Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 for Verizon gets sold even though it hasn’t launched

Back in September the big US carriers launched the Galaxy Tab S from Samsung, but all but one went for the 10.5-inch model only. The sole company to have the Galaxy Tab S 8.4 on sale was AT&T. Interestingly though, an 8.4-incher for Verizon has been certified by the FCC, so clearly the carrier nicknamed Big Red had plans to release it at some point.

That said, here we are in 2015 and Verizon hasn’t done so, which means the Galaxy Tab S 8.4 probably won’t ever get official at this carrier. Intriguingly however, someone actually managed to buy this tablet, the Verizon model, back in December.

The images above and below are proof of this fact. The person in question reportedly bought the Tab S 8.4 from a non-corporate Verizon authorized reseller. This company was selling the device for $99 with a two-year contract, if you bought it alongside a phone (with its own two-year contract, of course).

As you can see from the box, this is clearly the Verizon version of the tablet. It’s even got the carrier’s logo on it. So this person was in fact able to buy a product that has never officially been for sale. That’s quite an achievement by itself. Another interesting tidbit is that this Galaxy Tab S 8.4 comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset, unlike AT&T’s model which rocks Samsung’s own Exynos chip.

The software that this tablet is running is pretty old, and since its release was canceled it’s unlikely to ever get updates. That’s pretty much clear. A lot less so is how that particular retailer got one of these in stock, and how it actually sold a product that wasn’t supposed to be sold. One might be tempted to assume that Verizon could release this model in the future, but it’s been almost two months since that person bought this unit, and still no word from the carrier. Stranger things have happened, but launching a tablet so many months after it was unveiled makes little sense.

Source | Via