PreCentral reader Sean points us to this page on HP’s Canada site claiming that the Palm Pre 2 is "Now available from Rogers." That the Pre 2 is hitting Rogers is no surprise at all given that there are already dummy units (with dummy pricing) on display in stores.

A quick perusal of Rogers’ website doesn’t yield up the ability to purchase the webOS 2.0 wonder; ditto for Palm’s Canada site. Can we just announce and officially release this thing so we can get back to our other weird Pre 2 release question? To wit: figuring out why the Verizon Pre 2 was pulled from big V’s internal systems and dummy units pulled from stores. We still think the Pre 2 will hit Verizon in the "coming months," but have to admit it’s frustrating watching Palm, Rogers, and Verizon soft-pedal this launch.

Update: Kevin points us to the Pre 2 page on Rogers. It’s $99.99 Canadian with a 3-year contract, $349.99 at 2 years, $399.99 on 1-year or month-to-month. Thanks Kevin!

Source: HP Canada, Palm Canada, & Rogers; Thanks Sean!

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We’re still waiting for an official word from Palm that Rogers in fact will be the Canadian carrier of choice for the Palm Pre 2. In the meantime we’ll just take a moment and check out this display snapped by Howard Forums member panzival at a Rogers Wireless store in the Edmonton area. It’s just a dummy phone with a basic information about the phone (3G radio, webOS 2.0, etc.) and pricing info: $299.99 with a three-year contract, or $914.99 as a contract-free variety.

[insert record scratch here] Wait, what? Yeah, we’re almost entirely certain that’s wrong. Considering that essentially the same phone is available unlocked direct from HP for $449.99. Is Rogers really going to charge a 103% premium over the list price? No. They may be Canadian, but they’re not crazy. Our expectation is that Rogers will charge something much more reasonable, like $449.99 off contract and $99.99 with a three-year contract.

Source: Howard Forums; Thanks to B and Scott for the tips!

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Attention Canada: you might be getting a Palm Pre 2 on Rogers sometime soonish, but if you’re looking for an original Palm Pre, Bell Mobility has a deal coming on December 10th that just can’t be beat: $149.95 for an off-contract. Of course, it is a CDMA phone and can only be used on Bell in Canada (unless you’re willing to engage in some serious hacking), but if that’s your carrier of choice, you aren’t going to find a better deal than this.

Bell has over the past year had significant difficulty getting users to pick up the Pre, repeatedly slashing prices and offering deals to get customers on board. We suspect they were counting on the Pre being a smash hit on Sprint in the United States and riding the wave of consumer enthusiasm like competitor Rogers did with the Apple iPhone 3G. This final price drop appears to be Bell’s last ditch effort to get their remaining original Pre inventory out before Rogers starts selling the Pre 2, which hopefully won’t be too long from now.

Source: All Things Mobile

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We’d be shocked if it didn’t pass, but thankfully it did: Industry Canada’s Certification and Engineering Bureau (the Canuck equivalent of the USA’s FCC) has certified the Palm Pre 2 for sale in The Great White North. There’s nothing much we can glean from the certification of the P102UNA (Palm Pre 2, UMTS North American flavor) and how it relates to it’s all-but-assured sale on Rogers Wireless, except that it will in fact not boil your brains. To us, that’s a good thing.

In other news, the folks at MobileSyrup have caught wind of rumored (emphasis on rumored) release date and pricing for the Pre 2 on Rogers. Apparently, we might be looking at a November 9th launch with pricing at $99.99 for a three-year contract. If this pricing rumor (emphasis on rumor) pans out and takes hold outside of Canada, the Pre 2 might just have a chance for moderate success. All told, it’s a fairly modern phone inside (minus a few modern niceties), but making the value proposition case isn’t easy when the price is over a hundred smackers.

Source: Industry Canada, MobileSyrup; Thanks to KJB86 for the tip!

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Been wondering what Palm meant when they said the Palm Pre 2 was coming to "Verizon and Canada?" Not sure if you believed the earlier rumor that Rogers was the carrier of choice?

Put your questions to rest, Mobile Syrup has real photos of the Palm Pre 2 running on the Rogers network and in Rogers packaging. Launch date and pricing are, of course, still a mystery. However the fact that we have final packaging and tipsters sending photos thereof is probably a good sign that the promised "coming months"is thankfully code for a much shorter period of time than you might have feared.

(Original image removed by request from original tipster)

Source: Mobile Syrup; Thanks, Kyle!

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With all the commotion about Sprint and US carriers for the Palm Pre 2, it’s easy to forget that Canada was also mentioned as a country that the smartphone will launch in.  The big question for us Canadians: which carrier will it be?

Well now, we may have an answer, or at least a hint. Buried deep within the source code of the Pre 2 page on the Palm Canada website, is this commented-out line:

<!–p>The Palm Pre2 phone is available on the Rodger’s network.</p–>

Looks like a misprint of "Roger’s", as in Roger’s Wireless. An easy misprint to make, in what is clearly a line of code commented out for a reason.  Only reason that would come to mind, is that an official announcement hasn’t been made yet.

The choice of Roger’s Wireless marks a change from Palm previously choosing Bell to carry their webOS device. Certainly a change that many, such as myself, are welcoming with open arms. Given HP and Palm’s connections with the other Canadian carriers, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Palm Pre 2 comes to other carriers as well.

Of course this one line of commented-out code is hardly a definitive association. It does seems to be unique to the Canadian Pre 2 page though. Hopefully there will be something official soon, ending the mystery. In the meantime, it’s an exciting idea that we may see a Roger’s Wireless webOS device in the near future.

Perhaps just as interesting, Calvin also found a reference to AT&T in another piece of commented-out code:

<!–li><a class="clearfix"
rel="/us/assets/data/products/pre2_wtb.json" id="aux-wheretobuy" href="#wtb">
<h3 class="sifr-text"> Buy now <img
src="/assets/images/global/sidebar_link_arrow.gif"> </h3>
<p class="intro">Available on Verizon Wireless <br />
and AT&amp;T network</p>
</a></li–>

We know that Palm is going to be selling unlocked Pre 2 devices to developers, but perhaps this means non-developers will be able to get in as well?

Thanks Calvin and @SimonLR!

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More of an evolutionary update to the Pre Plus than a revolution, the new Palm Pre 2 does a lot to bring the aging Pre line of smartphones up to modern standards. First up is the obvious physical change: the curved plastic screen has been replaced by a flatter and tougher glass screen surrounded by a new bezel design with an integrated and cover-free Micro USB port.

The Pre 2 also packs in a 1GHz processor and a new 5 megapixel camera. Apart from those updates, it’s largely the same phone as the current Pre Plus, even packing the same 512MB of RAM. To be fair, that’s been found to be plenty of RAM for the operating system and a few dozen running apps, which you’ll be able to manage better with webOS 2.0. Most accessories, with the exception of form-fitted cases, should work just fine with the “streamlined” design of the Pre 2.

What might not work is your network. The Pre 2 is launching first on France’s SFR, and is doing so Friday at the rumored cost of 99€ on contract and 449€ off. Verizon is due to get the phone in “the coming months,” as is Canada. Any other carriers or countries were not discussed by HP. Same deal with pricing, though we do expect it to be reasonable give how the Pre 2 does lag behind in some features compared to other modern smartphones (though that extra processor oomph should help considerably).

Update: Palm has posted up the official specs, we got ‘em after the break!

Read the Press Release

read more

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Good news, America, the Palm Pre 2 is indeed coming to our shores, and as we expected, it’s coming to Verizon. Oh, and some as-of-yet-unidentified Canadian carrier (or carriers). What’s not so good is the release timetable, which is a frustratingly vague “coming months.” Also not mentioned: pricing

We know many of you are asking “What about Sprint?” We see and share the sadness in your eyes when we say that Sprint has not even been mentioned in discussions about the Pre 2. Sorry. If it’s any consolation, if you switch to Verizon you can get in on their exclusive Skype calling deal with the Pre 2.

Read the Press Release

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If you’re in Canada and you’ve been waiting for the most ridiculous deal ever before you’d jump on the webOS bandwagon, Bell is doing their best to ensure that you run out of excuses. Previously Bell had implemented a discount that brought the price of monthly service for a Palm Pre down to a starting rate of $50 a month. Now they’re throwing an additional unadvertised $15 a month on top of that, cutting the minimum monthly commitment to a paltry $35 a month on a three-year contract.

That’s a paltry $1.15 a day for 200 talk minutes and 500MB of data, with an additional option of doubling those minutes, having unlimited texting, unlimited calls and texts with five preselected numbers (your Unlimited Five), or free nights starting at 5 PM. A good deal, no? Oh, and the Palm Pre is free on Bell. Still.

Source: Bell.ca; Via: RedFlagDeals.com; Thanks to Rob for the tip!

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Bell’s history with the Palm Pre hasn’t exactly been a perfect one, but it looks like their new Palm Pre promotion may be a winner. There’s been low sales, very little promotion, and much higher profile launches, especially on their new HSPA network. However, it seems the Pre is back on the front page of Bell’s smartphone section, with this very nice new promotion.

Under the promotion, and a 3-year contract agreement, you get a Palm Pre for $0 (like before), and better yet, there’s now $15 off your monthly bill! That’s a total savings of $180 yearly, plus $300 for the device itself. Oh, and they’re tossing in $75 worth of accessories too.

If that sounds intriguing with you, and the 3-year contract isn’t deterring, then you’ll want to look at the different smartphone plans Bell offers. The lowest is the Smartphone 50 plan, which offers the very basics (with only 500MB allowed monthly), usually for $50/month, but under the promotion, ends up at $35/month.  And don’t forget, Bell allows tethering. Awesome, eh. Prices increase from there, up to the Smartphone 100 plan, so there’s flexibility is what you want out of your device.

Whether this is an attempt at Bell to get rid of lingering inventory, or a renewed interest in Palm now that HP came to the rescue, will remain a mystery. But at these kinds of savings, it doesn’t really matter too much. No details on how long the promotion will last, so if this is what you’ve been waiting for, you may want to act fast.

via MobileSyrup & webOS Roundup, thanks for the tip AdmiralRaptor

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