Christmas is coming a bit late for those of us in the US but we’ll take it regardless. Sony Mobile has officially announced the arrival of the flagship Xperia Z5 and Xperia Z5 Compact for the United States. Though having debuted months ago in Europe and Asia, Sony until now has had no presence in the US with their latest and quite possibly best received phones.

Pricing, arrival, and Xperia Z5 Premium details after the jump.

With today’s announcement out of the way, we’ve yet to hear anything about the Xperia Z5 Premium. While this could mean that the premium flagship could simply arrive later, I have a nagging suspicion that we won’t be seeing the phone in the US for two reasons. First is because of its massive 5.5-inch display which is far more popular in Asia than it is in the West. You could deduce that Sony ships very low volumes as it is in North America and introducing a phone that targets a subset of that market might simply not make financial sense.

The second likely culprit is price. The Xperia Z5 and Xperia Z5 Compact are already priced at $599 and $499 respectively. That means the Z5 Premium will at least be $699 or $799, something that most consumers won’t want to pay, even if they do want a 5.5-inch phone. To make things slightly worse, when the phones arrive on February 7th, they’ll be available with no carrier support.

That means that you’ll be buying an unlocked device at full price with no option for monthly payments to reduce that initial sticker shock. Hopefully Sony can use the phone’s availability at Amazon, Best Buy, and B&H as a test bed to improve relationship with carriers and better formulate a plan for the inevitable Xperia Z6 family.

Discuss:

Will you be purchasing the Xperia Z5 or Xperia Z5 Compact in the US?

[Via Sony Mobile]