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Given that you can pick up a wide range of premium and mid-range brand name handsets from Telstra, you might be wondering why the nation's biggest telco bothers with its own-brand handsets as well.
The answer here is that it pitches these phones largely at the budget and specific tradie niches, and in doing so, enables itself to cover just about every phone user and price point. While its premium brand name offering suits those who want the latest from the likes of Apple and Samsung, there are plenty of Australians who trust Telstra as a brand in its own right.
At the time of writing, Telstra's own-brand range isn't substantial, thanks to the near-collapse of Chinese manufacturer ZTE. At the time of its US-based controversy, ZTE was the primary maker of Telstra's own-brand phones and its cessation of trading hit Telstra's own-brand phone business hard. Telstra took the decision to take most of its handsets off the market with the exception of those not made by ZTE. Still, you may be able to find one of them second-hand and there's always the possibility that Telstra will resume with another OEM stepping in to make new phones for it.
With Telstra having pulled back its own-brand phones for the time being, it's rather tough to call just one phone the "best". After all, at the time of writing, Telstra's only selling one "new" handset and that's the Telstra Signature 2. From its specifications, it's a fine enough handset, although we'd be wary of signing up for a contract for what is essentially a low-cost phone anyway.
Telstra only offers a limited number of its self-branded phones on plans, preferring instead to sell them outright alongside its prepaid plans. Currently, the only Telstra handset available on contract is the Telstra Tough Max 2. You can compare plans for the phone below:
You can get international roaming on most of Telstra’s postpaid mobile plans for just $10 a day.
Read more…Find out which provider has the best value plan for the new Samsung Galaxy Note 5G range.
Read more…The Telstra Essential Smart 2 is almost insanely cheap, and that's the point.
Read more…The Telstra Essential Smart 2 is almost insanely cheap, and that's the point.
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Telstra’s Signature Premium sits oddly in the premium space, simply because while it’s a pleasant enough device, it doesn’t really push hard enough to be truly "premium".