Best Buy is handing out $50 gift cards to buyers of the 4-inch iPhone SE, just a few days away from launch.
The 16 GB version of the iPhone SE costs just a dollar more at Best Buy than at the wireless carriers, which are offering the handset for $0. The 64 GB version of the phone is going for $50 on Best Buy, so the $50 gift cards neutralizes that price for those intending to pick up accessories for the iPhone SE or grab something else from Best Buy.
Best Buy's gift card offer extends to monthly installment plans as well as two-year activations. Like all other outlets, the 16 GB version of the phone is available for about $13 over monthly installments and the 64 GB version's monthly price is set at around $16.
To take advantage of Best Buy's offer, consumers will need to enroll in My Best Buy Mobile if they haven't done so prior to purchasing the phone. And if the phone is returned, the gift card will need to be surrendered as well unless the handset is exchanged for another iPhone SE.
Best Buy's iPhone SE compatible offers don't end with the $50 gift card. The retailer is also offering either $20 off of Microsoft Office 365 with 1 TB of cloud storage or Office 2016 for those who will buy a new phone with a plan. The Apple iPhone SE will hit stores on March 31, arriving just a couple of weeks after debuting at Apple headquarters.
The iPhone SE, which starts at $399 off contract, is driven by an Apple A9 processor and an M9 coprocessor. While it has the same display size as the iPhone 5S, the SE's CPU is two times faster and its GPU three times faster than the older phone's processors.
The iOS 9 handset has a 12-megapixel iSight camera, capable of capturing 4K video, and a 5-megapixel FaceTime camera that employs Retina Flash, which triples the brightness of the phone's display to illuminate faces for selfies.
"iPhone SE is an exciting new idea – we started with a beloved, iconic design and reinvented it from the inside out," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "The result is the most beautiful and powerful phone with a four-inch display in the world."
