If you bundle the original Pre in with the Pre Plus — and you pretty much can, considering how closely related they are — this is quickly becoming one of the most protracted, phased mobile product launches in memory. Yes, that’s right: as promised, O2 UK has now launched both the Pre Plus alongside its scrappier little sibling, the Pixi Plus, and you can get either one for as little as zero quid depending on how you play your cards. The Pixi Plus goes in your pocket for free on any plan, while the Pre Plus stays free as long as you spend at least £40 ($58) a month and scales up to £99 ($143) on the cheaper plans. We’ve got to believe there’s some awesome new (like, legitimately new) hardware in Palm’s pipe at this point — but a free webOS device is always a tough offer to pass up, right?
You didn’t think Germany was gonna have all the Palm fun, did you? The UK is keeping pace with its longtime nemesis by matching the May 28 launch date for the Pre and Pixi Plus on O2, and has even supplied us with a handy reference sheet containing all price plans available for the handsets. You’ll find it after the break, but sadly it’ll only be of interest to true WebOS enthusiasts. There’s nothing south of £25 ($36) per month available, and if you want a reasonable call allowance, you’ll have to get on into the £30 and above bracket. All contracts do at least come with unlimited texts and data, but overall the cost seems too steep to entice us, what with all the Desires and Bolds floating around at better price points.
UK carrier O2 and Palm have announced that the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus will be arriving on the network come May 28th. The handsets – which will be the same as their US brethren, only supporting O2’s UMTS/HSPA network – will be priced from free, tariff depending. Full details after the cut.
The Palm Pre Plus has 16GB of internal storage, a slide-out QWERTY thumbboard, WiFi b/g, Bluetooth and GPS, together with Palm’s own webOS operating system and Synergy email, calendar and social network integration. The Pixi Plus, meanwhile, has much the same functionality but half the internal storage, a candybar form-factor and a slightly smaller screen.
Both will be supplied complete with the Touchstone back panel, though the inductive charger itself will be offered separately. They’ll go on sale May 28th online and in O2 stores.
Press Release:
Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus Available Soon for O2 Customers in the UK
LONDON, England, 19 May, 2010 – Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) today announced that the Palm® Pre™ Plus and Palm Pixi™ Plus phones will be available in the UK on O2 from 28 May. They will be available from free, depending on tariff, in all O2 stores and online at www.o2.co.uk.
“We are excited to bring Pre Plus and Pixi Plus to the market for O2 customers,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. “With the choice of these two new Palm webOS phones, customers across the UK can stay connected, so they never miss a thing.”
With a slider keyboard, a larger touchscreen and a high-performance processor, Pre Plus is Palm’s full-featured Palm webOS™ phone. It’s designed for people who want an easy-to-use phone with advanced features to help manage the different aspects of their lives, both personal and professional. The keyboard makes for quick and easy typing, while the unique gesture area provides a sleek look and intuitive navigation. Customers also get 16GB(1) of storage (~15GB user available) for applications and media. Pre Plus comes with the Palm Touchstone™ Back Cover, so it’s compatible out of the box with the revolutionary inductive Touchstone Charging Dock (sold separately).
As Palm’s thinnest phone to date, Pixi Plus fits easily in your hand or pocket and offers a host of powerful features. It’s great for social communicators and first-time smartphone buyers who want an affordable phone with a full QWERTY keyboard instantly accessible for messaging and web content. With the color Palm Pixi Touchstone Back Covers and the Palm Pixi Artist Series Back Covers, which are compatible with the Touchstone Charging Dock, you can easily switch covers to suit your mood and style (all will be sold separately at www.palm.com/uk).
Pre Plus and Pixi Plus showcase the defining features of Palm webOS, including the ability to run multiple applications simultaneously and easily move between them; the power of Palm Synergy™, which brings customers’ information from the many places it resides into a single, more comprehensive view; unobtrusive notifications; and universal search.(2) Palm webOS also has a unique model of over-the-air software updates that delivers new features and performance improvements directly to a user’s phone. Past updates have included support for 3D games on Pre Plus and video recording, allowing webOS customers to use their phones in fun, new ways.
A significant advantage of Palm webOS applications is that they can be integrated into the core webOS experience, including linked contacts, layered calendars, notifications and GPS, providing a rich catalog of innovative and unique offerings for Palm webOS users. The growing Palm App Catalog offers some of the best apps in the market, such as rich 3D games like “Need for Speed™ Undercover” and “James Cameron’s Avatar™.” E-commerce is available for the Palm App Catalog for Europe, allowing end users to purchase applications using a credit or debit card.
Pre Plus and Pixi Plus include the following features and specifications:
Palm Synergy, a key feature of Palm webOS that brings your information from all the places it resides – including Outlook(3), Google, Facebook, Yahoo! and LinkedIn – into one logical view that links your contacts and calendars, so accessing them is easier than ever
The ability to run multiple applications simultaneously and easily move between them
Unobtrusive notifications
Universal search
Over-the-air software updates delivered directly to a user’s phone
High-quality applications from the Palm App Catalog
High-speed connectivity
Gesture area, which enables simple, intuitive gestures for navigation
Full QWERTY keyboard
High-performance, desktop-class web browser
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
Integrated GPS(4)
Robust messaging support (combining IM, SMS and MMS capabilities)
Multimedia options, including music, photos, video recording and playback, a camera with LED flash and a standard 3.5mm headset jack
Email, including EAS (for access to corporate Microsoft Exchange servers) and personal email support (Google Mail push, Yahoo!, POP3, IMAP)
Bluetooth® 2.1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support
USB mass storage mode
Charger/microUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
Proximity sensor, which automatically disables the touchscreen and turns off the display whenever you put the phone up to your ear
Light sensor, which reduces power usage by dimming the display if the ambient light is dark
Accelerometer, which automatically orients web pages and photos to your perspective
Ringer switch, which easily silences the device with one touch
Removable, rechargeable battery
A complete list of features and specifications for each phone is available at www.palm.com/uk
Availability and Pricing
The Pre Plus and Pixi Plus will be available from May 28 on O2’s range of smartphone tariffs which all offer unlimited data(5), unlimited public Wi-Fi at The Cloud and BT Openzone and unlimited texts as well as a range of included minutes to suit every pocket.
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. For what it’s worth, we’re hearing that the Touchstone promotion won’t apply to the new model — largely because it’ll sell for $100 less on contract, if we had to guess — so be sure you come packing enough cash on the 6th if wireless charging is your secret, irrepressible passion.
Palm’s App Catalog appears to have suffered a meltdown of sorts, with users of Palm Pre, Pixi, Pre Plus and Pixi Plus handsets reporting that after having downloaded a new title – whether paid or free – no aftermarket software will run properly. The issue remains even after fully erasing and restarting the phone; in fact, the apps are still installed even after that process is completed. However core functionality – calls, messaging and data – are all unaffected.
At the moment, a workaround appears to involve setting the date of the smartphone back to some point in April, but the official Palm blog is suggesting that an official fix will be appearing in short order. They also say that any purchases you’ve made through the webOS App Catalog have “been properly recorded and as soon as this issue is resolved, you’ll be able to access all apps you’ve purchased” so you shouldn’t have to worry about losing money.
Say what you will about the Pixi Plus; it may not be the best smartphone in the world, and heck, it might not even be the best webOS device on the block. But you know what? When your net cash outlay is a big, fat zero, it’s pretty tough to argue — especially when you’ve got dumbphones running $20, $50, $100, or even more. On that note, Verizon dropped the Pixi Plus from $30 to $0 on contract after rebate this week, which makes a pretty compelling case for the thing — if nothing else, you could just use it for its free mobile hotspot service and pay $50 less upfront than you do for a MiFi (granted, you’ll be paying more month to month, but… you know, you’ve got an actual phone). Now, here’s our question: with this kind of insane price pressure, what comes next after free?
So we know the Pre Plus is hitting AT&T this coming Sunday — but what about its little brother? We’re hearing that AT&T has lined up the Pixi Plus for a June 6 launch for $49.99 on contract after rebate, $100 less than it’ll be charging for the Pre Plus — in other words, you’ll be able to get a Verizon Pre Plus or an AT&T Pixi Plus for the same price, and the latter won’t include free mobile hotspot service. Voodoo math aside, we’ve got a few more goodies in here for you: the aging LG Vu will apparently be replaced on June 6 with a Vu Plus model for $149.99 on contract with rebate, Samsung will re-up the rugged Rugby with the Rugby II for $129.99, and Pantech’s Pursuit swings in for $49.99. It all makes for an exciting June, does it not?
Facebook is good for something, we imagine. After all, more and more companies are utilizing the social networking site to announce things. Huge things, in fact. For example, today marks the official announcement of the Palm Pre Plus for AT&T and when, for how much, and a little bit of extra goodness thrown in for good measure courtesy of AT&T’s Facebook page.
The premiere webOS handset is all set to launch in just a few short days: May 16th, 2010 to be exact. And, while it may not be going for the cheap, cheap price that Verizon Wireless is currently advertising their own model, it does come with an added bonus. Palm and AT&T have decided to throw in one Touchstone wireless charging device for anyone who picks up the device “for a limited time,” and from an AT&T corporate location.
You can expect to pay $149.99 for the Pre Plus after a mail-in rebate, and a new two-year contract gets signed. Unfortunately, for now it seems that the Pre Plus is the only device getting announced right now, as the Pixi Plus is still waiting to make its AT&T debut. Hopefully we don’t have to wait long. Besides, we’re just happy to see webOS on AT&T.
Wherever the Pre goes, the Pixi typically likes to follow, which makes it pretty interesting to see that Vodafone Spain will be launching Palm’s new GSM flavor of the Pixi Plus on the 10th of this month without any sign of its Pre Plus sibling. That’s a marked departure from the line Vodafone and O2 have both been taking in other markets, so it makes you wonder: does Vodafone think that the Pre Plus won’t sell well here (it already offers the Pre), is there some firmware issue holding back the localized version, or is there some other mysterious conspiracy brewing altogether? At any rate, follow the break for Palm’s press release.
HP announcing that it’s going to buy Palm in a $1.2b all-cash transaction certainly took everyone by surprise, but in many ways the deal makes perfect sense. HP is a gigantic player in the tech industry but has no appreciable presence in rapidly-growing mobile space, and Palm — well, you should know how we feel about Palm by now. Even still, we can’t say we were expecting this one, and it looks like most of you weren’t either — HP only got two percent of the vote in our “who should buy Palm” poll, while Engadget (that’s us!) got… fourteen percent. Oops.
But now that we’ve had a day to wrap our heads around the news and think about what Palm and HP said to us last night and to analysts on the conference call announcing the deal, we think we’ve got a pretty good set of educated guesses on how things might shake out over the next few months. Read on!
If you bundle the original Pre in with the Pre Plus — and you pretty much can, considering how closely related they are — this is quickly becoming one of the most protracted, phased mobile product launches in memory. Yes, that’s right: as promised, O2 UK has now launched both the Pre Plus alongside its scrappier little sibling, the Pixi Plus, and you can get either one for as little as zero quid depending on how you play your cards. The Pixi Plus goes in your pocket for free on any plan, while the Pre Plus stays free as long as you spend at least £40 ($58) a month and scales up to £99 ($143) on the cheaper plans. We’ve got to believe there’s some awesome new (like, legitimately new) hardware in Palm’s pipe at this point — but a free webOS device is always a tough offer to pass up, right?
