iPhone rival Palm Pre to sell for $199 after rebate on June 6th
The announcement comes amid increasing speculation from industry watchers who believe Apple, an established rival standing in Palm's path to regaining steep market share losses, may use its annual developers conference two days later to counter the PDA device maker's latest handset with its own line of updated iPhones.
Availability
Sprint says the Pre will be available nationwide in Sprint stores, Best Buy, Radio Shack, select Wal-Mart stores and online at Sprint.com. The carrier also took a pot-shot at rival wireless providers by claiming that the device will come with its value-oriented Everything Data plans that "offer savings of up to $1,430 over two years versus comparable AT&T and Verizon plans for smartphones and PDAs."
Calling plans
Upon closer inspection, however, it appears that Sprint based those comparisons on the unlimited minute options for Verizon PDA/Smartphone Nationwide Email & Messaging with the VZ Navigator add-on and AT&T's Nation plan with the addition of a PDA Personal Bundle and AT&T Navigator.
Sprint's cheapest "Everything Data" plan with unlimited data usage starts at $69.99 per month for 450 anytime minutes, essentially inline with AT&T's entry-level iPhone plan, but also includes unlimited MMS messaging. A plan with 900 minutes fetches $89.99 while a plan with unlimited data and voice — Simply Everything — costs $99.99.
The Pre handset
Listed among the Pre's features is a 3.1-inch touchscreen supplemented by a physical slide-out keyboard, 8GB of internal storage, GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, 3-megapixel camera, and a removable battery. It will run and mark the debut of Palm's new webOS platform based on standard open web technologies such as CSS, XHTML, and JavaScript.
Among the software's highlights is Palm Synergy, a key feature that brings together a user's personal and professional calendar, contacts and e-mail into one centralized view, making transitions between work and personal applications easier to manage.
Unlike the iPhone, Palm has said that the Pre will run multiple apps at the same time, each one "seamlessly connected to the web and always active."Â Using the device's multi-touch-like screen surface, users will be able to instantly flip from one app to another as if they were sifting through a deck of playing cards on a table."
"You can move back and forth between text messaging and e-mail, or search the web while you listen to music," the company said. "You can rearrange items simply by dragging them, and when you are done with something, just throw it away by flicking it off the top of the screen.
Each Pre comes with a charger in the box, but Palm will also market a $49.99 Touchstone charging dock, which it claims is the first inductive charging solution for phones, available exclusively for Pre. When bundled with a Touchstone back cover for Pre, the dock will sell for $69.99.
429 Comments
the Palm Pre is hot.
HOT HOT HOT.
its the only other phone that I want... Can't wait till it comes to Canada.
I will switch from the iPhone....
Love the replaceable battery and the more than one app at a time feature.
Will the Pre come with a flash?
until the Sprint exclusive deal ends!
Love the replaceable battery and the more than one app at a time feature. Will it have a flash?
We will soon find out how hot the multi-tasking thing really is on this thing.
It is good it has a removable battery. I think it will need it.
A key will be how well supported its app store will be.
Some knock AT&T.
Sprint doesn't smell like a rose either.
I've been waiting for someone to point out a single killer feature on this phone for weeks now. Here we are, approaching launch, and I still haven't seen one. Let's see: it's fat and heavy, it's linked to Sprint who is widely derided as the worst US carrier, it has no apps (yet) and the company is short on cash.
Now we learn it doesn't even compete on price, until after a mail-in rebate? Mail in rebate? Are you joking?!
Dead.
Wait, here's something: "You can move back and forth between text messaging and e-mail, or search the web while you listen to music," the company said. "You can rearrange items simply by dragging them, and when you are done with something, just throw it away by flicking it off the top of the screen.
Wow! All the things I already do on my iPhone. No seriously, I can do every single one of those things right now. SMS comes up in a pop-up when you're in other apps, and the iPod plays under everything else.
Dead.
Maury