Prepaid Carriers offer Galaxy S9 for $660, S9+ for $760

If you are looking to get the brand new Samsung Galaxy S9 flagships at a reasonable outright price, and you want to use it with these prepaid carriers, you are in luck! A couple of them, “Simple Mobile” and “Total Wireless” are offering them for $660 (S9) and $760 (S9+) outright on Amazon! You have to use a SIM card for one of those two carriers if you want service, which, of course, you can find on Amazon!

Carrier $660 $760
Simple Mobile Galaxy S9 Galaxy S9+
Total Wireless Galaxy S9 Galaxy S9+

And that’s it. You buy it, you pay for it, and it’s yours! No monthly payments, no requirement to have or maintain service with a carrier and such!

Samsung Chromebook PLUS for $400 with boatload of FREEBIES: $50 Amazon Giftt Card, $20 Google Play Gift Card, SIX Months of Netflix, Two Years of 100GB Google Drive, Etc

If you are looking for both a Chrome laptop and an Android tablet, don’t walk, RUN to this offer because the clock is ticking!

It is the new condition Samsung Chromebook Plus Convertible Touch Laptop, model XE513C24-K01US, that is currently going for $400 by Amazon actual. For a limited time, you also get a FREE $50 Amazon.com plastic gift card. You have to add both the Chromebook and the gift card in your shopping cart. Then you go through the checkout process, you will see a $50 off discount at the top right corner of the Amazon Checkout page that makes the gift card free!

GREAT FREEBIES FROM GOOGLE UNTIL 12/31/17

The clock is ticking because this deal is made great with a handful of freebies offered by Google, and these must be CLAIMED from your brand new ACTIVATED device by December 31st in 2017. So not only must you buy the laptop, you must open it, and login with your Google account. Then visit the Chromebook Offers page and claim these offers. You can’t claim them with a different device – you must use your brand new Chromebook to do so.

The freebies that Google offers, for either this PLUS model (using ARM processors) or its sister PRO model (uses Intel and costs $100 more) are:

  • SIX months of Netflix at the $11/mo streaming plan (you can also use this credit towards a different Netflix streaming plan)
  • $20 Google Play store credit (make sure you use your Google account that has your Google Play apps/store content)
  • two years of an extra 100GB block of Google Drive storage
  • over $60 in in-game freebies for Asphalt 8 Android game

The Netflix and Google Play store credit along are worth $86! Add the $50 Amazon gift card, and you are getting $136 back in practical gifts. And that’s before you factor in the value of the Google Drive and the Asphalt 8 car pack, which are more niche in that not everyone is interested in them.

THE CHROMEDROID that was PROMISED

This is a really nice 2-in-1 ChromeDroid device! I picked it up during the Black Friday festivities and I plan on posting a lot about it. It has exceeded expectations so far! So far I have two posts:

+ Text and Pictures Unboxing

+ Recap of the Initial Setup and configuration

NOTE that this is a USB-C device (it has two of them). You have to use adapters or USB hubs for standard USB Type A or micro USB connections!

It includes a built-in stylus and works with other styli as well (eg Samsung’s Norris which I will also be reviewing)…

Samsung Chromebook Plus drops to $349

If you are looking to buy a new Chromebook with a touchscreen, and a new Android tablet, and you’d prefer your Chromebook to have a 360-degree hinge, $349 can get you all three at the moment because the ARM-powered Samsung Chromebook Plus is now on sale as part of the Black Friday festivities for $349 at amazon.com and some other authorized Samsung dealers.

I just purchased this, it arrived earlier today, and I’ve already posted a detailed and useful Text and Pictures Unboxing of the Samsung Chromebook Plus. So if you are curious about it, stay tuned to the blog as I share my findings!

If you have any questions about it, please write them in the comments here or any of the SCP (= Samsung Chromebook Plus) posts over there! Don’t by shy 🙂

Saturday: refurbished Samsung Gear S2 for $100

One of the Amazon daily deals running until Sunday 3am ET (10/22/17) is the certified refurbished dark gray Samsung Gear S2 Smartwatch offered for $100 with free shipping, sold by a marketplace seller with the orders fulfilled by Amazon, so Prime members get free 2-day shipping.

This refurbished model averages 3.4 out of 5 based on 360+ customer reviews and has over 180 answered questions. This is a Tizen smartwatch OS device, but works with most Kit Kat and later Android smartphones.

I only recently finally gave in to the temptation to try out smartwatches with the Fossil Q Explorist, model FTW4004, an Android Wear 2.0 device. So far, I found it more useful than I had expected. Which is probably why I resisted for so long until the Watch OS matured more with Android Wear 2.0 🙂

Samsung Book Deals choices for July 2017 are up

If you have Samsung hardware device that is participating in their lesser known “Book Deals” program (Samsung it survived the regular purge of Samsung’s never-ending stream of projects), and if you have installed the Kindle app from the actual Samsung app store (it has S-Pen support after all), then every month, either for the lifetime of your device or for a preset number of months, you can receive a free ebook every month from a choice of four.

Almost all these books are part of Kindle Unlimited, so they have lots and lots of reviews, which can help you device which one to get or which ones to avoid. This unlike Kindle First which offers pre-release ebooks, so you have to wait for a few days before they build up a review profile.

The choices for July 2017 are:

  • “Crow Hollow” by Michael Wallace
  • “The Gift” by Dave Donovan (alien invasion type)
  • “What doesn’t kill her” by Max Allan Collins
  • “Heart of a Highland Warrior” by Anita Clenney (romance)

Happy reading 🙂 I am leaning towards the “The Gift” because one can never read enough alien invasion stories 🙂

One more thing, once you get your freebie, a lot of these ebooks have an audiobook co-promotion. You can add the audiobook for $2 or so.

Samsung Books FREEbies for June 2017 are out

It is June 2017 now, so don’t forget to scoop up your latest Kindle First freebie if you are a Prime member. And if you have an eligible Samsung hardware device, AND you don’t object to downloading the Amazon Kindle app from the Samsung app store (it is S-Pen friendly), for the month of June 2017, you can get one of the following ebooks below for FREE!

Unlike Kindle First which offers pre-release e-books, Samsung’s Book Deals offer previously released ebooks that are almost always part of the Kindle Unlimited (KU) program. So if you have a KU subscription, you already have access to all four of these.

Since these ebooks are already out, they have a lot of reviews each, so you can use the reviews scores and text to decide ~ if none of them “sings” to you 🙂

Samsung Book Deals for May 2017 are out (pick one from four)

Oops! I forgot to post this earlier in the month! The Samsung Book Deals for May 2017 are running, good until the last day of the month. As with before, you can pick one of the four available ebooks for FREE! Make sure the price shown is $0.00, otherwise you will be charged for it!

To get these, you need to have a Samsung hardware device that is eligible for this promotion, AND download the Kindle app from the Samsung app store (not GooglePLAY, not Amazon’s app store). The extra benefit of that app is that it is optimized for the S-Pen. Of note (no pun intended) if you have Samsung Galaxy Note phones and tablets 🙂

Some Samsung devices have this offer only for a limited time (eg 12 months after purchase), some devices are NOT eligible, while other devices are eligible for the lifetime of the device.

Regardless, all the ebooks offered through this are available through Kindle Unlimited as well, so you have another option to read them (if you are a KU subscriber that is).

My pick from this quartet was Drifters 🙂

The ebooks offered here are all previously released ebooks and they have plenty of reviews already in the Kindle store, so you can use a long list of reviews and ratings and comments to make your decision.

Samsung Book Deals is different from the Kindle First program which only offers pre-release ebooks (most of which ends up in Kindle Unlimited as well).

March 2017 ebook options are up at Samsung Book Deals

Every month a number of places give out free e-books. The Kindle First program is not the only one. If you have a Samsung device that is eligible to participate in the Samsung Book Deals, and if you have installed the Kindle app from Samsung’s own app store (not Google Play, not Amazon’s app store), then you can head over to the “Book Deals” section of the app, and select one free ebook from a choice of four.

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Seller Refurbished 32GB Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (unlocked GSM, 4G LTE, S-Pen included) for $150

If you want to get your Samsung Galaxy Note smartphone fix while waiting to see what the follow-up to the ill-fated Note 7 (which may have been the best smartphone of all time – ironically), the used market is one way to go. Among the latest eBay Deals, you can get the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 in seller-refurbished condition for $150 with free shipping by QualityCellz on eBay (99.4%, ships from Southern California). This is model N910, with 32GB on-board storage, microSD slot, and unlocked 4G LTE. No contract – you own the phone upfront!

NOTE if you are planning to use this with a cellphone plan (not as a Wifi-only device), make sure you check the bands are compatible with your carrier(s) of choice. If not certain, check the various Android/smartphone forums, or use your favorite search engine.

The S-Pen is included per the ebay listing. Some claim the Note 4 was the first in the Note series to “get it right” but of course that’s always subject to debate. It came out in 2014, with a Snapdragon 805, and 3GB of RAM which is nice (assume 1GB is eaten up by “TouchWiz”).

NOTE #2: the Note 4 is not currently among the first wave of smartphones supported by CyanogenMOD-Reborn, aka LineageOS. I wish they gave it a better name. LineageOS sounds like an ancestry-obsessed fan club 🙂

Free Samsung Books choices for February 2017 are out

If you have a participating Samsung device, and you have installed the Kindle app from Samsung’s own Android app store (not Google Play or Amazon’s), you may be eligible to get one free e-book every month from a choice of four. Some devices are eligible for this benefit for the life of the account/device, while others only have it for a year. You can tell if you are eligible by looking at the price of the ebooks, if it’s $0.00, you are eligible 🙂

Unlike Kindle First, the Samsung Book Deals are NOT new releases. Almost all of them are previously released ebooks that are part of Kindle unlimited. The plus side of this is that most of them have a handful of customer reviews, so you can use those to help you select which one of the four to get for free.

So without further ado, here are the four choices:

  • “Lily Love” by Maggi Myers
  • “Artful” by Patrick David
  • “Plea of insanity” by Jilliane Hoffman
  • “Lord of the Nile” by Constance O’Banyon

Samsung Book Deals options for January 2017

If you have an eligible Samsung device, you can get one free e-book per month from a choice of four options, if you use the Kindle app downloaded from the official Samsung app store. This app is tuned to work with the S-Pen, so that’s a plus if you have a Note device!

Your benefit and how long it lasts depends on which Samsung device you purchased and when. I have no clue which devices qualifies for what, so that’s up to you to determine. IF you have an eligible device, the four e-books, under the “Book Deals” section of the Kindle app downloaded from the Samsung app store show a price of FREE/$0. If you see an actual price, it means you will pay for it. But fear not, even if so, you can always go to amazon.com/myk and reverse/cancel the purchase.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, these are the four choices for January 2017. You have until 1/31/17 to make a choice. Unlike Kindle First that offers brand new e-books, almost all the Samsung Book Deals options are already part of Kindle Unlimited, so they have a built-up review profile, which can help you device if none of the books shout “read me” immediately.

The choices are:

  • “First Activation” by the Wearmouth brothers (book #1 in a post-apocalyptic series)
  • “Katwalk” by Maria Murmano
  • “Opal Fire” by Barbra Annino in a Mystery series
  • “The Kentucky Bride” by Norah Hess in Steamy Romances

OPTIONALLY, once you buy the e-book of your choice, you can add audio narration (Audible audiobook) for typically an extra $2 more. In the strange world of e-book pricing, sometimes it is cheaper to buy the ebook + audiobook, than buy the audiobook directly!

Samsung Book Deals for October 2016 are up

A new month does not only bring new Kindle First choices but also “Samsung Book Deals”. These are not as common because to get them you have to have an eligible Samsung device, and you have to download the Kindle app from Samsung’s own app-store. A plus of that is that it is more S-Pen friendly than the normal Kindle apps.

Which devices are eligible and for how long depends on which device you purchased and when. The fastest way to find out is to download the app and look under the “Samsung Book Deals” section. If you are eligible, their price will be $0.00. After you pick one of them, the price of the remaining ebooks will be their normal price. If you make a mistake, fear not, you can go to your Amazon Kindle account page (eg amazon.com/myk) and void the transaction.

samsung_book_deals_october_2016

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Samsung Book Deals Options for September 2016

If you have an eligible Samsung device, you get a free e-book every month from a choice of four. Almost all of these are part of Kindle Unlimited and previously released, unlike Kindle First that has pre-release ebooks. Since all these have been out for a while, they have an established review profile…

samsung_book_deals_sept_2016

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11.6″ Samsung Chromebook 3 (4GB RAM) for $180 [limit 3]

If you are not interesting in having a touchscreen on your Chromebook (eg when the Android apps arrive), the 11.6-inch Samsung Chromebook 3, with 4GB RAM [a must have these days with Chromebooks because the web is more bloated than ever] is on sale for $180 with free shipping at Amazon by Amazon actual. Limit three of these per customer during this sale. It is powered by the Celeron N3050 1.6 GHz processor, which currently ranks #1663 at cpubenchmark.net.

The usual assortment of features for this price-range come with it, 16GB on-board storage, integrated graphics, SD and USB and HDMI ports, etc.

All the options together average 4.2 out of 5 based on 152 customer reviews and has about the same number of questions answered over there.

Free eBooks from Samsung Book Deals for August 2016

If you have an eligible Samsung device, and IF you have downloaded the official Kindle app from Samsung’s own app store (not from Google Play), you may be eligible to get a FREE e-book every month. How long these offers run depends on which device you bought and when you bought it. If there’s one thing certain about Samsung is that they always change their “Perks” 🙂

Unlike Kindle First which features pre-release ebooks, the Samsung Book Deals typically feature ebooks that have been out already and they are almost all part of Kindle Unlimited, so they often have plenty of reviews to help you decide which one you want.

samsung_book_deals_august_2016

The four choices for August 2016 are:

  • “Letters to Love” by Soraya Lane
  • “The Towers of Tuscany” by Carol M. Cram
  • “Rewinder Book #1” (a series) by Brett Battles
  • “A Cold and Broken Hallelujah (Long Beach Homicide)” by Tyler Dilts”

BIG REMINDER: when you look at the ebook’s page, the buy button must say get it for free (not the Kindle Unlimited button but the regular buy button). If it doesn’t say it’s free, you will be charged. Not a big deal, you can always reverse the purchase at amazon.com/myk (mnemonic = my kindle) but if you don’t want the extra step, simply pay attention to what the buy button says 🙂