iPhone Users Head To Best Buy For Phone Swap
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Don't be in a hurry if you want to make a cell phone switch at Best Buy this week.
"The promotion has driven a lot of traffic this way it's actually been huge for us," says Caley Phillips with Best Buy Mobile.
It's called "Trade Up to the iPhone 5."
"Four -- the original 4 and what are you going to do today, I can get a 5,"said Ruth Butler of McCandless.
Now these folks could trade up anytime, but Apple and Best Buy have given folks motivation.
"Well, one it's free," Butler said.
"I'd say half of them have been coming in for the trade-in promotion," Phillips said.
And the customers don't care whether it's to clear iPhone 5 stock before the next generation phone comes out, or if Apple is trying to slow down the rush to the Samsung Galaxy S4. The fact is Best Buy is offering $150 dollars for your iPhone 4 or 4S and that's the same cost as the iPhone 5 with a two-year contract. So it's a phone swap. But it's not all working out in Apple's favor.
"I wanted to trade up to the iPhone 5, but I've been curious about the Samsung 4S and it's really what I wanted, so I'm going to go with that," said Melissa Phillips of Reserve Township.
"I like the upgrades and it's so easy to use," said Rhonda Campanella of Ross Township.
Side by side, the Galaxy 4S has a bigger screen and can work in split screen mode.
Tech guru Dr. Frank Viggiano has and uses both phones and says both eat up their batteries and while you can carry an extra S4 battery to pop in when necessary, the iPhone 5 has to be recharged externally.
He points out the iPhone5 software easily shares across all your apple devises messages, emails and saved files, and of course the iPhone5 has Siri.
Meanwhile, the S4 is winning converts with its photo system that allows you to easily correct mistakes, and the ability to touch phone to phone to share files.
Email and texting he says are pretty much equal between the two phones.
If you are thinking about taking advantage of the upgrade from the 4 to the 5, you should know that the offer expires on Saturday and at times the lines have been pretty lengthy at the local Best Buy stores.
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