GSM Palm Pre spotted with Vodafone SIM card
By Ross Miller 
posted February 16th 2009 7:20AM
posted February 16th 2009 7:20AM
posted February 16th 2009 7:20AM
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Why would they have an exclusive carrier? Palm want to sell as many as possible surely...
Every major carrier has its own flagship phone that is exclusive to it, which they throw marketing money at like theres no tomorrow...
O2 has the iPhone, T-Mobile the G1, Vodaphone has the BBerry Storm, and I think Orange has the Touch HD, but I may be wrong there.
I think exclusivity deals are good for the carrier and the manufacturer, because if the phone is good enough people will switch over, and the manufacturers barely even have to market the product. Everybody wins (apart from the consumers, but we never win...).
Exclusive deal means more advertising from the carrier, which it turn means less money that Palm has to spend on advertising.
The only real exclusive in the UK is the iphone. Most other 'exclusives' are changes in colour.
The Palm Pro is Vodafone exclusive.
The Vodafone forum had a comment from a Vodafone employee a month or so ago saying that they had been laying with a Palm Pre in the office and that we should all keep an eye on the "coming soon" section on the website.
Or rather they had been *playing with it - I don't think they liked it THAT much.
i really hope it dosn't turn out to be a vodafone exclusive cos there's no way i'd leave o2 for shitty vodafone.
soon 160 comments only for Palm Pre™, wow
Isn't it NICE that the Palm enthusiasts have something to actually have enthusiasm about for the first time in many years?
I've never been a big fan of Palm but I'm quite interested in the Pre. I would definitely have to change carriers to get it though because there's no way 3UK would pick this up.
Well spotted, engadget, well spotted!!!
Makes sense... after being "jilted" by Apple in the failed iPhone negotiations, Vodafone would definitely not want to miss out on potentially the best handset competitor to the former, which has seen them hemorrhaging subscribers all over Europe to the iPhone-exclusive carriers.
If Vodafone have got it, the European Pre will be launched with uglified icons. That seems to be Vodafone's favourite thing to do - take nice icons and hit them with an ugly stick until they look like C64 compatible.
That was mean! :D
I've been on Vodafone since I started buying mobile phones and they are the best in the UK. Oh and some one said something about ugly icons. Its worth noting that they are just themes. Vodafone puts there own theme one every phone but stash the original and others in the them section. They didn't for BB storm though.
That sucks, i wont get a vodafone locked phone because like said before they change always things for the worse. It means also an unlocked unbranded pre will arrive maybe after summer to Europe.
Sorry Palm you doing your best again to screw it up. If you want Europe to be an important market for Palm then you will fail again this way.
Competition will be one step ahead of Palm.
The GSM Pre is going to be the worst. I mean, they couldn't fit a microSD in the CDMA because it would have made the phone too big so I can't imagine how huge and crappy this phone is now with a SIM card that's probably twice the size of the microSD!!
The horror!!
While I appreciate the sarcasm, a SIM slot is actually 6 wires on the motherboard and a hole in the plastic. It's not ment for frequent removal.
GSM vs CDMA space occupation for electronic components is not any different. If any GSM takes less space because the technology is used by the whole world and there is infinitely more demand for GSM handsets over CDMA ones, pushing manufacturers to reduce the footprint of the SIM tray etc.
Of course I could love to have a nice accessible microSD slot on the outside (like most other Palms), but I would even settle for a hidden behind-the-battery microSD slot. I just want the storage.
It seems like they are really checking off some of the iPhone deficiencies and I think that this would be a nice one to add to that list.
@ Jonathan
I don't know where you and a lot of people get your info about technology on mobile phones, but you are SOOOOOO WRONG!!! did you know CDMA phones use a SIM card too??????? first do a little research before trumpeting something.
Vodafone is the devil *g*
No, they're not, but they only discover that you're a "valued customer" once you leave them for someone with better prices. The good thing about Europe in terms of cellphones is that we're not as early bronze-era as the US of A. There is very little need to tie yourself to one provider only to avoid those precious X-Files "NO SIGNAL" moments. We have coverage, thank you very much. Whenever I see an "exclusive" deal done here, I instantly decide both the maker of the phone and the provider can go have themselves, as "exclusive" here means you pay more, much more, for a dubious privilege. "Exclusive" gets you the kind of shameless customer milking you see here (Germany) with T-Mobile and the iPhone. Once you compare say UK iPhone tariffs to Germany, you see that the latter — which you know already are quite expensive — border on the obscene. I sure hope Palm doesn't go down that road in Europe. Because I want that phone that is, but I don't want to feel raped each and every time the bill arrives.
So it sounds like it will a pain for me to import an unlocked GSM version to the USA because we are getting the CDMA version here on Sprint.
Can somebody just clear things up for me...
So lets say it goes to Vodofone in Europe. And let's say I could unlock it and bring it to North America (I'm in Canada, although I don't think it matters between Canada and US). So my understanding is that the phone would work, it just wouldn't get 3G?
Am I getting this right? Is there a cell frequencies for dummies? I would prefer to stay with GSM, but I will make the move to Bell (CDMA) if I have to.
Ya but Sprint's Pre won't work on Bell's network. So you might as well just wait to see who gets the Pre up here, Rogers/Fido or Bell/Telus.
This is simply wonderful, wonderful news. Why? Well, for us Americans, it means that there's already a UMTS/GSM Pre out there that just has to be "tuned" for our frequencies. Let's just hope that AT&T doesn't ruin it.
If Vodafone get this phone exclusively I'm going to actually scream. Probably down my phone, at someone who works for Vodafone.
I have the same question as someone above.
If Vodafone does get the Pre, will it be possible to unlock it or w/e and import it to the USA? I've got AT&T and am hoping I'll be able to grab the Pre without going over to Sprint.
I'm sure there will be some enterprising folk on eBay etc who will be willing to sell you one. Though probably at vastly inflated prices, just like the iPhone really...