There are a number of retail stores that will sell you a Wi-Fi version of the Sony Xperia Z2 tablet in the U.S. but if you want the LTE model there’s only one choice: Verizon Wireless. The company announced an exclusive deal to carry the LTE model of Sony’s Xperia Z2 on Wednesday with promotional pricing starting at $499 with a new two-year agreement.
Pre-orders for the 10.1-inch Android 4.4.2 tablet begin tomorrow and the regular pricing will be $599 once the promo deal expires. All pre-orders are eligible for a free Sony Digital Noise Cancelling Headset while supplies last and the tablets should show up in Verizon retail stores for purchase on July 17. Also included in the deal:
- 90 days of free music streaming through Music Unlimited
- 6 preselected blockbuster movies to download and own from Video Unlimited
- And an exclusive early access pass to "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" when it becomes available for digital download
The full HD slate is both dust-resistant and waterproof and includes 32 GB of on-board storage with expansion capabilities up to 128 GB. The Z2 tablet shares many other components from the smaller Xperia Z2 phone, both of which were introduced by Sony in February. That means it has a quad-core 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor and 3 GB of memory.
I’m not a fan of exclusives as they generally don’t help either the consumer nor the device maker that much, although Verizon could have committed to marketing dollars for this tablet. And I don’t think the promotional pricing is that compelling because it requires a two-year service contract. The days of tablet subsidies — and those for phones as well — are slowly coming to an end.
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