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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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 never cease to be surprised by all the places the Palm Pre keeps cropping up. This time, it’s Private Practice, on the nightstand of Dr. Violet Turner (played by Amy Brenneman). She’s otherwise too *ahem* occupied to answer the phone, but we’re psyched to see a default UI in play here, complete with contact photos and proper ringing. Though we are slightly baffled that this phone appears to be running a pre-1.3.5 version of webOS (the font on the clock gives it away). We’re also baffled by the phone being stuck at the halfway point in slider land – perhaps her slider is all janky? It is a Sprint Pre afterall, maybe she’s had it since launch and didn’t opt for the insurance.

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: ABC; Thanks to everybody that sent this in!

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Remember the huge ruckus about SERO back when the Pre first launched on Sprint? For the uninitiated, SERO stands for Sprint Employee Referral Offer, and was a supremely good deal for Sprint customers that knew how to work the system (it wasn’t really that difficult, to be honest). SERO was discontinued a few years back, though subscribers on the plan at the time were grandfathered thanks to the magic that is a legally-binding contract between the cellular provider (Sprint) and the subscriber (a lot of you).

The ruckus was over the fact that Sprint would not allow SERO users to get a Palm Pre on their plans – Sprint required at the bare minimum the $70-a-month Everything Data package, even though the SERO plans generally equaled the data, minute, and text allotments for significantly less coin. Not wanting to pay hundreds more dollars over the course of a two year contract, many SERO owners loudly and stubbornly refused to upgrade to the Pre, only to find themselves locked out of pretty much every other new Sprint smartphone, which carried a similar Everything Data minimum requirement.

Sprint’s heard you, SERO subscribers, and they’ve listened. In a bid to get you to upgrade and stay with Sprint, they’re offering you a compromise: SERO Premium. The new SERO Premium plans, kicking in on October 1st, match current SERO plans on features and add in Any Mobile Anytime and unlimited Sprint Nav GPS navigation. The two options, available only to current SERO subscribers, clock in at 500 minutes plus unlimited data, texting, etc for $40 a month, or 1250 minutes plus extras for $59.99 a month.

Oh, and here’s the important part: you’ll finally be able to grab new smartphones while staying on SERO (at least in spirit). Yes, you’ll be able to get a Palm Pre or Palm Pixi, as well as a number of other Sprint smartphones (including the HTC Evo 4G and Samsung Epic 4G, for the requisite $10 more a month for that 4G suffix). It’s a compromise: Sprint keeps you as a customer, you get the phone you want, everybody goes home happy. Of course, you could just stick with your old SERO plan and your Treo 755p… we won’t judge.

Source: Sprint

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Sometimes we see a Pre, sometimes a Pixi… but both? In the same scene? Right next to each other? Unheard of, at least until now. It was the pilot episode of the new television series The Defenders on CBS that brought this crazy random happenstance, and we even get to see the Sprint Pre running a native UI (unsure what’s going on in with the motion-blurred Pixi). Granted, the show’s producers took some liberties to and made the phone’s background appear to be a super-huge-letters text message (and what’s this, a missed call?), but we’ll give them a bit on artistic license there. But here’s a question… why’s Jim Belushi the one with the Pixi?

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.com; Thanks to everybody that sent this in!

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It’s apparently a day of price cuts. It happened with little fanfare, but now interested customers can grab a Palm Pre Plus for free from Verizon proper. It’s little surprise, what with Big Red set to phase out their current webOS devices by the end of next month. The freeness of the Pre Plus also handily undercuts Sprint’s just-leaked reduced pricing for the lesser original Pre by $50. All these price drops are obviously happening to help clear out stagnant inventory, but we can’t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, they might be working to clear out inventory to make room for something new and exciting.

Source: Verizon; Thanks to unseenme for the heads up!

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It’s taken a lot of poking and prodding, but Sprint has finally seen right to drop the pricing of their webOS offerings. According to the latest edition of The Playbook, Sprint’s internal employee newsletter, effective September 12 Sprint will be dropping the new-contract price of the Palm Pre to $49.99 and the Palm Pixi to flat-out free. Right now a Pre will cost you $149.99, while a Pixi costs $49.99 – both prices sadly still include the $100 mail-in rebate.

In addition to the new contract pricing, Sprint is also dropping the pricing for off contract purchases, with $200 slashed from the Pre (dropping it to $349.99 off contract) and the Pixi cut by $50 to $299.99. After a cursory glance at Sprint’s smartphone offerings, that’ll make the Pre and Pixi the cheapest way to get into the smartphone game on America’s #3 network. Unless, you know, you want a Centro ($80 off contract, free with a new subscription).

Thanks anonymous tipster!

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PreCentral forum member livinofframen has put together a step-by-step guide to turning your Sprint Pre into a Pre Plus that still runs on Sprint. As you’ve probably figured out, it requires a Sprint Pre to start, plus a Pre Plus (of any variety, really). Then of course, there’s a little bit of meatball surgery and software hacking and tweaking to get it all running. In short: swap out the radio board from the Sprint Pre into the Pre Plus and then meta-Doctor the device with a tweaked Sprint webOS installation. Okay, it’s a touch more complicated than that, but all the steps are there to make it happen. Voilà, instant Sprint Palm Pre Plus, to go with your equally rare Sprint Pixi Plus.

Source: PreCentral Forums; Via: Engadget; Thanks to Colonel Kernel for the heads up!

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