Is it fair that manufacturers restrict what we can do with the smartphones we purchase, drawing lines in the sand between permitted “consumer” activities and prohibited “developer” ones? We’re hard-pressed to argue how that possibly makes sense, but like it or not, that’s the situation for many handsets out there, leading to the release of Developer Editions that cater to the power user who can’t resist the temptation to poke around a bootloader. We’ve seen Samsung give such treatment to models from its Galaxy lineup of Androids, like the Note 3 last fall. This year, it’s the Note 4 that’s grabbing all our attention, and now Samsung seems to be preparing for sales of a Developer Edition of this model, as well.
The Galaxy Note 4 Developer Edition for Verizon has quietly appeared on the manufacturer’s website, where it’s marked as “coming soon.” We’re not sure just when stocks are set to become available; even adding the phone to your cart doesn’t elicit a specific ETA.
Oddly, the Developer Edition GN4 seems to bemore affordable than its locked-down mainstream cousin: while Verizon charges just about $700 for the regular 32GB Note 4, the 32GB Developer Edition is only priced at $663 – not big, big savings, but still an unusual discrepancy. Would that all smartphones catering to the dev community be priced so attractively!
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