Palm Pre Getting May Release?
It looks like that's true. According to a report, the Sprint-exclusive Palm Pre is coming in May. Brighthand reported that Sprint informed employees who work in its retail stores that they will be given no vacation time in May, as the Pre is expected to be released on May 17. The report indicates that Sprint is blacking out vacation time for retail employees because of the Pre launch, which is expected to be the biggest device launch for Sprint this year.
In addition, Brighthand noted, if problems arise for before the May launch date, the Pre release is expected to be pushed to June 29, which would coincide with Palm's self-imposed deadline to have the smartphone on store shelves.
The Palm Pre is Palm's answer to the Apple iPhone 3G and other touch-screen titans like the BlackBerry Storm. Palm has also turned to the Pre for salvation, hoping the smartphone will help pull it out of slumping revenue and dramatic quarterly losses at it tries to reclaim footing in the smartphone market that years ago it helped establish.
The Pre, a small and slick smartphone, represents the first Palm device to run the new webOS operating system. The 3G device offers a large 3.1-inch touch screen with a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The device also uses Palm Synergy, which converges contacts into a single address book from various sources such as Gmail, Outlook and Facebook. Another cornerstone of the Pre is the ability to run several applications simultaneously, without making users log out of one application to work in another.
The Pre also ties together Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, 8 GB of memory and a 3.0-megapixel camera with an LED flash.
A May release date for the Palm Pre would put it squarely in the eye of a spring and summer smartphone showdown against other key device makers. Rumors indicate that BlackBerry maker Research In Motion will release the BlackBerry Niagara this spring, while a new Apple iPhone is also expected to hit the market, as soon as Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference arrives in June.
While it appears the Palm Pre will be available in May, neither Sprint nor Palm have revealed how much the smartphone will cost. Last month, however, the two companies did offer insight into service plans that will be available for the device.
