Sony Xperia Z3 And Z3 Compact: Australian Pricing, Release Dates

The Sony Xperia Z3 and Xperia Z3 Compact go on sale in Australia very soon. (We don’t know exactly when, but more on that later.) The little pocket rocket and its plus-sized sibling will be out at all the major carriers, and thankfully Australia will be getting all the different colours — depending on when you make your purchase from.

Sony Xperia Z3 And Z3 Compact: Everything You Need To Know

Pricing first, because that’s simplest piece of the puzzle. Outright, the Sony Xperia Z3 will cost you $849, and the Xperia Z3 Compact will cost $699. That’s a fair bit of a bump from the price of the Z1 Compact, which you could buy for $550, but even at the higher price the smaller phone is an excellent deal.

If you want to buy the Z3 on a plan, it’ll cost you $10 per month at Telstra on a 24 month $70 Mobile Accelerate plan. At Optus, it’ll be $13 per month on a $60 plan, at Virgin it’ll be $5 per month on a $60 plan, and at Vodafone it’ll be $8 on a $70 plan. For the Z3 Compact at Telstra, it’ll be $3 per month on that same $70 plan, at Optus it’ll be $13 per month on a $50 plan, and the smaller handset won’t be sold on a plan at all through Virgin and Vodafone.

Optus has its preorders for the new phones open as of this morning, as does Sony’s own online stores and kiosks. You can order either of the two handsets outright from all the telcos today, apparently, but if you want to preorder the Z3 on a plan at Virgin you’ll have to wait until the 3rd and until the 7th on Telstra. Vodafone is not offering pre-orders on either phone on a plan.

Availability of the different colours is just as convoluted. For the Xperia Z3 on a plan, Virgin and Vodafone are only carrying stock of the black model, while Telstra and Optus will have black, white and copper. If you want the silver green variant, it’s only avaiable through Sony kiosks and outright through the telcos. For the Z3 Compact on a plan, Telstra gets black, white and orange, while Optus gets black, white, and green, and Virgin and Vodafone don’t have the phone at all. Outright, the Compact can be bought in all four colours from a Sony kiosk, or outright from a telco in black and white.

Confused? We are, too. Here’s the information provided to us by Sony:

Sony also had an Xperia Z3 Tablet on show at the phones’ launch last night, but no information on when it is launching or much it will cost was available at the time.

The first 100 preorders of the phones through Optus will receive a bonus PlayStation 4 console. So is Virgin, and so is Telstra. So is Sony directly.

There’s no actual release date for the phones as far as we can tell just yet. It should be soon. But we’re reaching out to Sony for the best confirmation that we can get. Stay tuned.

Update: Telstra will have the Z3 and Z3 Compact on sale from October 14. Optus will have the Z3 and Z3 Compact on sale from October 9.

Apparently, according to darkryoushii in the comments, Sony is shipping its outright Z3 purchases to customers on October 10.

More news as it comes to hand. [Sony]


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