Best Buy Offering Free Smartphones Through December 31

Best Buy's latest promotion is a follow-up to a campaign it ran in October, called Free Phone Fridays. Each Friday during the month of October, Best Buy offered a selection of free phones, one from each major U.S. carrier. Best Buy is applying the same concept to smartphones, and will run the free smartphone deal until the end of December.

Shoppers will be able to find the free smartphones at all of Best Buy's big box retail locations, as well as all 157 of its dedicated Best Buy Mobile stores and online.

"We were excited by the amount of consumer interest we received around our 'Free Phone Fridays' promotion in October, so we wanted to do it again only bigger," said Shawn Score, president of Best Buy Mobile. "People want smart phones and we couldn’t think of a better way to end the year for our customers than to offer free devices every day in December."

Best Buy said the first four free smartphones -- available starting today -- are the Droid Incredible by HTC (Verizon); Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 (AT&T); LG Optimus S (Sprint); LG Optimus T (T-Mobile). All four of these handsets happen to be Android phones, so if you're looking for a free BlackBerry or Windows Phone 7 device, keep checking to see when the daily deal includes those platforms.

Best Buy didn't immediately respond to queries about the Apple iPhone 4 and whether or not it will eventually be included in the promotion. Personally, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to become free from Best Buy.

The "free" phones require a new (or upgraded) two-year contract with whichever carrier sells the smartphone. Best But notes that it won't match pricing, and customers can't apply the promotion to earlier purchases. It didn't say if activation fees would apply.