Will you be doing any last minute phone shopping?

lifestyle Samsung Galaxy Note II Black 16GB Samsung Galaxy Note II Marble White 16GB Samsung Galaxy Note II Silver 16GB Samsung Galaxy Note II Titanium Gray 16GB Samsung Galaxy S III 16GB Blue Samsung Galaxy S III 16GB Amber Brown Samsung Galaxy S III 16GB White Samsung Galaxy S III 16GB Garnet Red Nokia Lumia 920 Black Nokia Lumia 920 High Gloss Red Nokia Lumia 920 White Nokia Samsung Sprint T-Mobile

Just as quickly as the holidays come around every year, they seem to leave just as fast. With the holiday season officially coming to an end in less than two weeks, the sales will start to grow few and far in between. However, many sales are still going on and some continue to pop up here and there. Will you be taking advantage of these last minute sales?

Some would consider it risky to wait last minute for sales, but sometimes you can find the best sales by waiting to do so – especially if you don’t plan on getting some of the products that are high in demand. While Apple products and higher end Android and Windows devices are safer to secure earlier on in the holiday season, you can still manage to snag some great deals of these devices and more.

Samsung in particular seems to have some serious discount fever this year. The Samsung Galaxy Note II will be available from Amazon (for new customers only) for $99.99. The Samsung Galaxy Note II is very popular right now, topping the charts at number one in both the People’s and Expert’s Choice Rankings here at PhoneDog’s Official Smartphone Rankings this week. The 16GB Samsung Galaxy S III for Sprint is on sale for new Sprint customers for just $0.01 through Amazon (existing customers eligible for upgrade can get the device for $49.99 through Amazon as well). Best Buy is also getting in on the Samsung Galaxy S III deals by hosting numerous sales for the device this season, although none to report on at this very moment. The last sale they held for the device was for $49.99 on December 16, so hopefully we can see another sale from them sometime soon, just in case you didn’t catch it.

Samsung isn’t the only manufacturer hosting sales, of course. The Nokia Lumia line has been receiving some love this season as well with many sales being devoted to the line of devices. Some variants of the Nokia Lumia 920 for AT&T are on sale at Amazon right now for just $39.99 for new customers – a great deal for a high end phone like this. These variants include the black, red, and white versions of the Windows Phone 8 device.

If you’re not interested in purchasing a smartphone, there are often plenty of messaging and flip devices that also go on sale this time of the year, many of which are free or come at a very low cost. Messaging phones and flip phones are great gifts for kids – or anybody looking for something more basic. Messaging phones do offer some great qualities such as long-lasting battery life (they can actually last for days without having to be charged) and easy navigation. Most messaging phones offer data services like web-browsing and navigation, so if you have a family data package that you would like to share with somebody these services can also be used on messaging phones.

If you’re not sure exactly which device you’d like to purchase, if any, some providers are hosting their own sales that include multiple manufacturers or styles of phones. T-Mobile is tipped to have a sale starting on December 21 that’s set to include several discounted phones, some of them starting at $0 down (after mail-in rebate). However, there are specifications to attaining a phone at this bargain of a price, including a specific phone plan to be attached to the device with certain features, so make sure to read up on how to qualify before making any purchases.

Have you waited last minute to do shopping this holiday season, or did you get all of your phone shopping done early? Are there any phones you’d like to see on sale before the holiday season comes to an end? Let me know in the comments! 

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Anna was born and raised in Kansas City, which ironically is not located in Kansas, but in neighboring Missouri. She has an ornery son named Riley, who may or may not be more obsessed with technology than she is. Her passions include writing, drawing, music, and of course - cell phones! She has ghost written over 300 articles, and is a serial cell phone hoarder. - full profile

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RIM CEO Heins: One minute sales pitch is all that is needed to snag BlackBerry 10 buyers

Now that a date has been given for the launch of BlackBerry 10, it is up to CEO Thorsten Heins to sell the last chance BlackBerry has to the public via the media. With this in mind, the boyish looking CEO paid a visit to the New York Times. Discussing RIM's all or nothing bet on BlackBerry 10, he says that he doesn't expect "things to get much worse,"  which could be a relief for long-suffering BlackBerry fans and RIM stockholders. As expected, there is nothing different in the hardware other than the lack of a home button and the inclusion of an LED light that alerts you to notifications. There will also be a model with a physical QWERTY.

Discussing the lack of a home button on the BlackBerry 10 handsets, Heins points out that Android and iOS devices need the button because users need to switch to different apps when performing different tasks. BlackBerry 10 consolidates part of the information that separate apps carry on other operating systems. For example, BlackBerry 10's messaging center can display emails, Facebook updates, LinkedIn messages, texts and tweets. This allows BB10 users to reply to a Facebook post with a quick thumb click, without opening the Facebook app. Additionally, going through one's contacts can show off recent email sent by that person along with news about the contact's company.

While it might sound complicated to some, Heins says that the whole OS can be explained with a sales pitch of less than a minute. Also at the meeting with the Times was RIM’s chief marketing officer, Frank Boulben, who made it clear that RIM is counting on getting business from Corporate IT departments like in the old days. Bouldben said that only half of companies are allowing employees to select their own smartphone models. Bouldben also sees the trend toward returning to the old days when corporate IT departments decided on which phones a company would offer to employees. He sees this happening as a way for companies to save money on tech support costs. And whether or not RIM's CMO is just not being honest with himself, it is apparent that RIM once again is counting on corporate business.

To allow employees of a company to use the same smartphone for work and play, BlackBerry 10 will allow companies to separate personal apps and content from the company's information. This way, if some one quits or is fired, the corporate content can be wiped leaving personal pictures, contacts, etc. Heins predicts that in three to five years, no one will carry laptops as all the computing power needed will be on a smartphone, preferably a BlackBerry.

source: NewYorkTimes

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