Palm Pre for the UK finally confirmed. On sale via O2 from October 16th
Well it took them so long that we were beginning to think that it wasn’t giong to happen, but O2 has this morning finally confirmed that the Pre, Palm’s popular smartphone, will go on sale in the UK in three weeks time.
The Pre has done brisk business since its launch in the US in early summer, eben though the company itself has been dogged by a falling share price and rumours of an imminent take over by another manufacturer (Nokia is the favourite).
The device is free to O2 customers taking out a 24-month contract and to customers taking an 18-month contract at £44.05 or £73.41 per month. O2 is also throwing in unlimited UK data browsing over its HSDPA network and unlimited access to 7,500 Wi-Fi hotspots.
It will also be available on current O2 business tariffs as a monthly bolt on, with the device available for free to account holders on all business tariffs from £30.91on a 24 or 36-month contract.
The phone will be on sale via O2, the Carphone Warehouse, Phones4U and Business partners. It will also be available for purchase online from the O2 shop at www.o2.co.uk/shop.
Ronan Dunne, CEO of Telefonica O2 UK said “Today’s announcement reinforces O2’s position as the home of the smartphone. With the addition of the excellent Palm Pre to our already extensive portfolio, we will continue to offer our customers the widest range of the very best devices on the market today.”
“There’s a lot of excitement about Palm Pre in Europe as we continue to expand Palm webOS products across new carriers and countries,” said Jon Rubinstein chairman and chief executive officer, Palm, Inc. “We look forward to launching Palm Pre with O2 so people in the UK can see firsthand how Palm webOS offers a new and better smartphone experience.”
Here’s how it fares against rivals like the iPhone and Nokia N97
An opinion on Palm here
