We’re pumped to see the Palm Pre 2 made available in the United Kingdom in a delicious unlocked flavor, but that’s only from Palm. Even in GSM-friendly unlocked-happy Europe, most customers still get their phones direct from the carrier, complete with hefty subsidizations. The carrier is where you won’t be able to get the Palm Pre 2 in England, Scotland, Wales, or anywhere else in the British Isles. Pocket-lint has confirmed with UK cellular carriers Orange, Three, Vodafone, and O2 that none of them have plans to carry the Palm Pre 2. We can’t say we’re stunned – support for the phone from carriers has been weak at best. In fact, the only announced carriers are Verizon and SFR, and they were known at launch. Here’s hoping their all holding out for something new, maybe in January…

Source: Pocket-lint; Thanks to Ben for the tip!

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So there’s plenty of uproar in the United States about the Pre 2 not looking like a possibility for Sprint, but what of the rest of the world? It’s not looking exceedingly good there either.

Both Vodafone Germany and O2 Germany have come out to say that they have no plans to offer the Pre 2 to their customers. The German carriers are uncharacteristically communicative with customers over Twitter, at least in comparison to their international brethren.

Most other carriers have maintained a stony wall of silence, or in the case of Sprint responded with a company line email to all inquiries noting that they don’t have plans to offer the Pre 2 to customers, who could just buy an original and aging Pre if they wanted one. Problem is, we’re fairly certain that 99% of those barraging Sprint on Facebook and via email (you can stop forwarding us their company line replies) already have a Pre and were miffed when they couldn’t get the Pre Plus, let alone the markedly better Pre 2.

There is at least one bright spot in this strange Pre 2 launch mess: webOS 2.0 will get to everybody, at some point in, you guessed it, the “coming months.” If "coming months" ends up being as short as we hope, then it might not be so long of a wait.

Of course, the question we’re all trying to answer is “why don’t any carriers want to sell me a Pre 2?” There are a couple of possible answers, and they’re wrapped up in the mystery of carrier-manufacturer contracts. It’s possible no carriers want to invest in training and advertising to sell the Pre 2 because of their lackluster experience selling the phones’ predecessors, or maybe they’re holding off for something more impressive, maybe something we’ll get to see at CES this year. Or maybe nobody told them.

Source: Palm UK (Facebook), Palm France (Facebook), O2 Germany (Twitter), Vodafone Germany (Facebook); via: Golem.de, webOSroundup, webOS Blog.de; Thanks to everybody that sent all of this in!

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With a week left to go, Vodafone customers in Spain can expect to see the Palm Pixi Plus to officially make landfall on May 10. Generally we’d see its bigger brother, the Palm Pre Plus, accompany its release, but unfortunately this will not be the case. So for right now, it looks like the Palm [...]

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Palm has announced that the Pixi Plus will land in Spain on May 10th for the Vodafone network. Pricing was not announced, nor was the Palm Pre Plus – which we have to say strikes us a mighty odd.

Any Spaniards looking to make the jump to this little wonder, or will you be holding out for some Palm Pre Plus action?

Thanks to everybody who sent this in!

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German blog webOS-Blog (Google translate link for those of you who don’t read German) has it on good word from Vodafone employees that the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus will be priced at € 579.90 and € 399.90 respectively without contract and for as little as € 149.90 and € 49.90 respectively when purchased on contract .  There’s still no official word from either Palm or Vodafone on pricing or release dates, but based what the non-plussed devices are selling for on other networks, those numbers make sense to us.

Thanks to Julian for the tip!

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Billboards are one thing,  but when palm.com/de tells you that the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus are coming to Germany on April 28th, it’s probably save to stop calling fake and start wondering when other GSM carriers in other countries can get in on the plus action. We’re actually starting to wonder if there’s something fundamentally Teutonic about webOS that can explain the love affair between Palm and the German people.

Actually, the bigger news is that O2 Germany will no longer have an exclusive on the device despite the fact that they’ve arguably tried harder than any other carrier on the planet to make the device a success – with great results. Anyhow, confirming rumors earlier this month, the Pre Plus is coming to Vodafone – in Germany anyway. Don’t count out O2, however, as we hear that they intend on ensuring Telmap navigator will soon be available for webOS. 

Again, it all goes down April 28th, which incidentally is the direction our morale is going as we wait for an actual, firm release date of the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus on AT&T.

Update: if you love press releases, Palm has one for you.

Update 2: Title fixed (and yes, we’re tired of this alliteration). Good news for UK webOS lovers: Electric Pig reports that O2 UK says it’s coming.

Thanks to everybody who sent this in!

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Ah, inventory systems, they’re so bad at keeping secrets. We’ve known for a while now that the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus were certified for sale in Europe, but the question was always “which carrier?” Rumors have pointed towards current Palm Pre seller O2 picking up the Plus variants, but we were never too sure about that – we’ve yet to see a "Plus" launch on the same network as an original.

As it would turn out, it looks more like competitor Vodafone will be picking up the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus. Inventory screens posted on Pre Ticker show the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus (along with replacement/exchange devices) listed in what is purported to be a Vodafone inventory screen (at the very least, it is German).

Is it possible that Vodafone could be picking up the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus? Absolutely, and it could stand to be a good thing for Palm. Vodafone has a larger footprint than O2, and behind China Mobile is the world’s no. 2 network in subscriber count. The question of “when” and “how much” is still up in the air, but given Palm’s dire predictions for the current quarter, we wouldn’t count on it being any time soon.

[via: webOS Blog.de]

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Having revealed that sales of their webOS smartphones have proved disappointing in the past financial quarter, and downgrading their revenue expectations to “well below” the $1.6bn to $1.8bn initially predicted, Palm don’t look to be ready to give up the fight quite yet.  An email from Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein to the company’s employees has [...]

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It seems like we’ve been waiting for webOS 1.4 for some time now, but according to PreCentral the much-anticipated update will begin to roll out come February 25th.  That new date comes from a Verizon source, suggesting at the very least Pre Plus and Pixi Plus availability; there’s no word on when Palm Pre and [...]

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In the States, Verizon Wireless, a company formed as a joint venture between American broadband and telecommunications company, Verizon Communications, and British mobile network operators, Vodafone Group, simply will not shut up about the fact …

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3. About “Unlocking” Your Palm Pre…

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