Sprint Drops the Palm Pre to $150... for Real

Earlier rumors have proved correct: Sprint's price for the Palm Pre has just dropped by $50. This is the first reduction in the cost of this WebOS-based smartphone since it debuted early this summer.

The Pre has sold for $200 with a two-year contract and mail-in rebate since it hit the market in June. That price has now been reduced to $150 with contract and MIR.

Sprint has generally kept quiet about how well the this smartphone is selling, but many analysts believe it's not doing quite as well as this carrier had hoped. This price reduction might be intended to bump up sales.

An Overview of the Palm Pre and the webOS
The Palm Pre uses Palm's webOS, the replacement for the venerable Palm OS. This is a new, multi-tasking operating system able to wirelessly synchronize a wide variety of data with online services like Google and Facebook, as well as Microsoft Exchange.

The Pre itself features a sliding keyboard as well as a multi-touch-capable 3.1-inch display. This device is also equipped with 8 GB of on-board storage (7 GB available to users), Wi-Fi b/g, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, and a 3.0 megapixel camera with LED flash.

The exclusive U.S. provider of this smartphone is Sprint, who has added its mobile broadband service EV-DO Rev. A. It's also available from Bell Canada, who also uses the CDMA standard, so its version has EV-DO as well.

This device will be released in Europe in time for the holidays. The GSM version for Europe and Latin America is expected to have the 3G standard HSDPA.

Source: Sprint