Palm Pre 2 Coming to Verizon on Feb 17th?

UK Palm Pre 2 webos unlocked sim free The long-awaited, long-delayed Palm Pre 2 on Verizon may finally be a reality, according to a pair of separate photographs sent in to Engadget this morning. The elusive handset looks to be hitting the market four months after its initial unveiling this past October. After being initially promised "in the coming months", the Pre 2 will be hitting Verizon in the aftermath of the iPhone launch as well as HP's big WebOS event on February 9th.

According to the leaked screenshots and anonymous tipsters, the Pre 2 is set to hit all Verizon channels on February 17th and cost $100 on a two-year contract. This will apparently be the device's out-the-door price tag with no mail-in rebate attached, despite last week's confirmation that Verizon devices ringing in at $150 or less would still carry a mail-in rebate. There is no word on full retail pricing, unfortunately, nor if the previously rumored VZW roadmap still calls for this device's EOL after two short months of availability. Another sign confirming that this may indeed be a real occurrence is that the Pre 2 has been spotted in Verizon's in-house CelleBrite contact info transfer system

Delving deeper into Engadget's screenshot, courtesy of an indirect Verizon Wireless reseller's inventory system, the Pre 2 is stated as not supporting Mobile Broadband Connect or tethering. This could simply be a glitch in the system or a sign that HP is unwilling to subsidize the Pre 2 as Palm did the previous Pre Plus and Pixi Plus's free 5GB wi-fi hotspot feature. A report last month from Wal-Mart's internal system showed the feature as still intact. As of this writing, the free hotspot is still being offered on existing WebOS devices even as new activations.

If true, the Pre 2 comes at a critical time for Verizon Wireless WebOS fans, as the carrier has recently removed all traces of the existing Pre Plus and Pixi Plus on its retail and online storefronts. Furthermore, several discounters have recently been blowing out stocks of brand-new Verizon Pixi Plus handsets for $50-$60. Taking a quick glance at Verizon's lineup of competing smartphones at the $99 price point, the Pre 2 should still fare rather well, especially as it will be the only portrait keyboard touchscreen device in the carrier's lineup at that price point, and can ride the momentum of positive press from next week's event in San Francisco.

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Red Herring?

rcartwright @ 2/4/2011 6:50:55 AM # Q
Part of me wonders if this might be aan elaborate placeholder for a new Palm phone. Truth is probably a low cost entry smartphone if the $100 on contract price point is right.
"Many men stumble across the truth, but most manage to pick themselves up
and continue as if nothing had happened."
- Winston Churchill
RE: Red Herring?
hkklife @ 2/4/2011 7:01:29 AM # Q
I imagine HP will basically field 3 devices:

-Entry-level "free" small touchscreen device (think Moto Citrus or LG Vortex)

-Pre 2 (or future derivatives) w/ physical keyboard & slider design for $100 midrange (competing with BB Bold/Torch, Droid Pro etc)

-Large-screen (4" presumably) 800x480 all touchscreen candybar device to compete with the iPhone and the many Droid versions. I see this as the area where it will be hardest for HP/Palm to differentiate against the competition. Ensuring a stable and fast rollout of WebOS 2.x for ALL existing Palm Pre & Pixi users will also be a tremendous show of goodwill, especially with all of the endless biotching and moaning about Android fragmentation and many handsets being orphaned by their manufacturer before they even hit the market.

Like it or not, HP's best bet at this stage is to target WebOS primarily as a "Friendlier than Android but more flexible than iOS" tablet alternative and push like crazy. The smartphones will basically benefit from trickle-down goodwill and OS improvements. As it currently stands, WebOS is simply NOT small-screen friendly. You'd really need something like a 4.3" smartphone screen to begin to truly do it justice. And to be honest, the hardware Palm threw at it wasn't able to handle it very well at all. The Pre2 is, IMHO, the first handset with enough oomph to "really" handle WebOS. Hopefully HP can optimize the OS and offer stuff like hardware acceleration etc in the process. Again, tablets 1st, smartphones 2nd!
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid + Verizon Palm Centro-> Verizon Moto Droid X + Palm TX

RE: Red Herring?
LiveFaith @ 2/4/2011 8:03:08 AM # Q
You're right Khris. The Pre2 finally has the horsepower to smoothly run WebOS. It's a beautiful OS, but in classic fashion,Palm is a step behind in the hardware dept.
My Pre+ runs about the same as a 2, thanks to Preware and the 1ghz (I use 800mhz) kernel. But,the avg user knows nothing @ homebrew options. I feel sorry for anyone who buys a Sprint Pre b/c it looks nice in store, but is not a geek.


Pat Horne

RE: Red Herring?
Gekko @ 2/4/2011 1:13:01 PM # Q

Dubya911 1 hour ago

Buy one get one free by the 20th, Free bowl of soup and a hat with every purchase by March 1st!

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Can HP take on the iPad?

Gekko @ 2/7/2011 4:37:31 PM # Q

Here come the HP WebOS tablets
Posted by Michal Lev-Ram, contributor
February 7, 2011 12:27 PM

We know HP is looking at WebOS as its competitor to Apple iOS and Google Android. But is HP cool enough to take them on?

This Wednesday Hewlett-Packard is expected to spill the beans on its new line of WebOS tablets. But thanks to leaked photos and specs and a teaser video from the company, we already know a lot about the upcoming devices, reportedly code-named Topaz and Opal.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/02/07/here-come-the-hp-webos-tablets/

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