Even though it seems to be hip these days to cut the prices of some of the best-selling smartphones around, we can’t help but suspect some of these discounts have ulterior motives or strings attached to them.
Take T-Mobile’s HTC One S, for example. This hasn’t exactly been a star, but it sold decently enough at $200 on-contract to be untouched for at least a few more weeks. However, T-Mo has already decided a price slashing is needed and is now selling the elegant 4.3-incher at $149.99.
The “special offer” will be lasting until August 21, so you have 2 full weeks to decide whether to take advantage of the deal or not. Then again, we’re almost certain that at the end of this promotion, or at the worst a few weeks after that, HTC will come out with a spanking new high-end phone, known around the web as the One X+.
We’ve picked up a benchmark of that supposed new HTC flagship just a few days ago, and according to it, the One X+ might come packing a quad-core 1.7 GHz Tegra 3 processor, a full HD 1280 x 720 pixels resolution display, and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of the box. That’ll certainly raise the bar over the One S and X in terms of raw performance. It’s safe to assume that it’ll also go up for sale with a much steeper price point than T-Mo’s current line-up of phones.
Leaving speculations aside for a moment and getting back to T-Mo’s current deal, we should tell you that the One S is powered by a dual-core 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S4 processor. The 4.3-incher sports a qHD Super AMOLED screen with 960 x 540 pixels resolution and features 1 GB of RAM, 16 GB of on-board memory, built-in Beats Audio technology, 4G speeds, an 8 MP rear-facing camera, as well as the running of Android 4.0 ICS with the Sense 4.0 UI on top (an upgrade to Jelly Bean is also “planned”).
To get the One S for just $149.99, you’ll have to sign a new two-year carrier agreement and go for one of the carrier’s individual plans starting at $39.99 per month. The offer includes a mail-in rebate, while the usual $35 activation fee is waived for a limited time only (until August 12, to be more exact).
Will anyone be picking up one of the discounted One S’? Are you all planning to hold out until the One X+ will be made official?
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