

Palm Pre on June 6th for $200: It's official - adk
http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/19/palm-launching-pre-on-june-6th-official/

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anigbrowl
Ugh, carrier contracts. Why do you Americans tolerate these lock-ins? One
thing I miss about Europe is that you can just buy the phone you want and take
it to the carrier you want.

This is why I use MetroPCS. It's not the world's best service and it only
works in major cities, but I pay $50/mo for unlimited voice/text and I have no
contract. If you want the blackberry I think the unlimited data plan is about
$75.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
T-Mobile allows anyone to pick up any of their standard plans without signing
a contract, and without even requiring you to purchase a phone from them;
they'll gladly sell you a SIM chip with a plan, and you provide the GSM phone.
The only reason I still go with the contract is because I'm perfectly happy
with T-Mobile, and I decided that I wanted to upgrade to the G1 at the $179
rate, as opposed to paying almost $400 for it without the contract.

So, if you don't like contracts, pick T-Mobile; they're the closest thing to
Europe available in the US.

~~~
randallsquared
One nit, though: don't let the really terrible website and phone service get
you down. If you go to a T-mobile _store_ , everything's easy, fast, and
efficient, and the reps are either knowledgeable or willing to ask someone who
is, on the spot. It's a totally different experience from that on the T-mobile
customer service line, and I wasn't able to use the website to do anything I
wanted. At the time, what I wanted was to buy a G1 full price, but I would
have settled for "with a contract", and I never managed to get it done,
finally going to Wal-mart and picking one up for slightly less anyway, and
then using AT&T for a few months before the lack of 3G service (the G1 doesn't
do AT&T 3G) drove me back to T-mobile. However, it hasn't been useful since I
came back to them, either. The in-store service is really excellent at every
store I've been to, so just go there physically.

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jhancock
"$199.99 after $100 mail-rebate and 2-year contract"

I really hope this Palm Pre does well. I would have higher hopes for it if it
didn't have carrier lock-in. We'll see if this Sprint-only deal lasts long or
if it goes carrier neutral soon.

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adk
I do too, mainly because I want to see more JS/HTML based mobile device
development, possibly some standard APIs in the near future.

I've been spoiled by the web and I don't like having to deal with multiple
languages, platforms and dev environments just to be able to reach a decent
portion of my potential audience.

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cubicle67
How many people are waiting for the new iPhone (assuming there is one)
expected 2 days after the launch of the Pre before deciding what to get?

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jodrellblank
Apart from the "deciding what to get" part. I haven't twigged why the Palm Pre
is expected to be particularly good.

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tjogin
Although I don't plan on getting the Palm Pre, I'm quite happy with my iPhone,
I think it would be very beneficial for Apple to get a "real" competitor in
that space. One that can truly challenge Apple to innovate and to continuously
improve.

Having said that, the Palm Pre is unreleased and many questions are still to
be answered; especially delicate are those related to battery and performance
("the snappy"). It also seems a bit fat.

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oomkiller
I applied to get the SDK when the application page first went up, has anyone
been accepted yet? It was my understanding that this wasn't going to be an
Apple-style beta, where everything was locked up tight.

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mattmaroon
I got in. Haven't done anything with it yet.

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electromagnetic
I hope this Palm comes to Canada soon, however I hope it isn't the biggest
bitch-slap on the planet like the iPhone's data packages are.

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truebosko
It looks like Bell Canada will have the pre: <http://www.precentral.net/bell-
canada-confirmed-get-pre>

~~~
electromagnetic
Oh god shoot me now. They're even worse than Rogers, who at least have good
customer service. I suppose if Bell has a good data package, I might be able
to deal with them; I'm pretty good with accents so I suppose I can do customer
service in India for a few more years.

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jemmons
Except, of course, that's not the official price. It's actually $300 with a
$100 mail in rebate.

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riobard
Not sure if it just me or not, but anybody noticed the count-down on the right
sidebar actually says 46 days? It's May 20 today, and it should be 16 days
until June 6, unless someone forgot that JavaScript's month is 0-indexed?

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mingyeow
I am so goddamn excited. I cannot wait to get one... (but i will still wait to
see if there is gonna be an iphone 3)

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jemmons
"If"? What, you think Apple's just going to close up shop? Move on to
something different, maybe?

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Keyframe
I am not quite sure why, but I want one!

