iPhone 5s Pricing At New Lows as Rumors Swirl of September iPhone 6 Launch

With rumors of a Sept. 9 launch of the iPhone 6 swirling around the blogosphere, as consumers, media and competitors await the launch of next-gen Apple smartphones, iPhone 5s offers reached new lows, according to deals website DealNews Wednesday.

Costco was offering members a 16-GB iPhone 5s for Sprint in gray, silver or gold for $57.99 with two-year contract, plus free shipping, Dealnews said. The price was $41 beneath the best price for the 5s in June and “the best outright offer we've seen for this iPhone,” DealNews said. The iPhone 5s is also available for Verizon customers at Costco for $87.99 with free shipping, $11 under the site’s June mention “and another all-time low,” said DealNews spokesman Mark LoCastro, saying the “rare deal” was a current low for the 5s by $111. DealNews gave the Costco special a star, which LoCastro says signifies “the lowest price we've ever seen.”

Apple is offering its own school-themed specials, offering educators and students a $50 gift card with the purchase of an iPhone. The deal ends Sept. 9, the day that Apple, according to Re/code on Wednesday, “has scheduled “a big media event.” News website 9to5Mac, meanwhile, pegged the second and third weeks of September as “the mostly likely weeks for the event to be held.”

Neither site speculated on the date when the iPhone 6 will be available. “Manufacturing uncertainties could alter the event’s timeframe,” 9to5Mac noted. There have been numerous reports of production problems that some Apple watchers say will result in the phones’ shipping date being set for October, and others have speculated the phones’ arrival could stretch to Q4. An Apple spokeswoman didn’t answer our questions about the announcement or delivery dates, declining to comment on “rumor and speculation."

Best Buy, meanwhile, offered customers a $100 gift card, and free shipping, with the purchase of a select iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c or iPhone 4s with two-year contracts at Verizon Wireless, AT&T or Sprint. Models included the 32GB 5s, which were discounted by $100 to $199. The 64GB model -- $399 for Verizon and AT&T and $299 for Sprint -- was also eligible for the $100 gift card, according to the website.

The 32GB iPhone 5c was also part of the Best Buy $100 gift card deal, and the phone was cut to $99 ($100 off) in blue and in white for AT&T but not sale-priced for Sprint or Verizon, we found. The best Apple smartphone offer at Best Buy was for the two-year-old iPhone 4s, priced at $1 for the 8GB version at all three carriers.

At Walmart, a Straight Talk prepaid 16GB iPhone 5s had a “rollback” price of $549, $100 off the prepaid price of the iPhone 5s at Apple.com. An iPhone 5s with two-year contract for AT&T, Sprint, US Cellular and Verizon was selling at Walmart Wednesday for $99, down from $149. An item description listed all three models of memory -- 16GB, 32GB and 64GB -- but it wasn’t clear which model the $99 price applied to, and customer questions about which phones were included in that price hadn’t been answered Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Amazon and Samsung are keeping respective high profiles in the run-up to the iPhone 6 announcement. Amazon pushed the value of the Fire Phone front and center on the website’s landing page Wednesday, saying the 32 GB Fire Phone sells “for the same price as other 16GB smartphones.” Amazon showed the Fire Phone in a price range from $0 to $199 for an individual plan. The Fire Phone also includes a year of Amazon Prime membership as a bonus, which it called a limited-time deal. If customers are already Prime members, the free Prime membership tacks on at the end of the current membership, Amazon said.

Smartphone customers can find a variety of deals on the Samsung Galaxy S5, launched in April, we found. T-Mobile is offering a “good-credit” arrangement at $0 down and $25.40 per month for 24 months, which is the length of a contract. RadioShack offers a similar deal for $27.09 per month through carriers’ financing plans, and no annual contract. Another option for the S5 at RadioShack is a $169.99 phone with a two-year contract. Sprint has a limited-time offer for the S5 of $99 for customers who switch carriers and sign up for a two-year contract.

DealNews advises its value-oriented customers looking for an iPhone to wait for availability of the next-gen phone because the previous version will see “significant discounts” after the new one ships, LoCastro said. Android phones follow a different value model, he said. Regardless of phone maker or retailer, as soon as a new Android phone is available to the public, “within two months we've seen deals at up to 50 percent off that device -- even Samsung,” LoCastro said. “If you want the brand-new one, just wait two months, and you should see a deal,” he said.