Top-tier smartphone makers and U.S. carriers are scrambling to out-price each other in increasing efforts to draw the most buys come the anticipated release date of the Galaxy S4, HTC One and even the iPhone 5S.

The Galaxy S4 will not be on U.S. shores until May this year but pre-orders of the Samsung flagship will commence by mid-April and almost all the major U.S. telcos are adhering to one price point: $US199.99, which is for the 16GB configuration.

AT&T, Sprint and Verizon will carry the identical price tags that consumers need fork out in order to get their hands on the shiny Android handset. It appears though that T-Mobile got a big advantage over the Big Three by offering the GS4 for only $US99 under its reconfigured plan packages dubbed as Value Plan.

For consumers planning to get the 32GB model of the GS4, the initial cash setback is $US249.99 plus monthly fees, which is an across the board standard that the American telcos will follow.

Meanwhile, Apple's iPhone 5S is yet to be given a definite release date aside from speculations that the handset and its budget version will be launched June 20, with the commercial availability to follow in early July.

At the moment, the smartphone that the 5S will replace, the iPhone 5, bears the same price mark of $US199.99 so it is safe to assume that telcos will apply the same template once the new generation iPhone is unveiled a few months form now.

As for the HTC One, U.S. buyers will get the same price treatment but will enjoy more premiums in terms of storage specs. Note that the quad-core JellyBean handset's base model has a generous 32GB internal memory, which for $US199.99 is an outright winner.

No doubt, the 64GB serving of the HTC One offers the most bang for consumers' buck. Imagine getting that much space for only $US249.99 when the iPhone on AT&T sells at the same level bit with only 32GB of internal storage.

So it will be a field day for everyone come the successive release dates of Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One and the iPhone 5S, which run from April through July this year.

As economist would say, when giant firms try to outdo each other in wooing the most numbers of consumers, it is the latter that end up as the winner from the exciting mix.