the Palm Pre Plus is now up against the RIM BlackBerry Bold 9700 in Laptop Magazine’s March Smart Phone Madness contest. Let’s help give Palm some good news to write about and push them into the Final Four.

Source: ZD Net

3.5/5 in PC Magazine:

If you want a powerful Verizon smartphone, but you have nightmares about the Motorola Droid spooking your cattle and setting your house on fire, the Palm Pre Plus is for you. The Pre Plus is the kinder, gentler next-generation smartphone for Verizon, and it’s a great choice for messaging and Web-focused folks.

Conclusion:
With two Droids, two Palms, and all the Blackberrys they can eat, Verizon subscribers can’t whine about their smartphone choices any more. The Palm Pre doesn’t “kill” the Motorola Droid. It presents a cuddlier alternate reality, where color and feel win out over widgets and apps. If you’re into messaging and Web browsing on Verizon, and it seems like the Droid is a little too geeky for you, it’s time to retire that old BlackBerry Pearl and move on up to a Palm Pre Plus. The Palm Pre Plus will be available on January 25 for $249.99, minus a $100 mail-in rebate, with a two-year contract.

Consumer Reports recently released their annual top products list, which had 398 items. The Palm Pre is on the smartphone section. The Pre was given a score of 67, while the first place had a 73.
The low score was taken by the BlackBerry Pearl 8130 on Sprint, with a 59. That puts the Palm Pre right in the middle, which by the way, has the old sticker price of $200. If they had use the newer price, the Pre could have gained some extra points.

[Source: My Pre]

Jim Suva, analyst at Citigroup, expressed his opinion regarding the Motorola Droid and its impact on other handsets’ sales.
According to Jim Suva, Motorola has launched one of the best offerings, referring to the Android 2.0-based Droid. At the same time, this handset could impact in a major manner on other launched devices of the same type. Directly involved could be the Palm Pre and the RIM’s BlackBerry Storm2.
The Droid happens to be very fitted to work with built-in Microsoft Exchange support and benefits from the largest and most aggressive promoting campaign in recent history. Verizon has launched this ad campaign, including a billboard in Times Square, directly targeting the Droid’s most powerful competitor, the iPhone handset from Apple.
Analysts think that Verizon even minimized the importance of another intensively mediated device, the BlackBerry Storm2, by scheduling the presentation of the Droid the same day as the Storm2’s shipping and downplaying the RIM’s phone for the rest of this year.
Citigroup analysts do not think, however, that this dramatic promotion of the Motorola’s Droid would have a significant impact on iPhone’s sales, Apple’s device having earned a solid position on the market.

[Source: HTLounge]