Amazon has long offered discounts on its Kindle e-readers if you don’t mind Special Offers, which are ads that display on the device’s lock screen. Now Amazon is bringing a similar feature to unlocked smartphones.
Amazon has announced Prime Exclusive smartphones, which are unlocked Android phones that are discounted from their regular prices, but show ads on their lock screens. The first two phones to be available through the Prime Exclusive program are the Moto G4 and BLU R1 HD.
Both phones are discounted by $50 when you get them through Prime Exclusive, meaning that the Moto G4 is $149.99 for 16GB or $179.99 for 32GB, while the BLU R1 HD is $49.99 with 8GB of storage and 1GB of RAM or $59.99 with 16GB of storage and 2GB of RAM. Today (June 29) only, though, you can save an additional $25 on the Moto G4, bringing its price down to $124.99 for 16GB or $154.99 for 32GB.
Both of these phones come with personalized offers and ads on their lock screens. If you see an ad that interests you, you can tap it to learn more about it. Otherwise you can just unlocked your phone like normal to dismiss the ad and get into your device. These Prime Exclusive phones also come preloaded with Amazon apps and a widget that can display Amazon’s daily deals on your home screen.
These Prime Exclusive smartphones are available only to Amazon Prime members. They’re available for pre-order today and will start shipping on July 12.
Amazon’s Prime Exclusive phones look like an interesting option for folks in the market for an affordable new device. Fifty dollars is not an insignificant amount of money to save on a new smartphone, especially when these phones are already priced rather affordably. And while you will have to look at ads in order to get the discounted price, the lock screen ads can quickly be skipped over by just unlocking your phone. If you don’t mind laying your eyes on an ad for a second or two instead of your wallpaper when you reach for your phone, a Prime Exclusive phone could be a good buy.
What do you think of Amazon’s Prime Exclusive phones? Would you deal with lock screen ads to save $50 on an unlocked smartphone?
