Palm Arena

Looks like the handwriting is on the wall concerning the exclusivity of the Pre and Pixi. We just got documents from Verizon confirming the Pre and Pixi Plus are heading to Big Red, and now AT&T is also confirming that they will be receiving two webOS devices to run on their network in the first half of 2010.

So far that’s all we know but seeing that the Pre is already being sold in GSM garb elsewhere, we’d bet our lives that the Pre is one of them as well as the Pixi.

We’ll be at the Palm CES keynote later today so we hope to pull some more info about this then. Stay tuned.

VIA: PreCentral

Click to Enlarge

The graphic is pretty self explanatory so we’ll be brief in our explanation. But we would just like to point out two things. First of all BillShrink fails to mention Sprint’s “Everything Mobile” plan which is an industry first and a lot better then any of the offerings from T-Mobile. Secondly, they fail to mention that T-Mobile still has the least 3G coverage. Other then that, the graphic is pretty accurate. Check it out.

VIA: BillShrink

Sprint Challenges AT&T

While this is not a big surprise it is nice to see Sprint taking the offensive here. Sprint has just thrown the first punch in a war that is bound to heat up pretty quickly between not only them and AT&T but also Apple and Palm.

That said the image above first appeard on Sprint’s Facebook profile and is now making its rounds around the net. According to Sprint:

You can have a mighty fancy phone, but it’s only as good as the network it uses and the calling plans available to consumers. Look past the iHype and we think you’ll see a new Sprint with a strong network, appealing new phones and value-priced calling plans. We’ll keep striving to get even better, but we sure hope folks – especially those with contracts elsewhere expiring soon – will give Sprint a look.

They go on to say that the Palm Pre will save you $1200 over the life of a two-year contract. That is comparing their Simply Everything to AT&T’s Everything plan. So what are your thoughts? Bold move or not?

Palm Pre and Apple iPhone comparison

Seems like Sprint will have some serious competition in the coming months/years as AT&T CEO has said he “sees” AT&T picking up the Pre when it becomes available. As to when the “available” means that is yet to be decided but we have been hearing conflicting reports that this refers to the end of 2009.

At any rate this is gearing up to be pretty big because we already know AT&T will have first dibs on the EOS (Castle) coming the second half of this year. What we’re interested in seeing is waltzing into an AT&T store and see the Pre at one end and the iPhone at the other giving each other the silent treatment with AT&T reps busily trying to work around the awkward silence.

VIA: WSJ

Palm EOS (Castle) coming to AT&T

Well it seems like that rumor and “leaked” image of the Palm EOS (Castle) was true after all. Turns out the phone is 100% live and well and from the looks of things, will be the second phone from Palm to run their new webOS. That said, we know for sure that it is coming to AT&T and the date is scheduled for the second half of 2009.

Some of the features include 4GB of user space (3.75GB available), removable 1150 mAh battery (same as the Palm Pre) which gives 4 hours of 3G talk time, email: POP3, IMAP4 and EAS support, SMS and MMS (picture and video only), integrated IM client which supports AOL, Google Talk, Yahoo and Window’s Live through IMPS, Contact Sync with AT&T Address Book and AT&T Navigator, Yellowpages.com application, MediaNet (AT&T Mail and cellular video), 2MP fixed focus camera with flash and video capture support, USB 2.0 via microUSB, Bluetooth 2.1 wA2DP and EDR, A-GPS: SUPL and Control Plane support, Audio: EAV, MP3, AAC and AAC+ ringtones, Video playback: MPEG4, H.264 and H.283.

So all we have to do now is wait until more info rolls out from AT&T and or Palm, or until someone captures this phone and brings it into the world. Either way we’ll be happy.

VIA: Engadget!

Palm Pre and Apple iPhone comparison (click image to make bigger)

We always knew that Apple or AT&T would take kindly to Palm and Sprint improving on an already great design. We’ll be honest, there are a lot of similarities between both devices, and although the iPhone does have some advantages over the Pre (namely access to CPU core by SDK), AT&T forgot to mention some of the strong advantages of the Pre (which is natural for PR bulls***).

So after you have checked out the comparison chart above, check out some of the major things the iPhone is lacking that the Pre has.

1. iPone lacks video recording, Palm Pre does not.
2. Palm Pre is on a faster network then the iPhone (this of course is debateable).
3. Palm Pre unlike the iPhone allows multitasking with multiple apps opened at once.
4. Palm Pre (at least in pre tests) has a faster browser.
5. Full QWERTY keyboard (essential for email and document editing)
6. Palm Pre has a wireless TouchStone charger…which the iPhone lacks.

We could come up with more but we’ll leave it at that until the Pre is released next month…..hopefully.

We’re not sure what to make of this, but it would appear that Telefonica’s Movistar (the guys who operate O2 in the UK) has scored a deal with Palm to carry the Pre not only in the UK but also Latin and South America? We’re guessing Carlos Slim and Vodafone is pretty pissed about this latest development as the latter has placed a locked grip on the Blackberry Storm for most of Europe.

What strikes as a even more strange is the fact that Latin America operates off the same 3G bands as N. America (800 & 1900MHz). Could this mean that AT&T users might be able to purchase unlocked Pre’s for their talking pleasure? We wouldn’t hold our breath for it, but its a cool thought none the less.

VIA: Palm InfoCenter