Palm Pre Plus pricing revealed, $149 (with strings)
Fans of alliteration: this one’s for you
The Palm Pre has been rather late to the party in this sector of the world but in the US the phone is already viewed as a grizzled veteran of the still-raging smartphone war.
To give the device a better chance of scoring one over the iPhone and Android-flavoured opposition, manufacturer Palm is readying its secret weapon: the Palm Pre Plus.
On the surface it appears to be essentially the same handset, but there are numerous improvements under the bonnet: there’s now 16GB storage memory instead of 8, the internal RAM goes from 256MB to 512MB, and the back cover is touchstone compatible straight out of the box, removing the need to purchase an additional cover.
The North American launch is barely a week away but reports are coming in that the improved device - which will be sold via the Verizon Wireless network - will retail for roughly the same as the existing Palm Pre.
Of course, it’s rarely that simple and as you might imagine there’s a minor catch: to get the Plus for $149 you have partake in a $100 mail-in rebate offer and two year service agreement. Still, it remains a pretty sweet deal, and Palm’s other smartphone contender - the Pixi Plus - is subject to a similar arrangement.
If Palm Pre distributor O2 can engineer a comparable deal on this side of the pond then we might see the popular handset carve a healthy niche for itself.
