Tue May 19, 2009 7:24 am
Sprint, the nation's third-largest wireless provider, today announced that the highly-anticipated Palm Pre smartphone will launch in stores on June 6 for $200.
The Pre -- which looks like an iPhone but sports a slide-out keyboard in addition to a touch screen -- is seen as Palm's chance of reversing a long slide and taking on newer smartphones like the iPhone and BlackBerry.
The device runs on Palm's new WebOS mobile platform -- bringing together personal and professional calendar, contacts and email into one centralized view.
The smartphone comes with a 3.0-megapixel camera and music and video playback, Wi-Fi connectivity, stereo Bluetooth and GPS, as well as 8GB of storage.
It also has sensors, such as an accelerometer, so images on the display will rotate when users turn it on its side.
Sprint's Chief Executive Dan Hesse said that the company was expecting to have trouble meeting initial demand for the device.
"We don't intend to advertise it heavily early on because we think we are going to have shortages for a while," said Hesse. "We won't be able to keep up with demand for the device in the early period of time."
The Pre will be available in Sprint stores starting June 6 for $200 after a $100 mail-in rebate and a new two-year service agreement.
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