The new version can be purchased from the Application catalog by entering credit card data via the Preferences & Accounts menu. Also, previously purchased but deleted applications can be downloaded and reinstalled for free.
WebOS 1.2 allows to download songs directly from Amazon MP3 Store via Wi-Fi and WAN, copy and paste the information to the web page and filter e-mail on search parameters, syncronize contacts with Palm Synergy.

WebOS 1.2 will be available through automatic updates within a few weeks. Currently WebOS 1.2 can be seen only on the Palm Pre. But Palm Pixi will also support this platform.

If you waited and waited for the price to get lower, then this is just a moment you can catch.

Rush and get it!

The webOS smartphone is already on sale in the US and Canada, in the UK it will be available in stores and online from O2, as well as from Carphone Warehouse, Phones4U and other O2 partners.

O2 subscribers who opt for a 24-month contract, or an 18-month contract at £44.05 or £73.41 per month, can get the Palm Pre for free.

The Pre is also free to business customers who hold business tariffs of at least £30.91 per month on 24 or 36-month contracts.

O2 will offer the Palm Touchstone Charging Dock too, for £44.11.

HandTec offers to make an order at the price of 517.49 pounds (about $856), while mPhone is more democratic – the device is offered for 449.98 pounds ($827).

Both of the stores do not report on the actual shipping day. Another shop has also opened a page for the Pre, but without mentioning the price. Neither Palm, or O2 (which is the exclusive distributor of Pre in the UK) haven’t announced the realease date and the price of the device yet.

Palm states that Pixi is the thinnest smartphone. Really, it is thin – less than 11 mm. Due to interface Palm Synergy, Palm Pixi users will be able to see various services, such as Google, Facebook, Exchange ActiveSync Yahoo! and LinkedIn, on one screen. The message (IM, SMS and so on) exchange with each of the contacts is displayed in the form of chat.

Besides the original version, Palm Pixi will also have Artist Series. The smartphones of this line will have removable rear panels with graphics of different artists.

Palm Pixi will be released exclusively by Sprint later this year, the cost will be announced later. And now the company has reduced the price of the first webOS-Smartphone Palm Pre, now it is $149.99 with a contract.

Palm Pixi specifications:

* Operating system: webOS
* Networks: CDMA 2000/EvDO Rev A
* Display: 2.63-inch touch screen, 320×400 pixels resolution
* E-mail: Microsoft Exchange, POP3/IMAP (Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, AOL, Hotmail)
* GPS-receiver
* 2-megapixel camera with LED-flash
* Sensors: light, approximations, and accelerometer
* Audio formats: MP3, AAC, AAC +, AMR, QCELP, WAV
* Video formats: MPEG-4, H.263, H.264
* Wireless: Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (A2DP)
* Internal memory: 8 GB
* MicroUSB-port. 3.5-mm audio jack
* Support for Palm Touchstone accessories
* Dimensions: 111h55h10, 85 mm
* Weight: 99.5 grams

According to The Guardian, the main competitor of O2 was Orange. Orange tried to get the right to sell the iPhone, but failed also and iPhone went to O2.

Presumably, Palm chose to compete with the Apple phone in a single operator.

Palm Pre Design:
The design of the Palm Pre is one that speaks class. It has a beautiful 3.2 inch screen that carries a 480×320 resolution. The screen supports multitouch just like the iPhone and also supports the pinch, double tap etc. to zoom and navigate photos, webpage’s, games etc. The device is very small and fits nicely in the hand. Although the screen is a little smaller then that of the iPhone it has the same resolution and things display crystal clear.

As for the slide out keyboard, that is an added plus. One of the major contentions I have had with the iPhone is the lack of a physical keyboard. Thankfully Palm realized that not everyone is interested in the virtual keyboard and decided to include a Centro style model on it. Although it is as small as the Centro, it has more space between the keys so there is better accuracy. Also the keys are rubberized so there is hardly any slip. While the keyboard is a little cramped, trust me when I say it’s a lot easier to type on it then it looks. I have owned both the original MotoQ as well as the Blackberry Curve as personal Smartphones and while the Pre does have a smaller keyboard then the other devices I have been able to type at about the same speed. That said I will still say that the Curve’s keyboard is a little more refined then that of the Pre. But the Pre has a solid keyboard nonetheless.

Concerning the camera, the Pre has one that sports 3.2 megapixels. The picture quality is exceptional and unlike the iPhone it also carries flash as well as a metal back that can be used as a mirror for pictures.

Software:
This is the part of the phone that most people are concerned with. While there has been many phones that claim to be “iPhone killers” (namely the Instinct) and fail miserably the Palm Pre is different.
At the core of the UI is a Linux based OS called webOS. According to Palm they will have other phones that run the webOS so the software will be popping up on other devices around the world. That said I was very pleased with the UI. The gestures are smooth and navigating is pretty simple.

Unlike the iPhone the Palm Pre handles multitasking like a charm. Palm uses a system called “Cards” which allows you to open multiple programs at a time. According to Palm the system can handle a maximum of 12 Cards (programs) simultaneously. I was able to get it up to 16 and 20 but at other times when I only had 6 cards open, the phone would inform me that I had to close some Cards before attempting to open a another one. Basically put, the maximum amount of Cards that can be opened depends on its demands. While you can open up over 12 webpage cards without a problem, opening up the Pandora app, camera, YouTube, Music app and an email as well as SMS client will might overwhelm the system. The good thing about it is the device will not crash if you open too many cards. Before that happens, it will prevent any more from being opened.

The device comes with dedicated YouTube, Facebook and MySpace apps. Although the YouTube app works pretty well, it is prone to a few glitches (software related). I wasn’t too fund of the Facebook app as it was not as intuitive as that of the Blackberry. Secondly it’s just a glorified webpage. I found it less stressful and more exciting to use the normal Facebook website VIA the browser. And since it handles JavaScript pretty well, most things are in place. As for the MySpace app, it was better then that of Facebook.

The phone also has Pandora radio, ever since I used it on my previous Blackberry Curve I fell in love with the app. It does a real good job of the Internet radio and allows you to save songs as well as artists for further viewing. While we are on the subject of music, the built in music application is also very intuitive. While it lacks the patented “Cover Flow” that you will find in the iPhone or iPod Touch it does allow you to scroll through songs, albums and artists based on album cover. You can also download music from the Amazon online music store via a built in app (similar one can be found on Google Android). There is a wide selection of songs available and at a 256 bit rate with most songs being only $.99 and all being DRM free it’s pretty awesome.

The browser is probably the single best designed app on the device though. It is very intuitive and supports every type of finger function that is found on the iPhone including double tap to zoom, pinch to zoom in and out and full accelerometer for orientation changing. In my tests it loaded webpage’s as fast as the iPhone and the scrolling and rendering was just as good. I am yet to find a phone that could compare with the iPhone in browsing experience, but I can honestly say that this is on par with the browser on the iPhone.

Email on the device is also very good and allows you to view full HTML mark-up. That said I wasn’t impressed that the phone only syncs with the mail servers every fifteen minutes. I am used to getting instant feedback on my emails VIA my Blackberry. While it is a minor detail I wish there was an option which would allow you to change this. The mail client does support Exchange so that is a plus. The included SMS application is also very good and allows you to view messages in conversation format.

The only major problem I had with webOS was there were a few times when the software would slow up. So far the OS is yet to crash on me, but I would like Palm to get an update out ASAP that would fix a few of the minor performance issues some of the users have been experiencing.

CONCLUSION:
So in conclusion would I recommend the phone? Yes I would. But if you are in a contract I would advise waiting a few more months as the current news says Sprint’s exclusivity deal ends in January of 2010. And while Palm is yet to confirm this Sprint has said that they have the device through the end of 2009 and Verizon has said they hope to pick up the Pre when Sprint’s deal ends in December of 2009.

As always you have to choice. One is to sign a 2-yr contract, and you’ll get Palm Pre for the price of $199.99, after a $100 mail-in rebate. The second choice, of course, is off-contract and Palm Pre costs $549.99.

As Sprint announced before, Pre stocks are low, and plus to that, Palm’s “hope” is not available online, though it is featured on Sprint’s website. Taking all this into account, you’ll have to hurry and look for it in Sprint’s retailers stores across the US (including BestBuy, Radio Shack and WallMart).

With Palm Pre you get: Standard Li-Ion battery, AC travel charger (both musts), 3.5mm stereo headset, USB cable and a carry pouch. So the Touchstone charging dock and the Touchstone back cover are sold separately, for $49.99 and $19.99, respectively.

Most of you already know Palm Pre is a full touchscreen smartphone with a sliding QWERTY keyboard?

The smartphone’s main attraction is not the hardware side, but the new WebOS, unveiled by Palm back in January. The new platform comes with Palm Synergy, a feature that includes linked contacts, layered calendars and combined messaging – so that your contacts, e-mail and personal/professional calendar are gathered into “one centralized view”.

WebOS also offers Activity Cards, which allow users to perform many activities at the same time. There’s also universal search – letting you search Google, Google Maps, Wikipedia and Twitter, all from one search box.

Find WebOS Review here.

Palm Pre was announced by Bell Canada too, and it should also be launched across Europe and in Australia sometime later this year.

Verizon and AT&T might get the Pre as well, but only after 2009 ends, since Sprint has exclusivity on the handset for more than 6 months.

Pre will be available via Bell Mobility, Canada’s second largest mobile operator.

The Canadian Palm Pre will have similiar features of Sprints expected one – EV-DO connectivity, a 320 x 480 pixels multi-touch display, GPS, Wi-Fi, a full QWERTY keyboard and the already-famous WebOS platform.

Price of Palm Pre was announced yet, however, Bell will probably sell its Pre for about 200 Canadian dollars on contract.

Now more rumors report that in Australia, for example, the Palm Pre might appear in August, offered by Telstra – hence we’re talking about the handset’s GSM version.

According to Smarthouse.com.au, Palm Pre’s release via Telstra was officially confirmed by Brett Murray, Country Manager at Palm Australia.

Palm wants to sell the Pre to Telstra for 400 AUD ($296) per unit, while the carrier will offer it for 299 AUD ($222) with a data plan, or for 899 AUD ($667) free of contract. These prices are probably not too different from the ones Sprint will offer the smartphone for.

As we have already previously seen, Sprint has delayed the purchasing availability of the device quite a few times, that’s why some even doubted that the company would finally release the Treo Pro in mid March.

The device comes out with some nice features like a full QWERTY keyboard, a touch screen display able to provide a 320 x 320 pixel resolution. The handset has Microsoft Direct Push Technology, as well as support for POP3 and IMAP including AOL, Gmail, Earthlink, and Yahoo, as well as it has

Sprint TV enabled, GPS capabilities, Web and email capabilities, Bluetooth connectivity, speakerphone, memory card slot for additional 8GB of storage space, voice dialing, Wi-Fi connectivity, a built-in 2-megapixel photo snapper with digital zoom and video recording capabilities, as well as a slim and fashionable design.

The new sleek handset is available on Sprint for $199.99 upon the signing of a two-year contract with the carrier, and after a mail-in rebate of $100.

Up till now it is still not certain yet what price the carrier will set for the handset, but it is expected to appear with series of data plans. That shows that there will be a great range of prices for the devices and will vary depending on the country to be purchased in.

One thing to take into account is that Telefonica, being a GSM/HSDPA phone operator; should as well sell the GSM version of Pre. The CDMA version of Pre is supposed to appear on US market by Sprint, but the exact date is not certain yet. In addition to this, the handset should also go to Canada. At this period of Telefonica’s prosperity, it has managed to be a great success, and even is now competing against Vodafone.

Sprint, which is planning to launch Pre in the US market, has not yet announced a certain data for release, but it is already known that it is away not behind the mountains: a webcast is to be held on March 12th.

As rumors spread, the new Pre handset is more likely to come in the first half of the year, yet the exact date is not known. Some say, it might appear in June. Nevertheless, we will have to wait much longer before the handset becomes “tangible” for us, since the two companies – Sprint and Palm seem to be prolonging our ongoing interests and expectations.

Even though it was previously announced that the mobile would be launched by Sprint no later than in mid March, we do still keep waiting.

It’s obvious, that everyone is looking forward to obtaining the new device, however, the latter might not be ready enough to go into the wild that fast.. Anyway, the carriers are doing their best to make it available as soon as possible.

As a special introductory offer you can get some promo pricing on the Palm Centro:

3-year contract: $49.95
2-year: 249.95
1-year: 349.95
Month-to-month: $399.95

via intomobile.com

In addition, the technology Palm Synergy, which collects diverse information to the all togather, Pre can automatically save all the data on cases and immediate tasks to be done.

This service was designed to increase the number of competitive advantages of smartphone Palm Pre – neither the iPhone, a smartphone or BlackBerry and Windows Mobile has no ready-made solutions for the integration of GPS and personal data, except for determining the location of the user on demand.