Virgin Mobile USA today announced that it will begin shipping iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus pre-orders on Friday, September 29, the same day the devices launch in 29 additional countries around the world.
Virgin said its Inner Circle members will be able to pre-order the devices on Friday, September 22, but it's unclear if Apple will be accepting pre-orders on that date as well in the second wave of launch countries.
Apple began accepting iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus pre-orders at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time for major carriers AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint, in addition to SIM-free models. Virgin's date is one week later, but for the iPhone X, it will accept pre-orders starting Friday, October 27, the same day as Apple.
The next countries include Andorra, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Greenland, Guernsey, Hungary, Iceland, India, Isle of Man, Israel, Jersey, Kuwait, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Monaco, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
Apple's online store doesn't operate in all of those countries, but iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus should be available in limited quantities through authorized resellers and carrier partners where available.
Virgin operates on the Sprint network. Inner Circle members get unlimited talk, text, and data for $50 per month, with a few caveats: video quality is limited to up to 480p, music streams at up to 500 kbps, and games stream at up to 2 Mbps. Virgin promises 4G LTE speeds for "practically everything else."
Customers who use more than 23GB of data in a billing cycle will be de-prioritized during times and places where the network is constrained.
Until September 28, customers who buy a new iPhone, or bring their existing iPhone and transfer their phone number from another carrier, will receive one year of unlimited talk, text, and data for just $1 with AutoPay enabled. The device must be a CDMA model, and the same caveats mentioned above apply.
Update: Sprint subsidiary Boost Mobile has also announced that it will launch the iPhone 8 on September 29, although the carrier is accepting pre-registrations as of today.
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