T-Mobile started shipping Galaxy Note 9 units to customers who pre-ordered Samsung’s latest Android flagship, with one source reporting receiving their unit as early as Wednesday, two days before the phablet is scheduled to be officially released. The Bellevue, Washington-based wireless carrier traditionally sends advanced smartphone orders to customers early, though there are no guarantees that all of the company’s subscribers who opted to purchase the new handset in advance will receive it before it hits the store shelves tomorrow.
While there are still no reports of Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint following suit, Samsung itself has already been shipping Galaxy Note 9 units since Monday, with numerous users who pre-ordered the device directly from the South Korean company reporting they already received their new gadget. Samsung and its distribution partners opted to attach more aggressive pre-order promotions to the Galaxy Note 9 compared to the Galaxy S9 lineup, presumably because the latter has been selling below expectations, as per the company’s own admission. Besides the already established trade-in offer that allows you to save up to $480 on your purchase, numerous mobile service providers throughout the United States are also offering various freebies alongside advanced orders for the device. American consumers can still take advantage of those deals by the end of the day.
The Galaxy Note 9 is a largely iterative upgrade over its predecessor, offering annual improvements in terms of a slightly larger screen, better system-on-chip, more RAM (on the top model), higher-capacity battery, and more storage space. An improved S Pen is also part of the package, being Samsung’s first stylus with Bluetooth capabilities that allow it to act as a remote control in a wide variety of scenarios. The base model of the Galaxy Note 9 will set you back some $999, whereas the higher-end variant retails for approximately $1,249, depending on the market. Samsung said it’s expecting the Android phablet to outsell the Galaxy Note 8, with industry sources recently suggesting its pre-order performance already surpassed the Galaxy S9 series in certain territories.