If you don’t like contracts, but do not object to seeing ads and sponsored screensavers on your phone, and if you are a Prime member (or do not object to becoming one), you can get an $80 discount on the brand new Alcatel Idol 5S, unlocked and without contractual obligations!

Prime members can get this in the Prime Lockscreen Edition for $200, versus $280 for the standard version. It is the same phone, except for the ads. It is up to you to decide whether a $80 discount is an acceptable trade-off to seeing ads. Check reviews of previous phones Amazon offered in this fashion to see if this is something you can live with.

Certainly $80 is a bigger discount than some of the other phones Amazon offers in this program that range from $30 to $50. Trying to capitalize on the success of the Idol 4S, they pick up a well-received Snapdragon for this model, the 625 Octa-Core, with 3GB RAM, 32GB storage, and a microSD slot that can take up to 512GB cards, which is nice.

You get a 5.2-inch 1080p touchscreen, a very fresh Android 7.1 (compared to the fast majority of other Android phones out there). It supports T-Mobile and AT&T out of the box, and per the description over there, support for Sprint and Verizon is coming later in the summer.

The Snapdragon 625 is used in other “all carrier” phones like the Motorola Moto G5, so it is certainly capable for supporting Sprint and Verizon.

Both the Standard and the Lockscreen Ads versions of the phone are expected to be released on July 10 in 2017. So many phone choices, so little time 🙂

IF you are not a Prime member, but you want to get the discounted version, you’ll have to buy it at full price ($280) but after you become a paid Prime member, in other words after the 30-day free trial ends and you pay for the Prime membership, Amazon will give you an $80 gift card, the difference between the lockscreen and non-lockscreen version. There are some conditions in place to make sure people don’t try to cheat on this, so check the terms/conditions.