China Telecom launching Palm Pre, BlackBerry handsets this summer

We've been hearing that China Telecom would be grabbing hold of Palm and RIM's respective stables of smartphones since early last year, but at long last we've some official quotes to prove those whispers correct. According to a new report over at the Wall Street Journal, Chairman and Chief Executive Wang Xiaochu has affirmed that it will offer an undisclosed amount of BlackBerry devices in China this May, while Palm's Pre (no word on the Pixi) will hit this July. These deals could certainly bode well for the carrier; as it stands, it's going up against China Mobile -- which already sells BlackBerry handsets -- and China Unicom, which is home to Apple's iPhone. Unfortunately, pricing details weren't available, but we're guessing those will pop sooner rather than later.

[HardTimesGuy Posted Mar 24th 2010 2:42AM]

Dammit, that creepy lady will now haunt my dreams! Why did I have to refresh the page before getting off the computer?!

[Blackstar Posted Mar 24th 2010 9:33AM]

@HardTimesGuy

China Telecom launching Palm Pre, BlackBerry handsets this summer.
China Telecom discontinues Palm Pre, BlackBerry handsets this winter.
China bans creepy-lady ads.

[MosesusedaniPad Posted Mar 24th 2010 11:52AM]

@HardTimesGuy

Hey, it's Miss Creepy. I'm not saying I wouldn't do her, but she's definitely not my first or even second choice. If they'd used Yoona then they might have been able to sell some Pres.

[Plothole Posted Mar 24th 2010 2:48AM]

It's like she is staring into my soul. O_o

[Kaitou KID Posted Mar 24th 2010 2:58AM]

@Plothole this is precisely why I cleverly just do not have a soul.

[MastrCake Posted Mar 24th 2010 3:20AM]

@Plothole

You know? When that creepy alien lady actually talked during the ads, it was creepy. But in later ads, when she never talked and simply smiled to the camera after performing a function, I honestly thought she was staring into my soul.

It's worse when there's no voiceovers.

[Shoemeister Posted Mar 24th 2010 2:48AM]

That girls is the sole reason Palm is failing. She weirded everyone the fuck out.

[Kaitou KID Posted Mar 24th 2010 3:00AM]

@Shoemeister seriously, i saw this ad and I was embarrassed for palm. a few of my friends have pres and webOS is solid...i want palm to succeed, but palm how can i stop you from taking a shotgun and blowing off a leg? marketing is important

[aaronaut Posted Mar 24th 2010 3:24AM]

@Kaitou KID she still looks like macaulay culkin

[Kaitou KID Posted Mar 24th 2010 3:48AM]

@aaronaut i have to uprank your comment

[sfox8 Posted Mar 24th 2010 4:49AM]

@Shoemeister
Am I the only one who never understood what was so creepy about the Pre ads? I mean yeah, her speech and overly-dramatic pauses are a bit awkward but is it really that bad? I actually thought the Flow ad was awesome.

[sfox8 Posted Mar 24th 2010 4:56AM]

@Shoemeister
Am I the only one who never understood what was so creepy about the Pre ads? I mean yeah, her speech and overly-dramatic pauses are a bit awkward but is it really that bad? I actually thought the Flow ad was awesome.

[jarek Posted Mar 24th 2010 8:00AM]

@sfox8 Nah, I thought it was fine too. A bit on the creepy spaced-out side, sure, but I'm not going to let one ad overwhelm my opinion of a device.

And I still think the photoshop accompanying Pre-in-China articles is one of engadget's the greatest photoshops.

[nooruls143 Posted Mar 24th 2010 2:50AM]

No need for chinese to go to carrier shops to buy smart phones. They can get it from their factories where they work cuz they built it anyway

[Kaitou KID Posted Mar 24th 2010 2:59AM]

@nooruls143 yeah this makes sense.

not

[DDragon Posted Mar 24th 2010 2:54AM]

Chinese character support? Please let this mean Palm will be coming to Japan soon. (Japanese uses Chinese characters)

[Valicore Posted Mar 24th 2010 2:54AM]

What is with that chick? It reminds me of the ending of Vanilla Sky. Not the best association. The Chinese are gonna be asking why Palm is using a white woman's ghost to advertise.

[ColonelKernel Posted Mar 24th 2010 3:07AM]

Okay gang, I'm here to help. Whenever you see Tamara Hope like she is above, think of this image instead: http://bit.ly/bRYvdc

You're welcome.

[trwrt Posted Mar 24th 2010 3:33AM]

@ColonelKernel : That's what she could have looked like in the ad? OK, now somebody at Palm definitely needs to be punched.

[kitsune Posted Mar 24th 2010 1:17PM]

@ColonelKernel
She doesn't even look like the same person, why did Palm want to disguise her into this?

[Bratan Posted Mar 24th 2010 1:53PM]

@ColonelKernel
Holy.... I can't believe this is the same person... Palm fail..

[Extinction Posted Mar 24th 2010 3:14AM]

Isnt she the Borg queen?

[nooruls143 Posted Mar 24th 2010 3:47AM]

I ll fly to beijing and buy 200 phones if they give her to me ;)

[AlexSanchez Posted Mar 24th 2010 3:53AM]

SUPASONIC

[AlienSix Posted Mar 24th 2010 5:01AM]

@AlexSanchez Still in a daze from that

[bigcow05 Posted Mar 24th 2010 6:05AM]

It's not just the lady; she is actually quite attractive. The lighting, makeup, and Photoshop trees just aren't appealing. Not to mention they don't say anything relevant about the phone.

Kind of like how my comment doesn't say anything relevant about the post.

[Freakin Ijit Posted Mar 24th 2010 6:08AM]

So let's see - if Palm has 0.7% (high-ball estimate) of the smartphone market, we can extrapolate how much of China Telecom's smatrphone business Palm is going to get!

Uh...China Telecom has,as of the end of December, 56 million wireless subscribers of which 3 or 4 million are 3G (smartphone) subscribers.

So that means Palm gets to sell about 30,000 more Pres!

Alright!

[Freakin Ijit Posted Mar 24th 2010 6:18AM]

Hold on there - that 0.7% (or 0.3% depending on source) is total marketshare - my bad.

Palm has 6% of the smartphone market, therefore Palm will sell NOT 30,000 more Pres but a quarter million more Pres!

Hmmm...pretty much the same thing...

[hmmwv Posted Mar 24th 2010 10:28AM]

@Freakin Ijit Which would be pretty nice considering how much trouble they are in right now.

[dsudmdh Posted Mar 24th 2010 7:49AM]

Good one

[pvillegeek Posted Mar 24th 2010 10:39AM]

If that picture supposed to be Macauly Culkin in drag? http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/files/macaulay-culkin.jpg

[zeroinfinity2 Posted Mar 24th 2010 10:57AM]

why engadget did you have to use a picture of the freakishly creepy pre girl?

couldn't we have used the verizon soccer mom instead?

[rhackin Posted Mar 24th 2010 12:16PM]

@zeroinfinity2

The only thing worse than the creepy palm girl is the VZN soccer mom.

[doutorpiranha Posted Mar 24th 2010 12:15PM]

Hello Miss Fail.

Greets on ruining the best phone/os platform there is.

[rhackin Posted Mar 24th 2010 12:16PM]

MY EYES, put on some makeup!