Planhacker: All The Australian iPad Air Contract Deals

Apple’s latest tablet, the iPad Air, goes on sale today. If you don’t want to buy one outright, all three major carriers are offering SIM-equipped models on contact plans. We’ve rounded up all the options in an interactive Planhacker table so you can compare.

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To be clear, we’re not particularly fans of purchasing a tablet this way. Generally you’ll pay a lot more than if you buy outright and use a prepaid SIM, and if you don’t want to frequently use the iPad outside your home and office, the mobile capacity will be wasted. However, if you are going down this route, it makes sense to compare your options.

In the table below, we’ve listed the contract deals from Optus, Telstra and Vodafone for the iPad Air. We’ve included what you’ll pay each month, the contract length (12 or 24 months), the total cost, and how much data is included. Links to and brief notes on each provider are below the table.

You can sort and filter the table by right-clicking on the headings, so you can see just plans from a single provider or filter by price.

Optus

Optus is the only carrier offering 12-month deals, but you pay heavily for the privilege. Optus will cut the broadband access fees on its plans by 25 per cent if you also have a contract mobile with it.

Telstra

Telstra’s plans are better value than some deals we’ve seen in the past, though paying for 15GB a month is likely to be overkill unless it’s your main device and you’re constantly on the road.

Vodafone

Vodafone only has three plans, and its site only lists the 16GB and 128GB models at the time of writing.

Lifehacker’s weekly Planhacker column rounds up the best communication deals.