Now, you might be thinking, huh, it was Verizon that purchased Alltel, and Alltel was a CDMA network… Well, a little reported part of the Verizon purchase was that the FCC required Verizon to divest (give up) 105 of the markets it acquired from Alltel in order to maintain a level playing field. AT&T picked up 79 of those markets. Yes, you’re thinking CDMA and GSM are like oil and water, and you’re correct.

So AT&T is in the process of transitioning their acquired Alltel customers to their GSM network, and that means they’re going to need new phones. So AT&T is offering them a deal: get one of our phones for cheap (or free) before we shut off your service. The deals by-and-large aren’t much better than what you can get as an AT&T customer, but it’s at least nice to see the Palm Pre Plus touted as available for pickup – and for free at that. One benefit: switchers will be allowed to drop their new AT&T contract after thirty days without facing an ETF.

Source: Engadget Mobile

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AT&T may have dropped their new contract pricing for the Palm Pre Plus down to $99.99, but that’s not the cheapest you can get one. Of course, you could risk it and head to eBay or Craigslist, but why bother when $49.99 can get you a refurbished Pre Plus direct from AT&T. And if you’re interested in going the no-contract route, you can snag that same refurb’d [correction] a brand new Pre Plus for $299.99 off-contract. If you’re into the math, that’s significantly less expensive than the $479.99 a Pre Plus developer phone will cost you from Palm. All that said, if you’re into the contract thing you can get a brand new Pre Plus from HP for nothing.

Source: AT&T; Via: Everything Pre

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The Palm Pre continues to become more and more reasonably priced. Reader Chris sends work that AT&T’s online store now has the Pre Plus available for $99.99 after instant discounts and the like. That’s the good news. The bad, as you can see above, is that they’re temporarily out of stock.  Given all the news about overstock over on the CDMA side of things, seeing the Pre Plus out of stock on AT&T feels a little discordant — but we’re not thinking it portends anything other than a temporary shortage at AT&T’s warehouse.

The Pixi Plus is still clocking in at $29.99 on AT&T, if you were wondering.

Update:  after noting the comments about Sprint’s pricing, we figured we’d compare the prices on the three US carriers. All of the below with 2-year contracts:

• AT&T Online: Pre Plus: $99.99; Pixi Plus: $29.99
• Verizon Online: Pre Plus: $49.99; Pixi Plus: Free. Both come with free Mobile Hotspot
• Sprint Online: Pre $149.99; Pixi $49.99

In other words, Sprint really needs to update with the times here while, in our humble opinion, Verizon’s combined low prices and free mobile hotspot might be the best deal – granting that you’re paying more for data over the life of your contract.

Source: AT&T Wireless; thanks, Chris!

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If you’re the contract signing type, HP has the deal for you. Through their newly-launched HP Wireless Central store you can snag a Palm Pixi Plus or Pre Plus on AT&T or Verizon for the upfront sum of free, with free shipping via FedEx. Of course, you are still locking yourself into a two-year contract to save those bucks, but saved bucks are saved bucks, right? And if you spring for the Pre Plus (it’s just as free as the Pixi Plus, so why wouldn’t you?), HP will also throw in a free Renegade Bluetooth headset (valued at $49.99), an Axiom leather case ($29.99), and a car charger ($19.99).

Strangely, Sprint is still stubborn as usual on their pricing, with the more-than-a-year-old Pre still retailing for $99.99 and the Wi-Fi-less Pixi at $19.99. With all this cash you’re saving, we’re going to point you towards the PreCentral accessory store where you can pick up some more sweet gear, like a Touchstone charger or a better Bluetooth headset.

Source: HP Wireless Central, thanks to sepherous for the tip!

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While we can argue about the merits of subsidized phone contracts until we’re blue in the face, we can’t argue this: Amazon Wireless has the AT&T Palm Pre Plus on sale for $0.01. Sure, that’s one copper-plated zinc core Lincoln away from being free, but we’re sure you can find more than enough coinage buried between the couch cushions to cover this expense. Of course, you’ll still need to dig up plenty more coins to cover the cost of AT&T’s new data plans, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

If you’re already on an AT&T plan and looking to upgrade, Amazon Wireless will hook up with a Pre Plus for $49.99 in upgrade pricing, but as with the once cent Pre Plus, you’re going to be signing a new two year contract to get that deal. We don’t know how long this pricing is going to last, but we do admit that it got down to one cent awfully darn quick. In the meantime, Amazon Wireless is offering free activation on AT&T phones and free two-day shipping on all phones. If you’ve been waiting to jump on the AT&T bandwagon, we don’t see a better time than now coming up. Unless you’re holding out for free.

Source: Amazon Wireless; Thanks to Dennis for the tip!

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The arrival of the Palm Pre Plus in the UK (Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus Available Soon for O2 Customers in the UK ), buzz about HP’s first webOS tablet and the possibility of a HP webOS printer,  and more reviews of the Palm Pre Plus were the main topics talked about this week. There was also quite a bit of interest in the SIM unlock now being available for AT&T Palm Pre Plus.  And speaking of AT&T, we mentioned last week how the Pixi Plus will be available on June 6.  The big question is whether the next day, Steve Jobs will be unveiling the next generation iPhone at the Worldwide Developer’s Conference AND if AT&T will remain the exclusive carrier.

Let’s talk Palm…

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AT&T has gone ahead and made it official on their Facebook page: the Palm Pre Plus will land this Sunday, May 16th, for $149.99 and bundled with a free Touchstone (no doubt to offset pain caused by looking at Verizon’s pricing). Them rumors, they were correct. You’ll have to mosey your way into a physical AT&T retail store to get the free charging dock, and be sure to do it early as the Touchstone offer is for a limited time – but everybody likes a Sunday drive, right?

We’re hoping / assuming that the Pixi Plus will land on the 16th as well, but no official confirmation of that just yet.

Curious how the AT&T Pre Plus stacks up? Check out our first Hands-On and also our preview from an insider.

AT&T Facebook via Endgadget, thanks to pullbangdead for the tip!

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When Palm and AT&T are touting the coolness of YPmobile on the new AT&T Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus, we’ve came to realize that it’s the exact same app you can already find in the App Catalog. In fact, we’re disappointed in ourselves for skipping over the app so many times, simply because of the name that conjured up images of super-thick books full of phone numbers and really bad ads on thin yellow paper. The free YPmobile app for webOS couldn’t be further from the yellow-paged days of yore, and that’s a good thing.

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Engadget has word that select AT&T will be receiving ‘practice’ Palm Pre Plus phones tomorrow for select employees can use for learning / training. Given the problems that Palm has had with buy-in amongst Verizon employees (necessitating ‘Project Jumpstart‘ to evangelize the platform within the company), we can only see this as a smart move. Whether or not this means that we might see an AT&T launch sooner rather than later remains to be seen. The leaked slide does make it pretty clear that these devices are not meant to be seen by prying eyes.

Combine this with the fact that Verizon just slashed prices on webOS products and we can draw at least one conclusion: there’s a concerted effort to turn webOS sales around.

Thanks to everybody who sent this in!

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Derek and Keith record PalmCast 100 sans Dieter – but stay through for the end for his surprise guest appearance.

• Download it directly with this link
• Subscribe via iTunes
• Subscribe directly to the Podcast feed with your favorite Podcatcher here
• Listen to it here with the player above

Thanks to everybody for writing and calling in!

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