It appears there is some confusing about pricing, availability & colouring of the HTC Wildfire that is currently available on Telstra. And fair enough, it has been pretty confusing for some, so in this post I hope to make things clearer so everyone can understand what’s going on. All information in this post is sourced from Telstra, give them a hard time, not me 😉
Pricing – Prepaid & Plans
Plan: $0 on the $49 Cap Plan over 24 months
Prepaid: $349 from the 6th of September
Outright: $469 from Telstra Stores at the present time
Colours
Pure White: Fone Zone (from 24th August) & Telstra Stores (from 28th September)
Phantom Black: Telstra Stores (from 6th September on Prepaid)
Any other questions, leave a comment below 🙂
Source: Telstra Exchange.
FoneZone here quoted me $552 to buy Wildfire outright! Must be more expensive in “the bush” like everything else.
Turtle- print out a of copy of the wildfire listing on the Telstra Store website to take with you. Then tell Fone Zone that if they can’t match the price ($469, or even $480 which I’ve read it may be instore) you have no hesitation to buy direct from Telstra’s website. They might not budge on the white as it is their exculsive til the end of this month, but it might help!
Egad. FoneZone don’t offer the prepaid, they only have postpaid for $520 and according to the FoneZone person I spoke to, even though its unlocked it will only work properly with a Telstra SIM since it’s bundled with Telstra Apps (like BigPond)…to which I LOLd!
So this whole HTC Wildfire thing has turned into “Marketing guff that’s missing the important bits, lets keep changing the prices!”.
I just hope that TLife do have the prepaid, locked, $349 HTC Wildfire available on monday 6th otherwise I’ll be importing from an overseas business that doesn’t churn out bullshit.
Wildfirer… Telstra has told me it would cost $80 recharge and an unlocking fee of an amount the sales rep could not “remember off the top of his head but he thinks around $120″( usual awesome service ). FYI buying wildfire outright ($430 online including delivery @ http://www.techrific.com.au) and sticking to any $29 plan for 24 months works out almost exactly the same end figure as $49/month plan $0 upfront for phone. If you are not bothered by network and looking to buy htc then you can get a Desire on exactly the same plan as the wildfire, I was… Read more »
Thanks Gazman. Looks cheaper to buy the outright than to unlock a prepaid. Looks like I may be spending some time in rural areas with only Telstra Next G, otherwise I am totally unfazed by network. Could have gotten it while overseas recently for around $400 before quite a good tax refund figure… but oh Telstra’s got it’s own 3G band.
Isn’t a phone that is bought “outright” meant to be unlocked? I’m seeing a lot of “$349 outright” in the marketing/talk for the Wildfire on Telstra, but that’s outright bullshit :/
I think prepaid phones are locked to Telstra, hence the low price.
My local Fone Zone has the Wildire available on outright, but for $500 (available from Telstra online for $469, and instore for $480) ! They are expecting prepaid in the next week. For the $349 prepaid Wildfire, can anyone help me out on what the fee for unlocking is?
I dont understand why telstra has put the wildfire on the same plan as the desire? Why wouldn’t I get a Desire if it is on the same plan? Surely that will affect the appeal of the wildfire…..
In regards to prepaid/outright, I was told by telstra that I could buy the wildfire prepaid for $349 and wait 1 month then pay $80 to release it from network lock.
The above info is mostly correct as far as I have been told but not totally. Today I went to both Fone Zone and a T Life store. Fone Zone have it only available for contract at this stage with no outright (at least that is what the person I talked to said but he could not check up anything as his computer had been broken since Saturday). T Life stores have in available in store outright for $480 and the $469 is the online price and is available on the plans as you say.
Now that’s just stupid of Telstra, why have a different price for online & in-store? They didn’t do that for the Desire.
I have no idea but that is they price it has listed in store and with Tel$tra who knows why they do things (sometimes I am not sure they know either).
This question may sound foolish, but what is the difference between buying it prepaid and outright? Why are they asking an extra $120 for outright?
Prepaid phones are locked to Telstra, which costs money to unlock. If you buy it outright it won’t be locked.