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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Nielsen has released their latest survey numbers on the smartphone market, and it seems that the pace of smartphone adoption is quickly accelerating, with 29.7% of US mobile phone owners having a small computer in their pockets. That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Also not a surprise: the iPhone, BlackBerry devices, and Android phones are dominating the smartphone space, snagging 27.9%, 27.4%, and 22.7%, respectively. Even Windows Mobile devices (yes, we’re talking old school Start menu Windows Mobile) stand at 14% in the survey, while Symbian accounts for 3.4%, generic “Linux” for 3.3%, and bringing up the rear is Palm (webOS and old school Palm OS) with a paltry 1.3%.

To put that into perspective, for every one Palm owner there are 21 iPhone users, 21 BlackBerry addicts, 17 Android owners, and even 11 Windows Mobile users. Heck, there are 2.5 times as many Symbian users in the US than there are Palm, and Nokia has notoriously struggled in North America.

All this begs the question: what is HP going to do to turn this around? CES is around the corner, and we’re hoping that Palm manages to pull out all the stops with the new hardware releases really needed to prop up the awesomeness that is webOS 2.0 (and maybe some wishful thinking, but we’d like to see a big splash with a feature-packed webOS 2.1 too). At this point HP and Palm are going to need a big splash, essentially rebooting the consumer mindset as it pertains to webOS and Palm. It’s becoming clear that Palm isn’t even in the conversation for most people.

Source: Nielsen; Via: Android Central, Engadget

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Five hundred twenty eight days after first landing in the hands of thousands of eager customers across the world, Sprint is done with the Palm Pre. The launch may not have been the blockbuster iPhone-matching success that Sprint and Palm had hoped it would be, but Sprint soldiered on with the Pre as their flagship device for quite a while.

Today we’ve received word from a trusted Sprint source that the end is here for the original Palm Pre, with Sprint marking the device as EOL (End of Life). It’s not a surprise after it already disappeared from their site, but it’s still a blow: we still find that the largest and most loyal webOS contingent lives on Sprint.

Quantities of new Palm Pre phones in Sprint warehouses are very low (we’re talking hundreds of units here), so it shouldn’t be too much longer before the phone is completely sold out.

Those interested in picking up a webOS device on Sprint will be left with the diminutive, underpowered, and Wi-Fi-lacking Palm Pixi. There is no word yet whether or not Sprint will carry the Palm Pre 2, but webOS-fans filling Sprint’s Facebook page (at Palm’s behest, no less) and official forums with requests for the device haven’t appeared to make a dent in Sprint’s decision not to carry the device.

Sprint sat out the Pre Plus, Pixi Plus, and appears primed to sit out the Pre 2. Maybe we just don’t want all our Sprint readers (and staff) to be left out in the cold, but we’d like to think Sprint and HP/Palm won’t make Sprint users wait until next year for another webOS device on their network. In the end, only time will tell.

Thanks Anonymous!

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The original webOS handset, the one that started it all, appears to be headed the way of the dodo, or at least Amelia Earhart. The Sprint Palm Pre, on sale since June 6, 2009 (522 days ago) has vanished from Sprint’s website. While there are still plenty of references to the phone in various pages (it still shows up in a search for Palm), the phone itself cannot be selected for viewing, purchase, or reminiscing. With no new webOS handsets yet announced, or even rumored, for Sprint, any potential webOS conversion will have to pick up a Wi-Fi-less Palm Pixi if they want to be on Sprint. With how much focus Sprint has been putting on Android handsets and their growing 4G WiMax network, we can’t say we’re too surprised to see the original Pre fading quietly into the sunset. But it still makes us sad.

Non-Source: Sprint.com, Thanks to Dan for the tip!

Update: The Pre Plus is gone from Verizon Wireless as well, several readers tell us. That situation is less dire: we’ve seen the Pre Plus popping on and off Verizon’s site for some time now and (more importantly) we know for sure that the Pre 2 is hitting Verizon soon.

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Welcome to Round Table, which is in fact not a table at all. Round Table is a continuing series on PreCentral where we pose a question to the staff and they provide their thoughts and insights. The question could be something simple like “what’s your favorite webOS RSS reader?” or something a bit more complicated, like “where do you see Palm in a year?” Or maybe we’ll just end up chatting about how we miss the cartoons of our childhood. Today, however, we’re going to take a look at the latest hardware from Palm: the Pre 2.

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Current Pre, Pixi, and Plus variant owners: relax, you’re getting webOS 2.0 too. Same “coming months” line as before, though hopefully we won’t have the same debacle that we had with the super-long webOS 1.4.5 roll-out. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Speaking of updates, @webosinternals noticed that "the fine print" on HP’s massive webOS 2.0 / Palm Pre 2 Press release makes it clear that the Pixi and Pixi Plus are not compatible with Flash:

(6) The Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta is compatible only with Palm Pre devices; not compatible with Pixi or Pixi Plus.

That’s a situation we’d like to see fixed but, deep down, don’t think will be.

Source: Palm (Pre, Pixi); Thanks to everyone that sent this in.

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HP’s continuing to use their new consumer property – Palm – in adds for other products. Just recently they launched a new series of printers including an ePrint feature that lets your print photos over the web, from your computer or smartphone. Now before you get excited over that “printing” dialog shown on the screen of the Pre (really, an original Sprint Pre?), we’re going to tamp down your enthusiasm with a dose of “the ad agency did that for effect” realism.

HP’s ePrint system is unique, but it’s not as integrated as the commercial would make it seem. With ePrint the printer is essentially assigned an email address to which you send your file or picture as an attachment, which the printer then takes and prints. So it’s compatible with any device that can send emails with attachments, including webOS devices and every other modern smartphone, and of course all manner of laptops, desktops, and other computing devices. Though we do like the idea of setting our grandparents up with an ePrint printer and just emailing them pictures that will print automatically without their having to fuss with downloading attachments (or checking their email).

The Pixi’s also been also included in an ePrint email sent out to HP customers. Amusingly, HP also features the eStation printer-tablet combo thing in both the commercial (after the break) and the email flyer. We have to wonder which HP will have more (or less) success pushing: old Palm hardware or a quirky hard-to-rationalize hobbled Android tablet and printer device.

Source: YouTube, HP; Thanks to everybody that sent these in!

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We’ve seen Alan Harper’s (played by John Cryer) Palm Pre before, and we’re glad to see he hasn’t jumped ship just yet to some of the more enticing devices on the market. We’re also glad to see him getting involved in ridiculous promiscuity, instead of older brother Charlie. Granted, ridiculous promiscuity is not something we actively encourage here at PreCentral, but it does make for humor of the base and low-brow variety. We may be cultured folks here, but there’s an undeniable level of funny to Two and a Half Men.

Have you recently spotted the Pre, Pixi, or another Palm device on your favorite show? Drop us a note at pretips@precentral.net with the show and a few relevant details like air date, time in the episode, and an online video link if you’ve got one!

Source: CBS; Thanks to everybody that sent this in!

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If you’re a German who for whatever reason has been waiting to jump onto the Palm bandwagon, O2 Deutschland is doing their best to make sure you can get one for cheap. They’ve cut the price of the Palm Pre Plus down to 360€, while the Pixi Plus and the original Pre (with a Touchstone charger and back) can be had for 240€.

Now you might be thinking those are high prices, but we’ll take a moment to remind you why O2 Germany’s system is the one that we envy so hard: these phones can all be had for free upfront: You’ll pay 10€ a month over 24 months for the Pre or Pixi Plus, while the Pre Plus will cost you 15€ monthly. Yes, you pay precisely for the subsidization of your specific phone, and once you’ve paid it off, you’re done. It’s a clean and transparent model that we seriously long for. Oh, and all of these phones are sold unlocked. How’s that for awesome?

Additionally, we’ve been tipped that O2 Germany has received its last shipment of Pre Plus phones. This lines up neatly with the ceasing of Pre Plus sales at SFR and O2 UK. Europe, it would seem, is clearing way for the Palm Pre 2. We can only hope that the same is happening back here across the pond.

Source: O2 Germany; Thanks to Valentin and John for the tips!

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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:

• The processor is clocked at 1GHz. Rod Whitby of WebOS Internals speculates that the processor may be the TI OMAP 3630 (1GHz, single core), which is software- and footprint-compatible (uses the same pins) with the TI OMAP 3430 in the current Pre. Additionally, Texas Instruments claims that the OMAP 3630 provides twice the performance as the older 3430, while sipping half the juice. Battery life gains, anyone?
• The phone comes with a 1150 mAh battery, exactly the same as the Pre and the Pixi.
• It is a slider device (as indicated by the SAR ratings for “open” and “closed”).
• There appears to have been some internal antenna juggling: on the current Pre design all the antennas are hidden behind the battery cover (they’re the yellow-orange strips around the edge of the inside). The documentation notes a difference in distance between the GSM antenna and the Bluetooth/Wi-Fi antenna when the phone is open and closed. Specifically, it’s a movement of 3.5 cm, which is almost exactly how far the current Pre opens.
• The phone is not only Touchstone compatible (no surprise), but is uses the same back currently available for the Pre and Pre Plus. This means that the phone will have a very similar, if not identical form factor, though we have heard unsubstantiated rumblings that there may be difference on the face of the device.
• Palm has requested 180 days of confidentiality from the submission to the FCC testing on September 8, 2010. Covered by the confidentiality granted: external, internal, and testing photos and the user manual. Shucks. One hundred eighty days gives Palm confidentiality until March 7, 2011, though we would expect to see this device on shelves and in hands sooner rather than later.
• As this is FCC testing, the P102UEU is certified to not boil your brains.

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

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