For those of us in the U.S. who wanted to get a Pre 2, but balked at the UK pricing and radio bands, the (short) wait was worth it: this morning, the unlocked, GSM version of the Pre 2 went on sale in HP’s official Home and Home Office and Small & Medium Business online stores for $449.99.
Who’s buying?!
Source: HP Home & Home Office and Small & Medium Business stores (Thanks to TopTongueBarry in our forum for the heads-up!)
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
Right on cue the Palm Pre 2 has passed through the testing labs of the FCC, sporting fresh “this won’t boil your brains” certifications. The newly certified phones don’t come with any further surprises from what we already knew about the Pre 2 from all of the leaks and the announcements that came this morning, but it’s at least nice to see them making a courtesy stop for certification, opening the door to sales. Let’s just hope that this means the phones will become available sooner rather than later in the undefined “coming months” ahead.
For the record, the phones certified are the P102UNA (UMTS GSM, sporting AT&T-compatible 3G bands) and the P102EWW (EVDO CDMA for Verizon and Sprint). The GSM version will initially be available as the unlocked developer phone, while the CDMA phones will be available on Verizon. Unknown is whether or not the CDMA or GSM version will launch on the unspecified Canadian carrier, though if we had to guess we’d put our money on GSM (Bell and Telus are busy transitioning from CDMA to GSM, the last thing they want to do is launch a phone they’re working to be incompatible with).
Source: FCC (P102EWW, P102UNA); Via: Engadget; Thanks to Arthur on Twitter for the heads up!
Ever since it was revealed that the P102UEU had gone through the wireless certification battery of the FCC, PreCentral’s forum members and the fine folks at WebOS Internals have been digging through the documents to find more details about the phone. Here’s what’s been uncovered:
With all this we can all but assume that this is going to be called the Palm Pre 2, in fact we’d be willing to bet money on it if we weren’t squirreling it away in anticipation of off-contract purchasing.
UPDATE: As many have pointed out, the FCC label reads 08F-ROAY. The original Pre was the 08F-CASC, as in the "Castle," so it stands to reason that this may be the Roadrunner device we saw pop up in August.
Source: FCC; Via: PreCentral Forums, WebOS Internals on Twitter
The Palm P102UEU, presumed to be the Palm Pre 2 (or Palm Pre Double Plus) has cropped up in the FCC databases, as noted by the fine chaps at Engadget. P102, as you may recall, is the model type (the Pre was the P100, and Pre Plus P101), so presumably the P102 is the next generation Pre. UEU has been determined through similar deductive reasoning to be the UMTS 3G GSM variant of the phone, however historically there have been two batches of GSM webOS devices: the UNA (UMTS for North America) and the UEU (UMTS for Europe). Strange that the UEU is getting FCC clearance while the EWW and UNA were cleared by German certification firm TÜVRheinland. Either way, FCC clearance is one of those last formalities before these devices head into the hands of users, so maybe we’re not that far from announcement time.
UPDATE: Some super-sleuthing into the FCC docs has revealed some specs and some interesting observations – check it out here.
The tall portrait touchscreen has become a mainstay of the modern smartphone. When manufacturers wanted to add a keyboard, they made it a slider, either vertical like the Palm Pre and BlackBerry Torch or horizontal like the Motorola Droid 2, T-Mobile G2, and all manner of Android devices. But mixing the keyboard in without a slider was a recipe for a smaller/shorter screen, like the Palm Pixi, all manner of BlackBerry devices, and a smattering of Android phones.
That changes now, with the introduction of the Motorola Droid Pro. As you can guess from the Droid branding, this new phone resides on Verizon. There’s nothing particularly special about that (except for Verizon’s special and somewhat corrupted love for Android), what’s different is the form factor: tall portrait screen with attached non-slider keyboard. This sucker comes with a 3.1-inch screen (same size as the Pre) overtop a keyboard that looks like it was lifted off of a BlackBerry.
Stuffed inside is a 1GHz processor, 2GB storage (really, that’s it?), a 2GB microSD card, and a 5 megapixel camera with dual LED flash. Otherwise it’s a fairly typical Android 2.2 phone, if you can get your head (and hands) around the shape – it’s right around 4 ½ inches tall. There’s one spot where we are jealous: this sucker’s a world phone. If you’re not familiar with what that means, we won’t fault you, as it’s not something we’ve heard a lot of in webOS land: a phone with both CDMA and GSM radios. The idea is that you can use it on your CDMA network in the US of A, and then when you head out to places where CDMA roaming doesn’t happen (i.e. the world outside of the United States) you can slap in a SIM card for some international calling and internets.
If that’s not to your fancy, Motorola’s got another phone in line for you, so long as you (1) like Android and (2) live in Brazil. The GSM-powered Pre-sized vertical slider smartphone is called the Motorola Spice, and was designed and built in Brazil, with that country as the target market for the phone. It runs Android 2.1 with MOTOBLUR (yay.) and is packed with fairly ho-hum hardware: a 528 MHz processor, 512MB storage plus whatever you can fit via microSD, a 3 megapixel camera, and a 3-inch 240×320 screen.
So, two new portrait keyboard-toting Android phones, one with hardware outclassed by the aging Pre, the other with hardware that handily outclasses the Pre, plus some goodies we don’t yet have on our webOS devices. Anybody tempted, or is the promise of new webOS phones enough to keep you in the Palm camp
Source: Android Central [Droid Pro, Spice]
The Nextgen unlock, which has allowed the GSM version of the Pre and Pre plus to operate on carriers other than the ones its officially sold through, is now available for the Pixi and Pixi Plus. The unlock, sold as a Windows executable through the Nextgen website isn’t exactly cheap at $55, but can you really put a price on freedom?
Source: Nextgen Server; Discussion: PreCentral forums
It’s the curse of the modern smartphone: a zillion chips and sensors and a bright powerful screen and umpteen radios all sucking power from battery tech that hasn’t seen drastic improvement in the last decade. And it’s also one of the biggest Achilles’ heels of the Palm Pre and Pre Plus. It’s been a while since we last visited this area, with the Pre and Pixi having now launched onto several new networks across the world, it’s high time we revisit the land of electricity. After the break, we break it down…
After recently discontinuing sales of the Sprint Palm Pre, Radioshack’s shelves will be stocked once more with a webOS powered device with the AT&T Palm Pre Plus. The company has started sales of the device for at the very reasonable price of $49.99 with a new 2-year contract, both online though radioshackwireless.com and through its retail locations nationwide. Shipping is free when ordered online, and most stores we called (in the Portland Metro area, for what it’s worth) either had stock of the phone or could quickly procure them.
Source: Phone Arena
Thanks to Akitayo for the tip!
Ladies and Gentlemen: the Palm Pixi Plus on AT&T is now officially available for $49.99 after contract or $299 off-contract. AT&T wil also ship it free if you order online, natch.
Anybody picking one up? If you’re thinking about it, don’t forget that AT&T is changing their data rates and for a new smartphone user, their upcoming DataPlus plan is a pretty darn good deal.