This was posted 6 years 1 month 22 days ago, and might be an out-dated deal.

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Pre-Order Samsung Galaxy S9 64G Coral Blue Unlocked $724.98 USD (~$931 AUD) Delivered @ Amazon US

510
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This item will be released on March 16, 2018.

Grey import, US Warranty

Super Speed Dual Pixel Camera
Infinity Display: edge-to-edge immersive screen, enhancing your entertainment experience*
IP68 rating: withstands splashes, spills, and rain so it can take a dip, worry-free***
Internal Memory 64 GB. Expandable Storage up to 400GB****
Fast Wireless Charging: Avoid the wires and power up quickly by placing your phone on a Fast Wireless Charger.*****

Price History at C CamelCamelCamel.

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closed Comments

  • +1

    Will samsung Au warranty it?

    • +2

      Grey import, US Warranty

      • +6

        Not really worth saving a couple hundred if you have to spend that to get warranty from US

    • Definitely not.

    • +1

      no if samsung australia use the samsung SOC , they won’t keep SD SOC versions for replacements or associated parts.

      you wouldn’t expect breville to keep an iron with overseas plugs in australia for a warranty claim.

      it’s why apple have global model and global warranty as people do travel and expect phones to be fixed if broken.

      only thing don’t keep are the country specific charger adapters , bought charger in malaysia for laptop, they couldn’t sell me the AU adapter , had to buy one in australia for my charger when i got back. other option was international adapter pack full of adapters i’d never use.

      • Yeah, I believe US and China get the SD and everyone else gets the Exynos

      • +2

        So really Apple are better in this aspect for buying grey imports

        • -4

          Yeah but IOS is garbage, no SD card, can't USB drag and drop, doesn't recognise standard media file types and needing to charge your battery twice a day doesn't make up for it.

        • +3

          @Joey Jo Jo:

          Android user here, but that's a ridiculous stupid comment. iOS is hardly garbage.

        • -8

          @willoz: you obviously wouldn’t know garbage if you tripped over it

        • iOS is not garbage but their products become garbage pretty fast. There apps lack backwards compatibility, if your not updating the os to the later bloatware versions your device won't play half the apps in the store.

          My Nexus 7 2013 has no issues with rubbing in an outdated is.

        • So really Apple are better in this aspect for buying grey imports

          A bit late to the party, but Apple does not provide international warranty for iPhones and iPads. The guy at the apple store may decide to help with your phone anyway, but the official line is, there is no international warranty so if they refuse, you have no leg to stand on. My friend tried to get his HK-purchased iPhone serviced here and got rejected. There have been users on other forums stating the same.

          https://www.apple.com/au/legal/warranty/products/ios-warrant…

          Apple may restrict warranty service for iPhone, iPad and Apple TV to the country where Apple or its Authorized Distributors originally sold the device.

        • @eug: I havent had any issues with getting kogan phones repaired at no cost at Apple stores

        • @asa79: As I said, it's up to the person you're dealing with. They can refuse, like the multiple reports in this thread.

          One person also mentioned that they tried to get warranty service in HK for their 2-month-old Australian iPhone and got rejected. Someone else replied and said his Australian iPhone got rejected in HK as well, but his partner's HK iPhone got replaced in Melb.

          It's inconsistent because officially there is no international warranty. It's up to the person or store you're dealing with.

        • @eug: I have done it 3 times with 2 different iPhones with 3 different people and stated each time that it was a kogan HK import and neither of them had any issues

        • @eug: And your point being? As stated apple support grey imports and samsung doesnt

        • @asa79: No idea why you don't seem to get it. You're saying Apple supports grey imports. I just gave proof that they don't - they might, but they don't all the time, because officially, there is no international warranty on iPhones.

        • @eug: and I have proof from 3 different occasions that had no issues with HK iphones replacements and repairs, but if you dont want to accept that, thats your issue not mine

        • @asa79: You have to realize that it's not just about you and your own personal experiences.

          You claim that Apple provides full warranty support for grey imports.

          I showed evidence otherwise.

          Yet you still hold on to your own personal experiences and think it's representative of everybody else's experiences, even though its been shown otherwise.

          It's not just about you. It's great that you got service 3 times, but it does not mean that everyone else will get service 3 times too, or even 1 time.

        • @eug: i cant see anywhere on their website they say only australia purchases. where is that?

        • @asa79: Please refer to my original post which you replied to.

        • @eug: it says 'may' but doesnt say it does, so you are still incorrect.

        • @asa79: "may" means Apple may or may not provide you with service for phones purchased from other countries.

          When someone says they may or may not provide service, that means:

          • They may provide you with service.

            or

          • They may not provide you with service.

          It does not mean:

          • They will definitely provide you with service.

          As I've shown, several people have reported being denied warranty service for iPhones purchased from different countries.

          If Apple definitely provided international warranty coverage for iPhones, their terms and conditions would not say "Apple may restrict warranty….".

          Instead, it would say something like "Apple will provide worldwide warranty coverage" or "Apple will not restrict warranty…".

        • @eug: Exactly, so your arguing on a "May" term saying they "Will" deny you support outside. I think you are picking at very tiny strings for your case here

        • @asa79:

          Exactly, so your arguing on a "May" term saying they "Will" deny you support outside.

          Please point out where I said that Apple will deny warranty service to iPhones from other countries.

          The terms and conditions say they may. That is not the same as they will. You have no guarantees and no rights. So as far as Apple is concerned, you have no warranty, but the person at the Apple store may give you service. Or they may not. If they don't, you don't have a leg to stand on as the terms and conditions clearly gives them the option not to provide any service to you. The best you can do is try another store or another person.

  • will this have the SD845 or exynos

    • +2

      Sd845

      • +2

        Good point, this phone has an inferior CPU!

        • Benchmarks?

        • -3

          cpu performance isn’t the issue, is will it have the software stream as australia or will they have a different stream for USA with some tweaks for local carriers.

          it’s all about software now days.

        • -1

          will probabaly get negged by people that buy on benchmarks and not overall functionality , eg chinadroids with great benchmarks but no band 28., it’s pre- release so could br bands for US carriers, which verizon users are asking about already and verizon LTE

          it’s all about software, bad software doesn’t make good phones and the firmware will not be interchangeable between the samsung soc and sd soc ….. you will get US updates or global updates.
          and this is pre-order, could be very US specific when finally released.

        • Its funny how in the 8 series, the exynos benched better, however when looking closer at the 835 you'll see they underclock it at 2.3Ghz instead of 2.45Ghz which its rated at.. Thats 150Mhz which is a fair amount. I wonder why… :)

        • slower clock extends the battery life and reduces heat.

    • +6

      Good thing you are not us.

    • -6

      If you kill someone with it, would it count as an accident or murder?

    • -2

      I am a Samsung fan (never use anything but Samsung since galaxy S2 came out) but I agree to him completely. Will wait to see if this explodes or not first before jumping in.

      • +1

        Because Samsung didn't spend a fortune to focus on battery quality and battery stress testing to combat the five billion dollar loss and extremely bad publicity from an incident that happened to phones in late 2016 that hasn't happened again since.

        • I'm not saying not using them, I'm just saying wait a bit more before jumping in.

      • -1

        Of course the sales of this phone will explode. Its release has been eagerly expected by everyone.

  • RRP for this is $1199, 20% off would be $959. This is just around 23% off.
    I'd wait if buying outright for when ebay does some type of 20% code and mobileciti or someone else has it listed at RRP, then at least you will have AUS stock and a tax invoice for TRS

    • +10

      When that happens, grey imports will be marked up to AU RRP, and AU stock will be "temporarily out of stock" during the sale.

      At least in the beginning.

      • +2

        I bought from mobileciti with this deal and this was the grey imports deal at the time. Not saying history will repeat itself but you know, doesn't hurt to wait a bit..

    • That's not now TRS works. You're not supposed to bring the item back into the country, and if you do, that makes you a tax fraud if you don't declare and pay the GST back.

      • +4

        a person is allowed to bring $900 back into the country. Electronic goods depreciate I think it was 15% once you use it. Safe bet you'd have no issues with the s9.

        • Electronic goods depreciate I think it was 15% once you use it.

          Where did you read that?

          Safe bet you'd have no issues with the s9.

          A bet perhaps you're willing to take, but granted probably not one you should recommend to others. I'm all for legal tax avoidance, but using a loophole that your phone has "depreciated" because you turned it on, but still claiming the full purchase price as TRS is not really black and white.

        • +1

          @tromboc:

          google has people saying 20% on electronics. From my personal experience after asking the person at the counter it was 15% on mobile phones and 100% depreciation on clothing and 50% on suitcases. 0% on designer hand bags and jewellery.
          This phone will be fine.

        • +2

          @googoogaga:

          next time i do my tax return i'll let them know i googled what i can claim and some guy on the internet said it would be ok. cheers.

        • +4

          @tromboc:

          next time i do my tax return

          You mean next time you get audited. There's no field on a tax return to explain anything.

        • @salmon123:

          touche.

        • +1

          ive brought back cameras and laptops, not an issue , big deal seems to be drugs and fresh food.

          once you turn a phone on and it’s not new anymore, it looses much more than 15% of its value ….

        • @garage sale:

          and fresh food

          Those apples and bananas are a menace to society

        • fresh food is a big issue with customs and quarantine … driven by farmers and impact of imported diseases or pests.

        • +3

          Yep it’s actually more like 20% depreciation. Plus the customs guys are pretty lax on it. If ur like $100 over and declared it.. they usually just waive u on so they don’t have to deal with the paper work.. airports are busy and they more concerned with ppl brining in contraband and other illegal items into the country then collecting tax on behalf of the government

        • @tromboc: once u open the box the phone already loses value. U cant justify that an unopen box phone is a valuable as one that even opened and used.

        • @googoogaga: It's that way for cars too. Once you drive it out of the lot, 20% of its value is gone. Actually that might even begin the moment it's registered to you.

        • @Gavman:

          I'm not saying you're wrong, i'm saying that giving advice based on "you should be right" is wrong.

        • +1

          @tromboc: Im saying this is how it tis…

          I bought a device for $1579 and travelled to usa in Jan which i claimed GST. i was travelling with a minor so my threshold ended up being $1350 (900 + 450).. i declared it on my return to AUS 2 weeks later.. when customs checked it they said that they wont charge me the GST agreeing on the depreciated value is less than $1350. I guess take it or leave it..

  • +3

    Its never a good idea to buy the USA SD version of a Samsung flaghsip phone.

    If you want a grey import grab one of the many other exynos versions like what we will get here.

    • Whats wrong with SD?

      • +2

        Nothing really - the Exynos chips usually have a slight performance and efficiency advantage over the SD chips, and also tend to have a better DAC. Not a huge difference though.

      • Lol. Worst SOC ever. What has Samsung been drinking?

      • Interesting, but it’s a preproduction model they used for testing. Even they don’t seem sure of the results. It would be the first time in years that the Exynos has been outperformed by the equivalent SD.

        Edit - a quick Google and YouTube search, and from what I’ve found so far, this years Exynos outperforms the SD again. I guess will see, but in two minutes, I found a lot of information that contradicts the article you posted (Anandtech are very good, I don’t question their testing).

      • if you go by the benchmark apple A11 beat both ….. so would you buy apple ?

        it’s not pure benchmarks, it’s that total package of processor, software , associates support chips and how the coding was done and what they decided to optimise at the expense of something else.

    • yep , you want the software and hardware stream that is issued for australia incase they have a tweak for telstra or optus ….

      this is pre order and could be market specific e.g US and lack some of our local requirements. eg band 28.

  • This may be cheaper but it has the slower Snapdragon 845. Australians get the international Exynos 9810 ftw! :D :D

    this is still a good deal though and the difference between the two chips are negligible

    • -4

      Erm, the benchmarks proves the Exynos to be a bag of wet, smelly pants.

      • +1

        No, the one article linked above does. There’s plenty of benchmark videos on YouTube and articles that indicate that the Exynos, yet again, outperforms the SD. Two minutes research and you could avoid making stupid comments.

        • Paste the link please. My Google skillz are not up to par it seems. Could not find a decent video or an article which says otherwise.

        • @sniper: I literally googled “Galaxy S9 Exynos vs Snapdragon”.

        • -1

          @aja12: Thanks! I found and watched the 2 videos.

          For anyone else who just wants the actual results without all the fluff from the videos (some things are better in written form):

          https://www.techwalls.com/samsung-exynos-9810-vs-qualcomm-sn…

        • I believe you didn't read the anandtech's article carefully.

    • depends why the US gets the sd and rest of the world for global gets samsung soc .

      will this create different software streams for updates because USA uses some different bands to some other parts of the world , or will samsung support 2 SOCs for phones with identical features and all the bands globally.
      ?

      i’m always sceptical of USA phones that are different to global models.

      • Some carriers in the US insist on locked bootloaders = no custom roms.

        The main reason however looks like a hedge against production issues. Half the world production volume is their own chip, and half uses a third party supplier. If for some reason they have a defect in their chip or their supplier has a defect in theirs, they still have a phone ready to sell globally.

        That is why they go to some effort to make their own chip match the SD chip in performance, when they could be clocking it as high as possible and tuning for benchmark performance. They don't want the market to perceive a difference.

  • whats with the import tax?

    why does s9+ have so much more import tax than the s9?

    • I assume because it is over $1000 AU (so + GST)? The government said they were lowering the GST free threshold but I don't think it has happened yet.
      Although that only explains like $100 of the $200 difference.

  • +1

    @eidod13
    It's over 1k so you pay GST and admin fees

  • Having an AU warranty on a Samsung is worth a bit, especially on a pre-order. After 21 months, I returned my phone and got it replaced with a refurb unit (the refurb was externally perfect) because my power jack would, on occasion, flicker on and off. I don't baby my phone so this was pretty great service. Was done in one visit to a Samsung store.

    • yes, you’d expect to keep a phone at this price point for at least 2 years so during hardware warranty and software update support you are covered.

      it’s not like the $300 bargains you’d throw away if warranty becomes too much of an issue and get a newer phone.

      guess this is one of those things apple vs samsung …. apple warranty is 12 mth global , samsung seems to be return to country of purchase.

    • Yeah I also vote AU warranty. Replaced my S8 under warranty couple of months after release. I had speaker fading in and out (slapping the back of the phone would fix the issue, definitely hardware).

      Bought from JB hifi, did a warranty return at a different JB hifi store but they were totally cool. Replaced on the spot, pretty happy with the experience.

  • $931 for a freakin’ phone? Enough of iRace. Get sensible, Samsung!

    • +2

      it’s not an irace … it’s cost recovery on a new phone, advertising, keeping spares, trading repairs staff, sales staff kick-off, booths at exhibitions, etc and this is done globally….. new pixel is no cheaper.

    • +4

      Realistically, these stopped being just phones a long time ago. Its a high end compact camera, a portable gaming console, PDA and has ability to run a lot of services/programs that are on par with a PC.

      If you want a phone, you can still get a phone for under $100, but it'll be mostly just a phone.

      • +1

        lack of keyboard and mouse kills it for being on par with a PC …. eg write resume, create powerpoint
        presso, create web site .. phones are more for content consumption more than rich content creation creation …. selfies and uploading cat videos aren’t rich content creation.

        $350 phones are good eg axon 7.

        $100 phone …. it’s a phone, sms , text, browser, sat nav, take photo of car accidents, etc. bit limited but it depends what other devices you have spent money on eg tablet ….

        • lack of keyboard and mouse kills it for being on par with a PC

          http://www.samsung.com/au/mobile-accessories/ee-mg950-dex-st…

          I think its obvious that I'm not comparing the experience of a PC with a phone, but the CPU power is there and you can run the mobile versions of all those office programs if you've got the patience for a small screen - personally I can't work on anything more than a word document on a laptop screen, let alone a phone.

          You're right though that the form factor lends itself to content consumption over creation. That said, you would easily pay 350+ for a compact camera alone with features at the levels of current flagship phones and then the out of the box editing/publishing is far surpassed the basic editing tools available for free on a PC.

          I would also argue that creating consumer level content is faster and easier through a flagship device than a PC given the software is designed for quick turn around. I can take a short 4k video, plug it into Gopro's editing software and have it spit out a short video pre-edited video based on a range of templates within minutes all on the one device. On the same device, play a half decent VR game (much better than cardboard).

  • +1

    You guys should try befriend someone who works at a Voda/Telstra/Optus.

    I know someone working at one that gets offered the Base s9 at $780AUD~, and S9+ 256gb is <$1000AUD

    The margins are crazy on them.

    • thats why we're here at OZB :)

      Btw, do we know if S9 supports dual sim? it will be amazing if it does. Not much info on the net.

      • I'm pretty sure most of them are Dual Sim but depends on which Country/Model.

        It's Hybrid Dual sim so Simcard + either Another Sim or MicroSD

        • yep, not sure if Aus model will support Dual Sim as the spec may differ by country. Hopefully it does.

      • this model is single sim only ……read the links …. it’s for USA. market and might be worth waiting until release to see how they tweaked it for the US carriers eg verizon and AT&T. and what has been omitted for other markets.

      • Don't they all now days, just dont get your sd storage if you do dual sim

    • Well since we are OzB mates, could you please ask knackers to hit us up with a deal?

      • Sadly they're limited to 5 per person. Pretty much everyone just ends up buying the 5 then reselling on Gumtree for probs ~$100 under retail price

        • chatted with a staffer at Samsung store in Sydney, they said they were given a S8 or S8+ when they joined.

          WHAT A DEAL :)

          Cant imagine a customer rock up to a Samsung store and see staff holding an iphone lol. It's ok with another droid phone but def not iOS.

    • 100% true - a mate owns a store and gives me wholesale price on a new handset. Mark up is ridiculous

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