Jon Rubinstein dropped the news only minutes ago that the new Palm devices—the slightly-upgraded Pre Plus and Pixi Plus—would be arriving on Verizon later this month. I got some hands-on time with them, and while the Pre Plus has had the navigational button removed, little else has been touched aesthetically.
The Pre Plus and Pixi Plus can hook up five Wi-Fi devices to the net, over 3G, after using the Mobile HotSpot app. That means you can use the two phones as a MiFi hotspot.
The Palm Pre plus removed the navigation button, has 2x internal RAM, 16GB storage, and a built-in inductive back cover for Touchstone inductive charging. The Pixi Plus is still “thin and lightweight”, but now has Wi-Fi, more colors for back covers (all Touchstone enabled). And both these phones are only for Verizon
The Palm Pre’s little brother Pixi has just grown up, with it receiving the webOS 1.3.2 update before the Pre. Forum-dwellers at PreCentral are claiming the update doesn’t bring much to the table, with it apparently addressing lag when using multiple programs. Mind you, considering we described the Pixi as being “brain-damaged, three-legged dog slow” in our review , it’s a much-needed fix
That’s right, 480 x 320-pixel video recording at 30fps is now go. The homebrew software is only an alpha (so there’s bugs like not being able to preview what you’re recording), but the app works, and is free to download. When WebOS 1.3.1 skipped updating the camera app, the developers of Precorder decided not to wait any longer, and things are looking promising
You’ve got one week to get 20% off six of Palm’s Pre accessories. That’s around $56 for the Touchstone, $32 for the Leather case and $24 for the vehicle charger
The Palm Pre already saw an online price drop to $100 at Amazon , but if you bought it at that price, we’ve got some bad news for you— Walmart’s now selling it for only $80. [ EverythingPre via Engadget ]
Sprint may have recently dropped the Pre to $150 (after rebate; with 2-year contact), but now you can grab one at Amazon for 50 bucks less. I guess you could buy a Touchstone charger with the money you save.
A new batch of Palm Pre apps just hit the catalog, and they don’t look too shabby: DirecTV NFL mobile will stream live football games to SuperFan subscribers; Translator translates stuff; and a shnice-looking WikiHow app.
We’ve gathered the Palm Pre is headed to Verizon early next year, and it may now have appeared in a leaked Verizon inventory database. Along with the other phones, the Palm 101 and P121 are listed: Pre and Eos code-names
