We’ve been leading up to today for a while now, and Wednesday 16 September is supposed to be the day that Motorola’s Moto X Play and Moto X Style go on sale nationally in Vodafone stores. It’s been a bit of a tumultuous journey to get here, with minor delays and hiccups, but the last we heard was the inside information at Vodafone showing that the phones would indeed go on sale today.
Because we know there’s so much interest in these handsets, we’re following developments this morning, and we’ll keep you updated with what we find out in our live coverage below.
Here’s the highlights:
- Stock levels are inconsistent at best; some stores have Moto X Play, it seems none have Moto X Style today
- Motorola have confirmed Moto X Play is on sale today, Moto X Style delayed until tomorrow
- Outright sales don’t seem to be happening, but there is a workaround
I don’t understand why Motorola had to do a deal with Vodafone, but please Motorola DON’T make the same arrangement when you release the Moto X Force!!!
In a previous post, Ausdroid guys said something about these being maybe available on a variable Mobile Payment Plan. That is a monthly plan just to pay off the phone. Anyone know anything about this? Do you reckon I could grab a month to month sim plan, sign up for the phone month to month, and then cancel the SIM only plan a month later and then just keep paying off the phone while I use my preferred Telco?? Any thoughts?
seems like a question for Voda. however, i’d say they likely wouldn’t do it. the moment you ditch their network they’ll call in the $ on the handset as you’re technically no longer a customer on their network.
Style still not on the Voda website. :/
Moto X Style (32 GB – White/Bamboo and All Black) is now on the Vodafone website.
i don’t see a 32gb Play option though, whereas the Moto site distinctly details one.
Anyone found any White/Bamboo in stock anywhere?
No stock in Westfield Parramatta Sydney.
Sometimes I wonder if it goes like this…
Motorola Australia: “PLEASE SEND US PHONES!!!”
Motorola HQ Exec A: “Did you hear something?”
Motorola HQ Exec B: “Let ’em wait until the next batch. It’s a small market”.
We are inconsequential.
Pretty much.
I also think it’s probably unfair or premature to bash Vodafone for supply issues. Motorola is much more likely responsible for shortages.
I have gone to my local allphones store and they have this afternoon received black styles in but no white.
Just back from Vodafone store in Westfield Chatswood and picked up Moto X Play. Looks like you can pay it outright, but I grabbed the monthly phone plan as I don’t want to spend big chunk of money at the moment.
They said they don’t have the X style, but I can see in the pricing plan already for $33 per month on 24 months MPP
Stopped by Vodafone in Woden, ACT and the look on the Vodafone rep’s face there was priceless. He had no idea what I was on about with these phones.
Just saw the Moto X Play (Black) show up on the Vodafone site.
16 GB WTF?! I thought they were going to sell the 32 GB variant.
With all the Play and Style news (or not), has anyone seen or heard anything about the Moto G? I’m expecting JB won’t get stock until November at this rate.
Honestly we’ve not heard much about availability of the G yet.
Thanks Chris. It kills me that Moto has such a great range but just can’t get their shiz together to get people to buy their products. It’s just insane.
I am not surprised with what I’m reading here. I have wanted to have a Moto X for quite some time, but not until Motorola had the SD card included. Now they have I’m not going for either of the current models because I really don’t want to do business with Vodafone, plus no access to Motomaker, Motorola Australia don’t seem to do much for their Aussie customers. So now I’m waiting for the Moto X Force, because it’s of more interest to me, & I hope Motorola handle it better than they are with the current models. I’m not… Read more »
Vodafone in Newtown in Sydney have the Play. Style tomorrow. Neither available outright. Hahahaha what a joke.
Move along people, this Moto X launch is a complete failure. An unlocked phone which cant be bought outright. Wait for the nexus announcements.
I also don’t understand the concept of stock shortages in a country like Australia. How many handsets would they actually need to ship in day one? 10,000 at most? A fraction of what they would need for the UK which has the same variant. Just slice out a percentage of them and instead of shipping them north from China, ship them south.
Done.
Still can’t believe they aren’t selling it outright and no one knows anything about the Moto G, the only phone they’ve shipped in the last few years that’s sold anything!
I’ve said this before, and I’m going to say this again.
Motorola are bad at selling things. Seriously, all we want to buy is buy the damn Style without a contract in an easy fashion and these morons can’t even manage that.
They screwed up on the original Moto X. They took too long Moto X 2014. They couldn’t bring the 360 here in a timely fashion, and they’re pulling this crap all over again.
Pathetic.
There’s a good reason Samsung sells so many phones. They make sure people can actually buy them, both on and off contract.
I just want the black/grey phone with the bamboo back! But Vodafone are making this difficult, as everyone predicted
I just want to say that the American Motomaker deliveries are shipping out of China. There is no techincal reason Moto couldn’t just allow Aussies to order from the same system.
If Vodafone is making no effort to actually sell the damn things then please, open up the online sales toAustealians.
Totally agree, from a logistics point of view there would literlally be no difference as it’s all done through fedex and the hardware by all accounts is identical.
It actually feels really old school to have a company arbitrarily limiting sales like this, it’s kind of what drove digital content privacy, I know thats not an option now but this kind of stuff in general has had me looking at alternatives to mainstream handsets for a while
I believe its to do with support.
I got a moto X 2014 from motomaker UK forwarded to Aus.
The darn thing stopped working and its taken several months to sort out a repair. I ended up having to ship it back to a family member in the UK! May be months before I get it back.
For a “global” company this makes no sense to me…
Could be. who knows why, it’s just annoying isn’t it
Yes, this times a million. And seeing all these *pre-order* promotions from Vodafone for iPhones just sickens me.