T-Mobile to Offer LTE-Enabled Tablets at Wi-Fi Prices

T-Mobile

When you’re buying a tablet it can be tough to choose between paying more for an data connection orgetting a Wi-Fi-only slate and saving some money upfront. Today, T-Mobile announced plans to throw out the LTE price barrier, offering popular 4G-enabled tablets for the price of Wi-Fi models with a new strategy called “Operation Tablet Freedom.”

Starting on April 12 you can pick up an LTE-enabled 16GB iPad Air for $499 instead of $630 or a 4G LTE Samsung Tab 3 for just $200 rather than $312 as long as you sign up for a new data plan at 1GB (Starting at $20 a month) or more. T-Mobile is also chopping an extra $10 off the price of its more popular data plans through the end of 2014. I contacted T-Mobile and buying a tablet from them will also add an extra 200MB (granted it isn't much) for free for the life of your tablet as that special from this past December is still going. So for $20 a month you get 1.2GB of data a month on a tablet that instead of costing you more to get the cellular version, you paid the wifi only price. Overall not a bad deal if you have your mind set on getting a cellular tablet and always have that data connection each month to use it.  For parents wondering about this for their kids to watch Netflix in the backseat, the average Netflix movie will use about 600 to 700MB of data to stream. So that is about 1 to 1.75 movies a month they will get riding in the backseat.

“With this announcement, T-Mobile’s launching a full-on assault against the restrictions and pain points that keep tablet owners from experiencing life beyond the Wi-Fi zone,” said T-Mobile CEO John Legere. “The Un-carrier is all about solving pain points, and today we’re eliminating every reason to be stuck on an unconnected Wi-Fi-only tablet.”

T-Mobile also notes that its promise to pay off termination fees when you switch to its service from another carrier also extends to tablets. If you want to make the switch you can trade your old tablet in with T-Mobile for store credit and pick up a new LTE model at Wi-Fi pricing.

Source: T-Mobile;