Amazon Music is now preinstalled bloatware on Samsung Galaxy devices

Reading the preload list

Amazon Music lands on a phone that already ships with Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and OneDrive out of the box. Most of these can be fully uninstalled after setup. Some only allow disabling, leaving chunks of the app on the device regardless. Which bucket Amazon Music lands in depends on the device tier. Samsung has not specified. Read that as: on a premium flagship you may wipe it clean; on cheaper hardware, it may just sit there eating storage you paid for.

What the subscription actually costs

At $12.99 a month — $155.88 annualized — Amazon Music Unlimited sits a dollar below Spotify's top individual plan at $15.99 and matches Spotify's standard tier. Prime members shave it to $11.99, or $143.88 a year. The bundle includes over 100 million tracks, podcasts, livestreams, curated playlists, and — in the US and UK — one Audible audiobook per month.

The headline price is not the issue. The default behaviour is. The trial converts automatically at the end of month three, and a forgotten subscription is the most expensive subscription there is. Consumer groups in the US and UK have flagged auto-renew practices like this; neither Samsung nor Amazon addressed that angle in their announcement. For current Amazon Music subscribers, the preload changes nothing. Everyone else owns the clock: 90 days from activation, money starts moving.

The exit timeline

The 3-month trial is redeemable any time within 12 months of activation through the Galaxy Store, so the auto-renew does not trigger on first boot. It only starts when you sign up. That gap is the only perk worth pricing in.

If you do not want to pay: do not activate. If you want a quarter to test-drive it: set a calendar alert for day 80, not day 90. Give yourself a ten-day buffer before the first charge hits. And before any Galaxy Unpacked hardware decision tied to the July 22 event, confirm on the exact SKU whether the app fully uninstalls afterwards — a disabled app still consumes storage and battery in the background. Calendar discipline is what protects you across the board, from subscription auto-renews to the routine consistency that keeps mobility work from degrading past 40.