Nearly four months since the initial “in the coming months” Pre 2 announcement, the long-delayed Verizon Pre 2 will finally hits the market today, February 10th.

This quiet bit of news, straight from the mouth of Jon Rubinstein via yesterdays webOS event, is especially ironic considering that the long-awaited iPhone 4 hits Verizon stores on the exact same day. No word as of yet on pricing but last week’s reported $100 on 2-yr contract figure seems to be just about right. It’s unclear whether or not the free wi-fi hotspot feature found on the existing Pre Plus and Pixi Plus will be maintained with the Pre 2.

Read the full story on Palm Info Center

Related articles

• No Web OS 2.0 for Palm Pre, Pixi, or Plus devices (venturebeat.com)

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“I coulda been a contender,” said Brando’s character, Terry, a washed-up boxer, lamenting his fate.

Compare that to what Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein said Thursday during his company’s third-quarter results call with analysts:

“If we could have launched at Verizon prior to the Droid, I think we would have gotten the attention the Droid got. And since I believe we have a better product, I think we could have even done better,” Rubinstein said.

Yes, except for that Verizon problem, Palm’s CEO thinks his company “coulda been a contender.”

Of course, customers have decided that Palm doesn’t make a better product, and they made that decision well before the Droid burst onto the market last October. By then, the Pre had been on the market for four months.

CNNMoney.com took note of the company’s plight in a headline that sums up my opinion, too: “Palm’s new price target: $0.”

“Palm’s future already looked bleak,” the financial news site commented. “But after reporting worse than expected results for the third quarter Thursday, some analysts think the company’s stock is now essentially worthless.”

Read the full story on ARN

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• Palm: We coulda been a contender (mobilecrunch.com)

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To spur sales of the Palm Pixi Plus, Verizon has discounted the Palm Pixi Plus by $20 to $79.99 online.

Source: Phone News

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Forget moms, let’s talk software! With Valentine’s Day in the past, Verizon has now turned their attention and considerable marketing muscle to advertising the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus they way they’re meant to be advertised: as feature-packed smartphones. In 30 seconds time Big Red manages to cover more than Palm managed in their entire series of launch commercials.

Source: Pre Central

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Palm has seen only “modest” sell through so far for the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus at Verizon Wireless, according to Piper Jaffray analyst T. Michael Walkley. The analyst, who has an Overweight rating on the shares, writes that he is “slightly disappointed” with initial Palm sales at Verizon, but contends that a more aggressive media campaign from Verizon and Palm should bolster demand.

Walkley says the company is on track to meet his forecast of 1 million Web OS-based phones in the February quarter. To hit his 1.5 million unit goal for the May quarter, he says, will require “ramping sell-through trends at Verizon.”

Source: Barrons

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Mobilitysite got the Palm Pre Plus and the Palm Pixi Plus from Verizon a couple days ago, and here is the highlights from their first impressions:

Starting with the Pre Plus, first thing I have to say is the build quality is a lot better. I had quite a few problems with the Sprint Palm Pre, and it’s all fixed now on the Pre Plus. Slider is solid, no creaks, everything is solid. I like the new front without the button, looks a lot cleaner, and the gesture area works just as well without the button. Keyboard has improved a little bit, still no where close to the Pixi Plus though. Verizon has been solid here, although I would lose EV-DO every once in a while. That could be related to the Pre Plus itself, because the Pixi Plus didn’t have that problem at all. So far, my main concern with the Pre Plus is battery life. I can barely make it through a day with moderate use.

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Pre Central reports two bugs with the Verizon Palm Pre Plus:

• When WiFi is on, MMS messages aren’t able to be sent. It looks as though the issue is that MMS message need to go through Verizon’s EVDO network, but the Pre Plus is attempting to send them over WiFi. This isn’t an issue for Sprint users thus far. The good news is that there is an easy workaround: just turn off WiFi before you attempt to send an MMS message.
• it’s starting to look like there is a fairly serious issue with GPS on Verizon Palm Pre Plus devices. The concern is that full, tower-assisted AGPS is only working for VZ Navigator and not other apps. A workaround that seems to help some comes from m0sim: open VZ Navigator (even if you haven’t purchased it on your plan) before using GPS on other apps. GPS is a finicky feature, so diagnosing exactly what’s happening here is going to take some time.

Add new tag · Multimedia Messaging Service · PalmPre · Sprint · Sprint Nextel · Verizon Communications · Verizon Palm Pre Plus · VZ Navigator · Wi-Fi

Doubled RAM inside Palm’s refreshed iPhone fighter allows it to run 50 apps at a time, and even then it hasn’t hit the wall.

You could be forgiven for passing over the extra RAM in Palm’s recently announced Pre Plus as pretty dry news, but apparently a few extra megabytes here and there can make a pretty huge real-world difference. More specifically, the Verizon-bound Palm Pre Plus can run 50 applications simultaneously.

Read the full story on Digital Trends.

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4/5 in Cnet:

The Palm Pre Plus earns its place as the top WebOS device, improving on the Pre with a better design and performance, and upgraded features. Verizon customers looking for a versatile smartphone to balance their personal and work lives will be well-served by the Pre Plus.

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Pre Central has a review of the Palm Pre Plus:

There has been some concern amongst Palm fans that there isn’t enough differentiation between the Palm Pre Plus and the Palm Pixi Plus, since both have WiFi now. Let me put that to rest: compared to the Pixi, the Palm Pre Plus has twice the RAM, twice the storage, a bigger, brighter screen, and a faster processor. It’s the flagship and if you’re anything close to a power user, well worth the extra $50.

The Palm Pre Plus is the flagship for Palm, then, but can it legitimately be called a flagship for Verizon? Almost, but not quite yet. The key is Mobile Hotspot, which is awesome and one of the best reasons for recommending the Palm Pre Plus to a business user. Palm already has pretty decent push email and Exchange support – all they need now is full Document editing (and perhaps some battery life improvement) to make the case that the Palm Pre Plus is amongst the best business smartphones on the market.

Would I recommend a current Sprint Palm Pre user switch – probably not. The increased performance, storage, and Mobile Hotspot are all compelling (and are compelling enough to make me switch), but for most people I go back my default advice: pick your carrier first, your phone second.

The Palm Pre Plus upgrades the Palm Pre in almost all the right places and has a bright future with new features coming via software updates. It’s a cliché to say this, but: the Palm Pre Plus is the best phone Palm has ever made. That’s exactly how it should be and it’s gratifying that we can expect this kind of quality from Palm now. Let’s just hope that it’s enough to keep them in the smartphone game for years to come.

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