All the Places You Can Buy a New iPhone 5s for Under $100

Daniel Bean
·Assistant Editor
Hand holding an iPhone
Hand holding an iPhone

The great summer iPhone sale has begun.

Now that the iPhone 5s is almost 9 months old — and with the iPhone 6 expected to be released in September or October of this year — several retail outlets have chosen to cut the phone’s on-contract selling price in half.

If you want a 16 GB iPhone 5s, and you’re signing a new two-year contract, you would have to pay $200 for the phone through an Apple Store or your carrier’s store. If you go to any of the outlets below, however, you’ll pay far less.

For all of those who chose not to upgrade right away, this sort of gives new weight to the phrase, “Good things come to those who wait,” doesn’t it?

If you can stand it, you’re probably better off waiting until the fall, when you can get an upgraded iPhone with a better camera and a faster processor. But if you are in dire need of a new phone, here are all the places you can now buy an iPhone 5s for under 100 bucks.

Walmart
Everyone’s favorite neighborhood grocery, hardware, clothes, home furnishings, and electronics discount store announced this week that it’s “permanently” dropping the sales price of Apple’s 16 GB iPhone 5s to $99. All you have to do is agree to sign the typical two-year carrier contract with AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, or U.S. Cellular. Additionally, Walmart’s price of the 8 GB iPhone 5c has been dropped to a super-low $29 with the same carrier contract agreement through either Verizon or AT&T. And since Walmart’s deals, just like all the others on our list, are in-store purchases only, you can also pick up a cartful of AriZona iced tea or a garden hose in the same trip.

RadioShack
At the store formally known as Radio Shack, and then The Shack, and now the more modern “RadioShack,” you can actually get an iPhone 5s for $0 with the trade-in of an older iPhone. For anyone who wants to buy outright, the store’s price for a 16 GB iPhone 5s on Sprint, Verizon, or AT&T, like Walmart’s, is just $99.

Best Buy
Best Buy has marked down its 16 GB Verizon and Sprint iPhone 5s models to a $99 sales price, too. The two-year contract price on AT&T is still $199, and we unfortunately have no information on how long the cheaper Verizon and Sprint prices will last.

Target (honorable mention)
And for a slightly larger ticket of $119, you can also stroll into the electronics section of your local Target and get a 16 GB iPhone for Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint. Bonus: Targets have Starbucks cafes in them. Tasty.

Just to reiterate, even though these prices seem great, rumor has it that Apple will have some new iPhones (possibly a slightly larger 4.7-inch model and a massive 5.5-inch version) coming to us in as soon as a couple of months. Granted, we would expect those devices to probably launch at prices of $199 or more, but if you’ve put off your upgrade from the iPhone 5 or 4s for this long, waiting until the end of the summer to jump to the iPhone’s freshest of the fresh may not be too bad an idea.

Choose wisely, iPhone lovers.

Have questions, comments, or just want to tell me something funny? Email me at danbean@yahoo-inc.com.