paying more for the handset.