The European Palm Pre is definitely coming, but which carrier and when is the release date? To start to pin that down, we present a little old, a little new, and try not to leave you a little blue.
Pierre lets us know that the Palm France page on the Pre has recently switched over from "Information mode" to "register to be notified about the release date" mode, which we take to be a good sign. So perhaps our earlier "End of the year" estimates were a little pessimistic. The Pre spotting in the London tube also backs up a 'sooner rather than later' guess.
So we don't have an exact guess at the date but Fall seems likely. Now: which carrier? That picture is quite a bit muddier. When we had our hands-on with the GSM Palm Pre in February, the SIM card and service were most definitely Vodafone. More recently, however, we've been hearing that Vodafone won't be the carrier from a few sources. One of them is Conor, who points us to this Vodafone Ireland forum post, where an moderator says no-go for the Pre on Vodafone in Ireland.
As Conor notes - if it ain't Vodafone it's most likely going to be O2 Ireland. If it's O2 Ireland, O2 / Telefonica should be carrying it over the rest of their network. All of which goes against our gut instinct that Palm would be leveraging their long-standing relationship with Vodafone, but there it is.
Ah Rumors, we know you treat us bad, but we can't stay mad at you.
Thanks to Conor and Pierre for the tips!
Comments
I think BT Cellnet will make a striking comeback and sell it in the UK :)
That cool and nice, but I wand a Pre with a SIM or SD card!!
Since this is europe we're talking about, the question isn't "which carrier?", but "which carriers?".
T-Mobile has a VERY good deal on the Iphone in the Netherlands, so I hope they will get the Pre too and make it available with the same contract and price. but according to old rumors, vodafone will be the Dutch carrier for the pre.
All European Websites have been updated.
The german site hasn't changed since app. 3 month.
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