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With three of America’s four largest carriers already offering early upgrade programs of their own, you had to expect Sprint wouldn’t be far behind. The Kansas City-based company is gearing up to announce One-Up, an early upgrade program that will allow customers to upgrade sooner. Beyond that, the program seems to have some added value, with the early details from CNet suggesting Sprint will give folks a $15 discount on their rate plans for going this route.
If you don’t remember, we chastised the likes of Verizon and AT&T for not offering a plan discount for choosing to buy off-contract devices at full MSRP. That’s their right, obviously, but they aren’t exactly looking out for consumers’ interests. We’re glad to know Sprint will reward those who decide to upgrade their devices through the One-Up program.
So what is Sprint One Up, anyway?
Here are the quick specifics:
- Buy devices with 0$ down payment
- Pay for the devices in 24 equal monthly installments
- Trade in your smartphone every 12 months to upgrade (or keep it and pay it off if you want)
- Enjoy savings of $15 off your monthly rate plan
- Wash, rinse, and repeat
Sprint says the value proposition is quite attractive compared to everyone else. For instance, Their rate plans become even cheaper than T-Mobile’s, their point-of-sale cost is cheaper than T-Mobile’s and Verizon’s, and they don’t have a monthly fee like T-Mobile.
You can take a look at the savings breakdown in the chart above, one which we imagine Sprint will be using to train their employees when it’s time to start presenting these plans to customers.
The Caveats
An early upgrade plan wouldn’t be an early upgrade plan without a couple of minor caveats, of course. For starters, you must be a Sprint customer for at least a year before you’re eligible. If you don’t have an upgrade available, you must trade your current smartphone in before you get your first phone under One Up.
If you do have an upgrade, you can get your first smartphone without trading in your old one. The phone you’re trading in has to be in good working condition, natch, which likely means no broken display, no water damage, and can accept electrical currents from a charging cable. Finally, this plan is only available for those under Sprint contract plans — prepaid customers need not apply.
Who’s buying?
And that brings us to the big question — are you in? This is honestly one of the most attractive early upgrade options on the market at the moment. With Sprint offering a plan discount and allowing you to keep your unlimited data, it actually seems like a pretty good deal (unless you don’t like the idea of having to fork your old smartphone over each time you want to upgrade early).
If you’re a Sprint customer, be sure to drop a vote below and let us know if One Up is something you’ll be taking advantage of. We also wouldn’t mind hearing from you in the comments section. We’re not sure when this plan will eventually be available, but it never hurts to start talking about it ahead of time.
[polldaddy poll=7400083]
i’d like to know what sprint plan is only $65. The cheapest unlimited smartphone plan i’ve ever seen was $80 a month.
They are discounting the plan if you use this system.
i completely bypassed the first paragraph -.-
Reading comprehension problems?
yes actually, i didnt see the top paragraph. I only scrolled up to the 2nd graphic. :-)
Heh. That happens when you read the articles slashdot-style. :)
Although their graphic could use a few more footnotes. I figure however we’re only seeing part of the marketing material here!
Once they improve service i think they will be an attractive company. Softbank flex ur muscles!
This does look like a good deal…
Now if they cracking on network expansions this would be a really good deal.
It’s still a better deal than all 3 offer by far.
AT&T and Verizon are just ripping you off and this makes that much more obvious.
Sprint defiantly has the best prices and service, too bad their spotty voice and dismal data speeds kill it. Unless you’re in a good strong LTE area, I’d advise to stay away. If I don’t have a WiFi connection or airave nearby my phone is basically useless.
I have LTE everywhere I am now and if I don’t I have wifi. This sounds like an awesome plan.
This little chart seems to intentionally neglect that the $10 from T-Mob includes insurance coverage.. While TEP isn’t for everyone, incorrectly labeling one and comparing it to nothing isn’t really fair. Considering TEP is $11 a month right now, apples to apples Sprint comes in at $103.00 a month.. Or $2 more a Month then T-Mob, you must keep the device a minimum of 12 months before trade-in, AND you still suffer from a 2yr contract.
Yeah, the TEP is a nice add.
Actually It’s wrong. T-mobile is still cheaper. T-mobile has unlimited talk, text, and data with 500meg at 4G speeds for $50.00 per month. $70.00 per month is for unlimited 4G. Sprint unlimited does not guarantee 4G speeds. So a fair comparison would be against the $50 plan on T-mobile. Which makes it $240 less in 12 months. Which puts T-mobile at $1180, which is below Sprint’s $1192. Plus t-mobile’s plans do not require 2 year contract and you can opt to upgrade your phone in 6 months time.
Sprint unlimited may not guarantee 4G speeds, but it does guarantee unlimited.
500MB on the other hand is 500MB no matter how fast you get it. And I for one have far exceeded that many times, including before 4G even existed.
I would venture to opine that their comparison is more fair than the one you posit.
500MB refers to 4G only on TMO. Data is still unlimited, albeit throttled, after that. So his comparison is actually closer to fair depending on your coverage. Also, the $10/mo on TMO goes toward insurance which is not covered under Sprint’s plan. So the comparison isn’t quite as fair as it might seem.
EDIT: removed an extra ‘the’.
Ah, well.. in the end, they’re all bending us over. :)
It’s pretty irrelevant when you live in a location like I do where TMobile isn’t even a viable option. Location very often knocks a contender or two out of contention regardless of cost considerations.
I like T-Mobile a lot, but their coverage in general is a fraction of Sprint’s coverage.
A better option is T-Mobiles prepaid for $30 month of unlimited data (up to 5GB at 4G speeds), 100 minutes phone (who talks on the phone that much anymore), and unlimited text. The cost is $360/year. You can buy a new phone every year with the savings and no contract.
This is nice but I’m hating because I was once a Gold customer with Sprint and I always had the ability to upgrade every year. Now they bring it back but with a twist where all contracted customers benefit. Not bad.
With the costs of upgrading yearly, I am surprised how the Nexus 4 or the like are not the top selling phones. Best way to upgrade yearly is buy a Nexus 5 now for $400, sell it in Sept 2014 for $250-$300 and then buy a Nexus 6 for $100-$150 more. See, I got you the latest and greatest without a pesky rate for phone service a month. $92 a month vs $30 or $60 a month with T-Mobile? I would take either $30 or $60 a month because that’s a saving of $32-$60 a month. $384 or $720 saved per year. Now, that’s better.
Well that’s easy.
#1 – No Verizon or Sprint version
#2 – No (official) LTE
#3 – No SD Card
#4 – No removable battery
All 4 are a good enough reason for me. Would that be a +1 or a +4?
What are you talking about? The Nexus 5 will have two variants: CDMA and GSM. It will have LTE officially, as the Nexus 7 2013 edition has full fledged LTE. Phones have 16 and 32 GB of memory, which is copious. Non removable battery? That stuff is slowly becoming antiquated. Nobody said my plan was perfect. A few minor concessions at best. Whining about removable batteries and SD cards are a few years old. Since 2010, we have seen LG, HTC, etc go with unibody phones.
What am I talking about?
“With the costs of upgrading yearly, I am surprised how the Nexus 4 or the like are not the top selling phones”
That’s what I was talking about. As for the Nexus 5, rumors I’ve heard is that the CDMA variant will be for Sprint but not Verizon. Rumor so I don’t know. 16 and 32G is ‘copious’? Tell that to my 96G phone, thank you very much. Since 201x we’ve seen HTC go with unibody phones, and working on going bankrupt.
Saying that whining about removable batteries and SD cards is a few years old is like saying being raped in the butt isn’t so bad after all. You might like it, I ain’t taking it.
… Nexus phones are factory unlocked so there is no need for the carrier to actually sell the phone. IE I’m on at&t, and I use the N4 with no problems when though they never sold it. Therefore I don’t understand why Verizon would be singled out
Because on Verizon and Sprint, you can’t just put a SIM card in, the carrier does have to approve sale of the phone.
And because there was not a version of the Nexus 4 to work with Verizon or Sprint’s frequencies.
You should learn about CDMA / Verizon & Sprint before you try to show others how little you know. Canon User is 100% right and spot on.
Ditto Canon User. The reasons I won’t buy anything but Samsung is due to lack of SD card and replaceable battery with HTC.
I had the E4GT (GS2). I replaced the battery 4 times within it’s 2 year life.
A friend of mines has the Note 2 and HAS to have a second battery because it’s always dying. Um…? I don’t think so. I don’t want to have to replace my battery all the time.
I don’t trust removable batteries since OEM’s know you can replace them, the phone doesn’t take care of them. My HTC One tells me when the battery is too hot and shouldn’t charge. It also charges slowly to help preserve the battery life in the long run.
The SD card is dependable. I don’t need one, but some people like the convenience of having access to ALL their media.
You cannot compare a market trend to being raped in the butt because those are two different things. And rape jokes aren’t funny since you can offend others (not myself, but the female demographic of this site.) Terrible analogy. HTC is not doing well since Samsung continues to devour them through marketing and sales. LG is still prominent and they produce the G, G Pro, and G2, which are all great phones. Apple produces unibody devices and people buy them. Your wants don’t dictate what others want in the market. The SD card crowd is not really that big as you think because OEMs would stick with it (outside of Samsung) and continue to make the slots. Most cell phone users don’t care if the Lumia, HTC One, G2, and iPhone sell a ton of devices. You can stick with Samsung, but the form factor of HTC is better. HTC One > Galaxy S4. Simple as that.
Oh I see. So because YOUR needs are met, YOUR determination is right for everyone.
Dude, this isn’t a war. If you’d read my posts, you’d have seen that I’d prefer a One to an S4 or a One Max to a Note 3. But for me, and at least some others, NOT having a card slot or removable battery break the deal. I doubt, on the other hand, that many who DO have a phone without a card slot or removable battery thought to themselves “man, I’d have gone with that {phone} but it has a card slot! No way I’d take that!”
I am saying your SD card mentality doesn’t dictate the market. I never explained my needs or wants to you. I am just saying that how the market is working now.
You explained a determination with your >
The Nexus 5 may support Verizon since Verizon is adding another LTE band that is supported by the device. I imagine the new band is there so they can stop mobile hot spot.
I have to second this. Not sure why HeatFan’s pannies are all in a twist. There’s still quite a bit of value for both removable battery and storage (one reason I’ve stayed with the Galaxy line.
That said…I’m a fellow Heat fan. Bron Bron is my homeboy.
Verizon and Nexus is a bad combination. Verizon doesn’t deserve a Nexus again for how they corrupted the brand – delayed updates and blocked Google apps (Wallet). I left Verizon over this.
LTE is not as big of a deal as people make it out to be. HSPA+ on T-Mobile was faster for me than Verizon LTE (but not faster than T-Mobile’s LTE).
SD Card slot is not necessarily a plus. I had a bad SD Card that caused Android to go bonkers. The manufacturer sent me three replacements before I figured out the issue was the SD card. I would save and re-format the SD card each time so the issue didn’t show up right away. Also, streaming and unlimited data make an SD card slot not as necessary as it was four years ago.
I have yet to replace a battery. However, I did use an extended battery for the Verizon Galaxy Nexus. It needed it. However, when I switched to T-Mobile with the GSM unlocked Galaxy Nexus; I never changed the battery and had pretty good battery life. Now, if you keep a phone for a long time, battery would be an issue. (But heck two Nexus phones over two years will cost you the less than one Samsung or HTC flagship phone for two years when you consider subsidy pricing).
I don’t disagree that Verizon doesn’t *deserve* the Nexus again, but doesn’t change the fact that it’s a major reason it hasn’t sold more.
LTE is a big deal. Listen, I’m sure TMobile is great for those never leave a major city or something. But they don’t even have 3G where I live, so they are not even a blip on the radar. The other 3 have some form of “4G” here by now.
SD Card is not a minus. You having a bad card may be a bad deal, but you can always take a card out and leave it empty. Can’t put a good SD card in a slot that isn’t there.
As for the battery, yes, if you cycle through phones like they’re candy then it’s not an issue. But first off all, some of us can’t afford to waste money on a new smartphone every 6 months, year, or even 2 years. Secondly, some of us like to make use of our previous devices for other functions even after their use as a phone is over. Call it what you want, a non-removable battery is plain and simply planned and forced obsolescence.
I can afford to change phones more often because I don’t have Verizon anymore. WithT-Mobile, I am paying $30/month which includes 5GB at 4G speeds which is more than I was getting with Verizon but considerably less talk time that I didn’t really use anyways. The savings allows to me to replace the phone more often ($660/year savings and I was getting an 18% discount with Verizon).
No arguments with you that what Verizon charges is outrageous. Thankfully, my Verizon service is my paid-for work phone.
However, I’m also grandfathered unlimited there. I’d hate to see your bill with 100G on the month. :)
Good thing your employer pays the bill. You can’t get a subsidized phone and keep your grandfathered plan with Verizon. They make you pay full price. To make matters worse, you are still paying the same subsidized phone plans. T-Mobile gives you discounted plans when you pay full price for your phone.
Yeah, we’ll be facing that issue next summer, the one where I try to talk him into buying me a full priced upgrade. :)
But you seem to have missed the part where TMobile has a 2G network here… I don’t give a crap how cheap that service is, it isn’t worth having here. I absolutely agree, they do the right thing by discounting the subsidy off. It’s just not the issue here.
Great plan but you gotta deal with their sucky coverage in Baltimore. I’m good.
I would have thought Baltimore would have had great coverage since that was their first WiMax city.
Good god it was terrible. I mean terribad
Detroit never got WiMax. We were on horribly slow 3G. Their 3G was only faster than Verizon’s 3G.
As a Sprint customer, I’ll consider the “One Up” plan if it comes to fruition; but for now, I have no problem continuing my current method of selling the phone I have (GS4) and adding money to make up the difference and purchase the next phone off contract as well.
I used to do that. It became impossible for me though when I moved to Sprint. I bought a bad ESN phone and didn’t want to do it again. =.S
I tend to stick with eBay when I buy another phone, if I don’t get it directly from Sprint. eBay at least provides you the ability to get your money back if someone misrepresents the item as having a clean ESN and you receive a bad ESN phone.
That is, I’m assuming you bought the phone via Craigslist?
Yes. I was on a family plan with Tmo before. So I would buy all my phones on Craigslist, and never had any activation problems. I did know about Bad ESN’s and stuff like that.
Wii moved to Sprint and I wanted to try the HTC 3D. Well I bought one and it had a bad ESN. I just sold it to my friend on Cricket.
But I’m back on Tmo now. But with Jump, there’s no need for me to do that. I can get another phone every 6 months. That service is godsend. LoL!!
I advise everyone to stay away from craigslist for buying and selling phones, you may get the phone at a lower price than on ebay or my new fav swappa, but your taking a big gamble on craigslist as you have no recourse when something goes wrong.
I’ve heard of people selling phones on criagslist, letting the user pop in their sim to test that it works and then reporting the phone stolen the next week and the ESN or IMEI is blacklisted,
If you had bought the phone on swappa or ebay you can at least attempt to do something about a case like this and most user’s with good feedback wouldn’t even attempt it because they don’t want to risk their feedback score.
When it happens on craigslist, which is all too often, your SOL
Yes. This is why I’m glad Tmo has JUMP now. I used to buy phones all the time on Craiglist when I was on Tmo. That first time getting swindled when I was on Sprint made me rethink my ideas.
@canonuser “We’ve seen HTC going with unibody phone, and working on being bankrupt.” Once again, like I’ve stated in other posts. An SD slot and removable battery is NOT the reason why HTC is going down the drain! I can see your post doesn’t necessarily say that in exact words but, I can bet you there are more people out there in this world that are less worried about those two things, then there are that do care about them….don’t ask me to prove this either. Its just common sense:)
…
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9 month old Mercedes-Benz GL-Class SUV i was reading this www.JAM20.com
I really like Sprint as a company and have been a loyal customer since 2007. However, their service, or lack thereof, really is a problem. It’s great to have unlimited data for a reasonable monthly price but in my area I rarely use my phone without WiFi because of the inability to securely connect to the 3G, let alone 4G network. Those in major cities may not deal with these issues but on the coast in rural Florida the service is forcing me to switch to Big Red.
I just left Sprint. Very tired of their crappy reception (Atlanta).
This was me in Jan. Jumped ship for T-Mobile via StraightTalk. So much cheaper, better reception and faster data. Add to that my phone is internationally capable.
I went with Verizon, because Tmobile is just as bad (or worse) as Sprint in terms of reception.
no…if u look at coverage maps, Tmobile has more coverage…. i had both sprint and tmobile ( Rancho Cucamonga, CA)
I don’t care what the map says when my coworker sitting next to me doesn’t have service, and I do with Verizon.
Exactly. My area said it has amazing T-Mo service.. which I then tried, and it definitely was plenty fast. However, there were so many dead spots that it was unreal. I switched over to AIO and am quite the happy camper.
While I love T-mobile I have to called bs on this, maybe their naive network is bigger, but when you include the fact that Sprint users can roam onto Verizon, Sprint’s coverage is better, even if the data is slow as molasses if your not in a 4G area, which their still isn’t a lot of.
Odd, Ive had great reception so far. The only place I havent has been in the bowels of big old buildings, which I dont spend much time in.
Where do you live at in Atlanta that has bad reception? I’m east of the city and have great service with Sprint. When I come into Atlanta for sports events or other events, I still don’t have reception issues.
North – Norcross, Duluth, Suwanee, etc. My lady lived in south side and I had reception issues there as well. It’s ok when you’re not in a lull. Verizon’s coverage and speed puts it to shame.
I’ve had Verizon and while their coverage was great, the speeds aren’t no different (to me) than they are here on Sprint. I was on Verizon’s 4G LTE early on and the speeds were fantastic.
I just left them recently as I no longer had a need to be on Verizon and their speeds were in line with Sprint’s speeds, both 3G & 4G, though Verizon’s upload speeds on LTE are a tick quicker.
I had same problems in Amarillo TX, a year ago when i switched from AT&T to sprint. I decided to suck it up since i was in a 2 year contract and now im glad at did. LTE been in Amarillo for about 2 months now even tho they just announced it today. my Note 2 finally feels like a smartphone
Really? When did you leave sprint? Because if it is any place in the U.S. where sprint has kick ass service, its atlanta. I have ZERO reception issues no matter where I go and I always have lte. I wouldn’t have said the same thing a year or two ago but now, its fantastic.
1 month ago.
Somewhat better than t-mobiles but t-mobiles acts as your insurance and you get two upgrades a year.
u r right…
Don’t like CDMA handsets :- I’ve always used GSM devices and don’t plan on changing now, love the ease of swapping out a sim card between devices that I use
Swapping handsets on CDMA isn’t quite as difficult as some people think it is. I simply log onto my Sprint account, click the activate new device link, enter the new ESN, and follow any steps needed to program the new phone.
While it’s not as simple as changing SIM cards from one phone to the next, it still isn’t that difficult.
But then you get into the whole…. the phone has to specifically work (and be allowed) on Sprint/Verizon to even be eligible to use whereas 95% (just a guess) of phones use GSM and take a SIM. :p
The same issue exists with GSM phones, unfortunately, not everyone understands that. Some people seem to think that AT&T & T-Mobile phones are automatically interchangeable because they’re simply GSM. They never take into account the frequencies used by either company for their 3G/4G bands.
GSM customers (not all) tend to also be somewhat ignorant to the fact that LTE phones are not the same as GSM. As I sell phones on eBay at work, people all the time purchase Verizon/Sprint LTE phones assuming they will work on AT&T/T-mobile because they simply accept SIM cards; then get mad at us for their failure to research what they purchased or ask if they are compatible.
Compatibility issues exist with CDMA & GSM, it’s actually less common on CDMA as people know they have to buy a Sprint/Verizon branded phone on CDMA.
Right. I completely understand that. To use CDMA, you have a lot less choice because your phone has to have a specific VZW/Sprint radio.
To use AT&T or T-Mo, you have to have a phone that uses a certain frequency. There’s only a handful of phones that actually have most operators frequencies in there.
By the way, it’s annoying dealing with people that think GSM/LTE are the same. I hate it very much. >_<
It’s not the same issue, CDMA customer’s know they have to get a branded device because they generally aren’t compatible across carrier’s. The fact that they know they can’t use another carrier’s phone is not the same as a GSM customer incorrectly purchasing a phone that doesn’t support the bands it needs.
I am a GSM customer on AT&T and I know I need 850/1900 for 3G and HSPA+ 4G. finding these frequencies on phones not carried by AT&T isn’t that hard. T-mobile phones, phones from england, dual-sim phones by a company called blu in miami and even some chinese phones come with support for these bands.
LTE is another story since US and Euro bands are generally incompatibile, but these days most manufacturer’s like Samsung actually use the same base hardware for their AT&T and T-mobile phones and support both carrier’s you just have to make sure they support the bands you need, also often a AT&T phone like my S4 has hardware support for AWS, but they’ve disabled it in the modem software, which can often be enabled again.
In the end GSM customer’s still have more choices than CDMA user’s. Lack of knowledge and buying the wrong phone on some users part doesn’t negate that for those of us who know how to use unlocked GSM phones from outside of our carrier’s walled garden.
There are still customers who don’t know the difference between CDMA & GSM and there are customers who don’t know that they do need a specific phone with specific bands in it to work on either AT&T or T-Mobile, which ever is their carrier. Just because “you” know what you need, doesn’t make up for others not knowing what they need.
I never said it wasn’t hard to find phones that work, I’m just saying too many people never take the time to research what they need. They simply purchase based on a wild guess and wind up with something they can’t use, then get mad at the seller because they, the buyer, failed to do the research and/or inquire with the seller about its compatibility.
It is the same as ensuring you have the correct device with CDMA as it is with ensuring you have the correct device with GSM. AT&T customers can also use phones from Rogers, Bell Mobility, and Telus in Canada because the bands are the same, BUT, they have to be unlocked first. A customer who buys a T-Mobile phone assuming it works on AT&T without issue is the exact same as a customer who buys a Sprint phone thinking it will work on Verizon without issue. They both bought without research and they both were denied activation due to incompatibilities. However, the person who purchased the T-Mobile phone could correct part of their problem by unlocking it. If they use it for voice only, they would be fine. Data likely wouldn’t be anything but Edge unless they had a T-Mobile phone with support for AT&T bands.
And yes, GSM customers do have more options compared to CDMA customers. I never said they didn’t.
It really is easy as 123 with sprint.. It literally takes seconds to switch a phone to your number.
Anyone know if this will work with corporate discounts?
Here the sf bay area sprints network is crap and besides doesn’t T-Mobile let you upgrade every 6 months. And a rep told me that the $10 a month in an insurance so if your phone breaks and you wanna upgrade you just have to get a replacement and trade that in.
I agree with you on Sprint network, had them for years and it was alright at best but they haven’t kept up with the technology. I have T Mobile now and love it. I am mostly in the South Bay area San Jose, Santa Clara, Campbell (Some dead spots in Campbell) and Sunnyvale, Cupertino and it works really good.
You are absolutely correct. Sprint should add $11/month for insurance to make sure we are making an even comparison. And again, you get two phone replacements on T-Mobile for every one replacement on Sprint.
Their plan isn’t bad, but don’t say it isn’t better than everyone else’s. The benefits with T-Mobile are better than the benefits Sprint provides.
Finally sprint…god I hope this goes live real soon cause for quite awhile sprint really let me down since they didn’t join the likes of tmobile verizon at&t in the early upgrade world. God I can’t wait to enroll In this program!!
They told me in a chat that it goes live on Sept 20th
Im confused. Right now I have the iPhone 4s and I have an upgrade in about 2 years. I plan on using my mothers upgrade to get the 5s but if I am locked into my contract, I can trade in my iPhone and then start the ONE UP program. And how much extra are you paying rather then just the plain old unlimited plan? Thanks
I think the chart is a little deceptive, because the sprint plan and to my knowledge AT&T and Verizon plan doesn’t include insurance which the $10 jump fee includes.
If you’re going to go down one of these pricey upgrade plans, you’re going to want insurance. Since they are all about convience, and having the latest and greatest for a higher fee.
I upgrade every 9 months to a year by buying and selling android phones and pay a lot less than any of these plans
I would consider upgrading with this plan only if they came out with a 5 inch screen Torque, I love my Torque but I wished it had a slightly bigger screen.
People I need advice.
since this sept Im im off 2 yr contract with Sprint and ready to upgrade our family plan of 3. I need to know whats the best option would be to save money in a long run and have newest phones.
1 .Should we sign new 2 yr contract or
2. buy unlocked phones and go prepaid like Aio or Straight Talk(whatever best in NYC), maybe Nexus 5
3. or get One up
Your suggestions would be much appreciated thank u
btw we don’t use much internet like 1-1.5 gig on each phone a month