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

Recently, we're not sure of the specific date, all of Bell Mobility's smartphone plans changed. Now, every smartphone data plan has tethering added. For example, the $50 plan now says,

"500 MB of data for personal email, Internet browsing, instant messaging, and tethering"

Pricing goes up from there, with the largest plan at $100 offering a 3GB monthly allotment.  However, as it says, the data amount is shared, so tethering Canadians will need to be aware of bandwith used.

With that in mind, it's worth reminding fellow Canadians that the homebrew app Netstat is amazing for keeping track of bandwidth used. As for tethering apps, the most convenient one is the paid app MyTether, and lately we've been hearing successful stories of Bell users using the free Mobile Hotspot.

Since legality is becoming less of an issue for tethering, it's not surprising there are rumblings others may be creating competing tethering apps as well.

Over at jkOnTheRun, James Kendrick has posted up results comparing the Mobile Hotspot feature on his Palm Pre Plus to the MiFi Mobile Hotspot device. His results are pretty disheartening: speeds on the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus are noticeably slower than on the dedicated MiFi hotspot. I don't have a Verizon MiFi to test against, but I have gotten faster download speeds than James did, however my upload speeds are lackluster to say the least. At right, the results of both of our tests, averaged over multiple attempts at Speakeasy (2 for James, 3 for me).

Update: I just realized that I had the "Unthrottle Download Manager" patch installed. I just removed that and ran another battery of tests and am getting slightly slower speeds, but not enough for me to think that this patch affects data speed - 3G is often wildly different from test to test, even from the exact same location.

After the break we've posted two polls that we're asking only Verizon users to fill out: if you're using Mobile Hotspot, what kind of data download and upload speeds are you getting? People using Mobile Hotspot on Sprint via 'nefarious' methods and people using other methods of tethering webOS, please sit this poll out and instead post your results in the comments.

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It's no secret that the Verizon Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus will be able to use a special Mobile Hotspot application. The application will essentially turn the phone into a MiFi, supporting connections from up to 5 wi-fi devices at once.  Wouldn't it be great to have that on non-Verizon device? With a little homebrewed love, it's possible, but honestly at this stage we recommend the vast majority of users wait on the sidelines to see how things shake out.

Read on for the details.

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Unfortunately, that doesn't look to be in the cards for Palm Pre and Sprint. Sascha Segan at GearLog checked out the chat Sprint put on with exec David Owens and laid out plenty of points, including "No tethering for phones that require Everything plans (such as all smartphones) from here on out."

It's a bummer, but unfortunately it's not really a surprise. What was a bit of a surprise was Owens said we can expect WiMAX phones next year - we wouldn't spit on some sweet 4G action.

Apparently, on the GSM German Pre, if you go to the help application and ask about using your Palm Pre as a modem, it will say the following:

Use Phone as Modem

If you use your phone as a modem, you can access the internet with your computer independently from your location as long as you have coverage. Ask your mobile provider whether you can use this function with your contract.

Then, it goes on to give you instructions on how to set up your phone and computer for tethering. The bad news is, instructions is all you get, since after following those instructions will only get your Pre to pair with your computer with standard bluetooth services. The good news, that this is another small step for Palm to actually make that service possible.

[Via Precentral]

Use Phone as Modem

If you use your phone as a modem, you can access the internet with your computer independently from your location as long as you have coverage. Ask your mobile provider whether you can use this function with your contract.

After that are instructions on how to set up your phone and computer for tethering. Unfortunately, it seems that all you get are instructions, as following said instructions and pairing with the computer only gets you the standard bluetooth services we've come to know on the Pre. But... it is one more step towards a land of tethering, now all we need is for Palm to flip the metaphorical switch.

Thanks to Carsten for the tip!

Thanks to Herb for the tip!

There are plenty of new and updated apps in our beta Homebrew App Gallery for the Palm Pre just a day after launch.  If you've never tried it, we'll have a first-install walkthough up for you later today.  It's just a 'first-install' walkthough because your second and seventieth install are a lot easier now that fileCoaster allows you to directly browse and download from our gallery. 

Longtime PalmOS users can relive the glory days of low-fi stylus-tapping action with Dope Wars, BlackBerry switchers can get that BrickBreaker feeling back, shippers can track a package (and watch the sometimes insane routes they take) with PrePackage, shoppers can put together a Shopping List, runners can help test out the fledgling PREtracker GPS/running app, and, well, you get the idea.

Oh, and people who aren't afraid of Linux access should take a look at My Tether,  which does exactly what you think it does. Don't overdo it, though, because even Sprint will get grumpy if they see you pulling down 'too much' data.

We'll help to add more features to fileCoaster (and big ups to PreGame for bearing with us) and offering a standard, open format feed for other app downloaders, so stay tuned. As always, the apps in our Homebrew Gallery are for testing, not production.

You read that headline exactly right - there are now over 100 apps in our Homebrew forums and more on the way.  There are three different Google Voice Apps (including one with SMS support, update: make that two), the above-pictured iTunes Remote app, calculators, games, an iCanHazCheezburger picture finder, an excellent podcast downloader/player.. there's a lot.

Once you get your SDK installed, you're ready to participate in the beta testing action.  With any luck at all, Palm will be accepting many of these apps into their App Catalog.  Until they're able to get their high falutin', city-slicker system up to speed, though we invite you to check out the down-home, wild west of homebrew apps for the Pre.  Don't forget that there are now easier ways to install now - fileCoaster and webOS Quick Install.

If homebrew isn't your thing (it can be a bit much and yes, everything here is very much Beta), it's still worth looking around to get a taste of how easy it is to develop webOS apps and see the stuff the grass-roots developers are working on.

After the break, we present you with the current list compiled by chuccck, newer additions in bold.  Before you get to browsing all the homebrew, though, do chuccck a quick solid and congratulate him on his bacon-based proposal (she said yes!).  Also, take some time to thank all the great developers who are building these apps!

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