Official prices for the Xperia 1 III and Xperia 5 III turn up on Sony's Russia site: Expensive but with cool pre-order gifts

Prices for the Xperia 1 III and Xperia 5 III have been posted on Sony.ru, as spotted by u/balkanik0 on Reddit. The phones, which both feature the Snapdragon 888 chipset, do have high price tags, although the Sony Xperia 1 III is possibly not as prohibitively expensive as was expected. The smaller but still powerful Sony Xperia 5 III is certainly not a cheap alternative either – but it will appeal to those who want a compact flagship smartphone. Fortunately for buyers in Russia, there is further temptation in the form of a pre-order free gift.

For those willing to pay out 99,990 Russian rubles on the 6.5-inch Sony Xperia 1 III smartphone, a price tag that is roughly equivalent to US$1,303/€1,088/£945, there is apparently a pre-order bonus involving the highly rated Sony WF-1000XM3 wireless earbuds. The Sony.ru website indicates this as a gift simply with a red gift-wrapped icon and the instructions that a pre-order and purchase of the Xperia 1 III need to be made. These headphones cost 14,990 Russian rubles via the official Sony store at the moment (about US$196), so it really is quite a generous offer.

The slightly cheaper 6.1-inch Sony Xperia 5 III comes with a special gift too, and unlike the Xperia 1 III, it gives buyers in Russia the option of owning it in either black or green. At 84,990 Russian rubles (US$1,109/€925/£804), the Xperia 5 III is not really an impulse buy, but it also comes with a free set of headphones. Those who fulfil the terms and conditions will get Sony WF-XB700 earbuds, which are priced at 7,990 Russian rubles (US$104) on the same site. Obviously the high price tags for these phones will soon appear on other Sony country-specific sites but will hopefully also be accompanied by similarly attractive freebies to ease the purchase pain, which Sony has done with past flagship smartphone sales.

Buy the Sony WF-1000XM3 or WF-XB700 wireless earbuds on Amazon