We’ve been toying with a Palm Pre 2 for a few weeks now, but given that it’s not “final hardware,” we can’t exactly make any firm judgments on the unit itself. Tim Pettitt, product manager for HP Palm, can .
It’s hard to tell if the ad embedded after the break is purely official, but it definitely reeks of HP. In a good way, that is.
It seems like we’re getting closer and closer to the arrival of the Palm Pre 2 and webOS 2.0 , and it looks like Verizon will be in the mix — we were just sent this image of Big Red’s internal VZLearn portal showing Pre 2 device training. We still don’t know when it’ll actually hit or what pricing will be like, and we don’t know if it’ll hit Sprint and AT&T as well like the OG Pre, but we’re guessing we’ll find out soon enough — keep a sharp eye, we’ll let you know
WebOS device hacking has reach some considerable heights recently with a mod to bring WiFi to a Sprint Palm Pixi , but it looks like even that’s now been topped by this hack that finally brings the Pre Plus to Sprint. As you can probably guess, that involves a Sprint Palm Pre , a Pre Plus (from either AT&T or Verizon), a slew of software tweaking, and plenty of tricky hardware modding to get the Sprint Pre coms board into the Pre Plus.
What we really want from HP is a brand new webOS smartphone , but it’d be unfair to say we’d “settle” for a Palm Pre — especially at prices like these. To commemorate the opening of the new HP Wireless store, the company’s offering both Pre Plus and Pixi Plus, on AT&T or Verizon, free of charge for a limited time. Not only that, but these handsets feature free shipping, and the Pre comes with free accessories (including a Bluetooth headset, car charger and leather case) to boot
We said it was coming on June 6 , and we weren’t lying — the Pixi Plus, that is, rife with GSM compatibility for AT&T’s airwaves. The Pre Plus is already available (with a free Touchstone thrown in, no less), but if you’re looking for something a smidge smaller with a little less horsepower, you might be holding out for this one.
Hey, hey, look at this! A short, sweet Palm Pre Plus ad that shows off the phone’s innovative UI, its ability to multitask, and its 3D gaming — you know, all the great stuff it can do. This is just what pretty much everyone who’s ever had the misfortune of seeing the creepy Palm lady or the Verizon “Mom” ads has been desperately seeking.
So it looks like Barron’s and The Wall Street Journal have talked to enough store clerks and Sprint reps today to confirm that Radio Shack is definitely dropping the original Palm Pre and Pixi from its in-store lineup. For what it’s worth, Sprint says that “this is in line with Radio Shack’s normal product planning process — there is a designated amount of space in stores for handsets and they work to keep the line up of devices as current as possible,” and we actually tend to believe that story since the phones (the Pre in particular) are getting awfully long in the tooth and we wouldn’t blame the retailer for trying to cycle in some fresh stuff. The bigger question is whether the move indicates that Palm has some hot new gear for Sprint around the corner; if not, this gives Palm one less avenue for sales at a time when it needs all the help it can get, especially since you won’t find these guys hawking Verizon’s versions
If you’re itching to put a webOS device on your AT&T account and don’t mind having half the now-standard RAM , the developers at jictechnology have released what they’re claiming is an official, permanent SIM unlock for the original Palm Pre. A few bugs to get through, but it’s apparently legitimate enough (we haven’t tried, but the happy customers in the forums seem to suggest success) for the group to charge around
You know the hacked Pre firmware releases that have been coming out lately, first for 1.3.5.1 and then recently for 1.4 ? We tested out that later one and found the results to be good, and indeed one of the creators, caj2008, sent us plenty of data from early testers showing minimal heat gains and battery losses. Still, Palm isn’t exactly thanking these guys for their hard work, going so far as to issue a warning: While we appreciate the effort the webOS community has put forth to try and help us along that path, the use of this application is neither endorsed nor recommended by Palm and will likely result in a voided warranty.
Oh Palm. Just a little over a year ago your future seemed so bright, so renewed. You walked away from CES 2009 reborn, held aloft by a completely innovative new mobile operating system, a striking piece of hardware, and a feeling amongst the press and investors that you were back in the game and playing to win
We hate to yell “Pre!” at the top of our lungs here, since we’d really like to see further exploration of the portrait QWERTY form factor for Android, but it’s hard to avoid the form factor and stylistic comparisons. The new “Smooth” phone from ZTE is a low-end handset running Android 1.6, with a 2.8-inch QVGA screen, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and a love for Palm industrial design. The phone, which is being shown off at MWC, should retail under 1000 Yuan (about $146 US) and be released in August of this year as a low-end smartphone contender.
Palm has gone and spilled its Verizon pricing info, and the news is pretty encouraging. The Pre Plus is hitting shelves at a cent under $150, closely followed by the Pixi Plus at $99.99 — both after $100 mail-in rebate and on two-year commitments.
Yea, you read that right — fifty apps loaded side by side by freaking side on the Pre Plus , and the thing just kept on ticking. The chaps over at Pre Central decided to test out specifically how much of an improvement the doubling of RAM and storage in the new handset delivered, and they were not disappointed
