Sony offering free £299 MDR-1R headphones with Xperia Z pre-orders

The Xperia Z is now entering pre-order status as many networks and retailers are now stocking the latest Sony flagship smartphone. Three were the first to announce that they would be stocking the phone but now Sony has launched an all-out assault on pre-orders by offering a free gift worth £299.

Sony is keen to get its new handset sold with rising competition coming from BlackBerry Z10 and rumoured new offerings from built Samsung and HTC coming in the next few months, so it has teamed up with some selected retail partners to offer a free gift to customers who pre-order the Android smartphone.

The free gift itself is a pair Sony MDR-1R headphones that cost a cool £299 to buy alone and these will be offered with every pre-order placed before February 27th, if you pre order through either O2, Three, Phones4U or the Carphone Warehouse and follow this link.

Reportedly Sony is also planning to offering the deal further afield than the UK by letting other European and US customers get the headphones bundled with their new smartphone.

The Sony Xperia Z is a great phone on its own but with a free set of premium headphones it makes the purchase even better. The Xperia Z sports a 5-inch 1080p display and runs the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS, and is powered by a Qualcomm 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor. It’s currently selling for around £449.99 without a contract, and is also available in white and black on release, or purple if you want the handset on O2 or from Sony.