It's been four years since the last major piece of news from Palm and Verizon in January, which was the Treo 700w launch on January 5th 2006. Yesterday marked the occurrence of an event that many (yours truly included) feared would never take place: Verizon launched not one, but two new Palm devices and both are currently Verizon exclusives. Palm fans that refused to jump ship to Sprint now finally have the opportunity to grab a webOS device on a second domestic network.

Not wanting to miss any of the launch excitement, I accompanied my boss to the local Best Buy to grab a Pre Plus. He's a long-time Treo owner, having used a Treo 600 since its launch on Verizon in 2003, and was clinging dearly to his Centro. I convinced him to take the plunge to move to a webOS device since his Centro wouldn't last forever and he was yearning for a device with a larger, higher-resolution screen. Besides, I told him he might as well learn to cut the cord and embrace the cloud. Best Buy was the natural choice as a purchase destination, due to the retailer's customer-friendly policy of eschewing the hassle of mail-in rebates. Read on for a full report on the in-store experience, as well as the device migration process and my initial impressions of the Verizon Palm Pre Plus.

With Verizon's new webOS handsets now out the door, Palm has updated its online store with some new details on where to purchase the new devices. A surprising new option has materialized which gives shoppers the opportunity to buy a new Palm Pre or Pixi (plusses included) directly from Palm.com without a contract commitment or carrier credit check.

The standard Sprint Palm Pre and Pixi sell for $549 and $399, while the Pre Plus sells for $599. While this is a nice option for developers and customers, prospective purchasers must still pay the full unsubsidized price, and the CDMA devices seem to still be locked to their respective carriers. As of today, there is still no domestic unlocked option or a US GSM model offered at this time.

Google has launched an updated version of its mobile web app for utilizing its Google Voice service. The new mobile optimized site allows webOS and iPhone users to use and access most Google Voice services and features through the web browser.

Built using HTML5, the site lets users make calls (with the GV number as the outbound callerID), send and receive SMS messages for free, manage your voice mailbox and place international calls using Google's discounted rates.

The site works in the standard Palm webOS browser and can be accessed at voice.google.com.

Bell Mobility in Canada is now giving the Palm Pre away when customers sign up for a new contract. In its third major price drop since launching the handset late last August.

The new price points gives the Palm Pre away for essentially nothing with a three year contract agreement, while 2 year commitments will put it in your mitts for $99 CAD. The no contract option remains unchanged at $599.

With the recent launch of webOS 1.3.5 and the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus joining the existing Pre and Pixi, the main areas of Palm.com are now webOS-exclusive. Palm has recently removed the company's most recent non-webOS device, the Windows Mobile-powered Treo Pro from the company's front page, the Palm products page and even the direct links on the palm.com online store.

Interestingly enough, a search of palm.com brings up a still-active product page for the CDMA Treo Pro in Alltel and Sprint flavors, along with links to purchase an unsubsidized version of either handset. Users seeking an unlocked GSM Treo Pro can still purchase a new unit from Dell for $179.99 with free shipping as well as from Amazon.

For the third year in a row, PalmInfocenter has been awarded the best Palm website/blog in the yearly PalmAddict Reader Awards. PIC received the most votes in the categories for best Palm website and smartphone resource which included over 15 other Palm and mobile focused sites. In total over 62,000 votes were cast in PalmAddicts yearlong informal reader survey.

I'd like to send a big thank you to the kind crew at PalmAddicts and to everyone who participated. This award would not be possible without our wonderful readers and the ever adept PIC writing staff namely Tim Carroll and Kris Keilhack, without whose help this accolade would not be possible.

Contrary to their usual policy, Palm has lifted the review embargo for the new Verizon "Plus" variants of the Pre and Pixi a few days ahead of schedule. Presumably, Palm is looking to generate some free early buzz online prior to the devices' official arrival on Verizon this coming Monday the 25th.

After reading through a number of reviews, the general consensus around the web is essentially that Pre and Pixi in their "Plus" incarnations are solid devices and Palm's finest smartphones yet. However, by offering only minor improvements ranging from evolutionary (Pre) to incremental (Pixi), there aren't enough reasons to warrant existing Sprint customers breaking their contracts to jump ship to Verizon. Catch the review list after the break.

Palm Inc. and Verizon announced today that Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus will be on store shelves and ready for purchase on Monday, Jan. 25. The Palm Pre Plus will cost $149.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate, and Palm Pixi Plus will cost $99.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate, each with a new two-year customer agreement. Verizon customters who buy a Palm Pre Plus or a Palm Pixi Plus can get a Palm Pixi Plus free after a mail-in rebate through Feb. 14.

Both phones will be offered with Verizon's newly revised service plans. Verizon Wireless Nationwide Talk plans begin at $39.99 monthly access and Nationwide Talk & Text Plans begin at $59.99 monthly access. Nationwide Unlimited Talk Plans and Nationwide Unlimited Talk & Text Plans are available at $69.99 and $89.99 monthly access, respectively. Data plan options will be required as well starting at $29.99 a month.

Things in the Palm world are understandably quiet now in the aftermath of the CES excitement, but there is definitely some noteworthy news items circulating around the Internets.

First off, a HowardForums post from member Scaredy reveals that that both the original CDMA Palm Pixi as well as the refreshed CDMA Pixi Plus has been approved by Industry Canada. Industry Canada is the Canadian government's regulatory department roughly analogous to the FCC in the United States overseeing areas such as wireless spectrum management and certification. These new webOS devices join the existing CDMA 8GB Pre and the HSPA 8GB Pre in carrying Canadian certification. To date, no Pre Plus or GSM Pixi versions have been approved for release in Canada, so Verizon may enjoy a period of exclusivity on the CDMA Pre Plus.

In case you haven't had enough legacy excitement for one week with the Aceeca Garnet PDA announcement, Palm OS programmer extraordinaire Dmitry Grinberg is now seeking team members to assist with his DGOS project.

DGOS is a rather admirable but gargantuan project by Mr. Grinberg to write a 100% Palm OS compatible, modernized OS from the ground up. I am pleased to see that his admirable efforts continue over a year since beginning the project. Details are still sketchy at this point, but Dmitry appears to be concentrating his development efforts by using the highest-powered, most recent Palm OS hardware for benchmark purposes, namely the LifeDrive and TX, alongside the older Tungsten E2. Additional details and updates are available at the DGOS blog.

We are scarcely two weeks into 2010 and we may have already witnessed the most surprising news item of the year. Out of nowhere and via the TamsPalm blog, New Zealand based ruggedized handheld specialist Aceeca has unofficially confirmed that they are readying not one but two new Palm OS Garnet handheld PDAs for release. These new Garnet machines will be based upon shared hardware architecture with a pair of new Windows CE 5.0 handhelds.

Officially, Aceeca remains one of Access' final remaining Palm OS licensees, so the news is not totally out of left field. While Aceeca has remained rather quiet as of late, the firm has remained committed to supporting their existing stable of Palm OS devices.