O2 UK will get Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus on May 28, skin you alive with pricing
By Vlad Savov 
posted May 19th 2010 5:48AM
posted May 19th 2010 5:48AM
[Thanks, Chris W.]
Palm, Inc. today announced that the Palm® Pre™ Plus and Palm Pixi™ Plus phones will be available in the UK on O2 from 28 May. They will be available from free in all O2 stores and online at www.o2.co.uk.
"We are excited to bring Pre Plus and Pixi Plus to the market for O2 customers," said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. "With the choice of these two new Palm webOS phones, customers across the UK can stay connected, so they never miss a thing."
With a slider keyboard, a large touchscreen and a high-performance processor, Pre Plus is Palm's full-featured Palm webOS™ phone. It's designed for people who want an easy-to-use phone with advanced features to help manage the different aspects of their lives, both personal and professional. The keyboard makes for quick and easy typing, while the unique gesture area provides a sleek look and intuitive navigation. Customers also get 16GB(1) of storage (~15GB user available) for applications and media. Pre Plus comes with the Palm Touchstone™ Back Cover, so it's compatible out of the box with the revolutionary inductive Touchstone Charging Dock (sold separately).
As Palm's thinnest phone to date, Pixi Plus fits easily in your hand or pocket and offers a host of powerful features. It's great for social communicators and first-time smartphone buyers who want an affordable phone with a full QWERTY keyboard instantly accessible for messaging and web content. With the color Palm Pixi Touchstone Back Covers and the Palm Pixi Artist Series Back Covers, which are compatible with the Touchstone Charging Dock, you can easily switch covers to suit your mood and style (all will be sold separately at www.palm.com/uk).
with these contract prices I don't see me getting in on smartphones for a while yet.
@mark29
There are lots of smartphones on cheaper contracts on the other networks. The downside is you're pretty much forced into 2 year contracts now.
@Tes yes but engadget has warped my mind on what an acceptable smartphone is, anything less than a pre plus or desire makes you think why bother
@Tes For my uses, I prefer to buy smartphones unlocked from Expansys. Prepaid works for me just fine, as I do NOT want to be fixed into a 2 year contract.
@Tes The 2 year contract something we unfortunately inherited from the Americans... I remember when the longest was 18 months and the average was 12
@rob47
Even Tmobile have stopped doing 12mth contracts now. Fuck em, i buy my handsets sim free now, cheaper anyway.
At this price, its going to be more pain for Palm.
good phones but kinda old
@account5 So is the iPhone 3GS and the Motorola Droid. Pre Plus launched this year January. 3GS last year in June and Droid in November.
@ToniCipriani
I know but the pre plus is basically a pre with tiny updates
@account5 And the Pre in June last year. Same time as the 3GS.
@ToniCipriani
"old" or not, I'm lovin my AT&T Pre Plus. I couldn't help myself since I've wanted one since the original came out.
I just works.
Its a lot like the old sprint sero plan.... man i miss the $30/month... dang expensive iphone...
How much are they paying people to take them?
-and are they providing a replacement straight away, or does the first one have to break first?
Where are the steep prices?
$35/mo for unlimited data and text and 100 minutes of talk?? Or $42/mo for the same plan with 300 minutes??
That sounds about perfect and a hell of a lot cheaper than that would cost here in the US. That's about what I am paying now with NO data plan and about 300 txts a month.
As usual, the US consumer gets screwed.
@Hazdaz
Lol, you should try living here in the UK. Yes our phone market is probably better than the US but on practically everything else we get stung big time. Most consumer electronics are brought over with dollar for pound exchange rate which often makes our products at least 1.5 times the price of the US version! I was in Hawaii last summer and I was gobsmacked by how cheap clothes were compared to the UK. I bought a tshirt (a UK owned brand too) and it cost me around half of what it cost here in the UK. I also am aware of a situation a few years ago where it was cheaper to buy a bicycle Manufactured in the UK from The US even after having paid shipping and taxes!
@Hazdaz Yeah. For that or the iPhone on AT&T, the starting price is $90/mo.
@Hazdaz
These ARE expensive plans. For example, costs more than a HTC Desire. You also need to add in the initial cost of the phone here, which isn't cheap.
@Hazdaz
Verizon Wireless makes a 45% profit margin. The U.S. cell phone carriers are huge ripoffs. I'm amazed that all those people with iPhones pay $90 a month and think this is a good value.
Luckily there are some sane prices coming into the market with Metro PCS, Virgin Mobile, etc but then you are limited to lame phones. Nothing using WebOS or Andriod.
@Hmm
Right in the chart above it states that the Pre is 100 pounds for the cheapest plan and 50 for the 30-pound plan... after which it is free. That is the same price as it is with AT&T, but on this side of the Atlantic, you get the "privilege" of spending $70/mo. That's the cheapest rate and doesn't even include a txt plan and has only 450 minutes of talk. That's almost 50-pounds.
An unlimited everything plan with AT&T runs an absurd $120 which is about 82-pounds each and every month.
Oh yeah, and there is no option to buy your own phone here in the US except for T-Mobile. We had to leave it to a German-owned phone company to come up with something as reasonable as that.
@Hazdaz
I guess we get a better deal in comparison to the US, but my point is it should be a competitive option in the UK as well. I really wanted the Palm Pre Plus for ages now.. but now the pricing has been released, I'm not so certain. I'm hoping if Vodafone release this, the price won't be too much more.
@Hazdaz Yeah phone deals tend to be better in the UK I think it's probably due to population density so the networks don't need as many masts to have good coverage. But the pricing of this phone is almost exactly the same as the 3GS so it's not enticing enough to get customers to switch.
I agree with what's been already said. O2 here in England is not exactly the best carrier when it come to 3G and at the prices listed you can get better handsets for less. They are gonna have to drop handset costs to 'Free' on some tariffs plus throw in more minutes/texts to really compete.
Can we finally unlock this bloody phone then, someone please advise ??
@Diesel1313 Yes you can: http://forums.precentral.net/gsm-pre/239760-finaly-unlocked-my-pre.html
SFR and AT&T units both confirmed to work, this should as well.
Oh and or buy it factory unlocked as carphone warehouse cater to this usually.
What reasons are there for buying one of these instead of an HTC Android handset or iPhone HD?
@Joanna D
physical keyboard, elegant UI, true multitasking, home-brew community, mobile hot-spot, and other matters of preference
@Joanna D
WebOS!
As usual, O2's prices are high to get on to their poor network. The only UK mobile phone network that offers two speeds of service - London and the rest.
@Joanna D
Very True, Lol. I have to turn 3G off just to get a signal.
@Joanna D Buy then unlock... Then use on any network to your heart's content.
@Joanna D
Very true, my brother is on O2 and can barely make calls.
Now im worried about the Mini 5 being an O2 exclusive, hopefully we can buy sim free from Dell cos i aint giving O2 my money.
The £25 contract without the phone would cost about £15. So the phone costs £340. Sounds about right. It saddens me that engadget still don't understand how phone contracts work...
I'm with Hazdaz, 25 pounds per month for unlimited text and data? That sounds pretty cheap to me, am I missing something? Sure it's only 100 minutes, but I don't even use that much in a month. I'm forced to pay for a voice plan that has 450 minutes, plus $20 for unlimited data, plus $20 for unlimited text messages. If that's the whole story, I guess we still got the whole cheap fuel thing going for us here in the States lol.
@duffman55
I'm not sure about US contracts but that is very expensive (£25=roughly $37).
To put this into perspective, I recently got a free HTC Desire on a 18 month contract with 300min, unlimited texts and data for £25 a month. I can't understand why someone would pay this much for these phones unfortunately, which is sad as WebOS is great.
@asnozz Thanks for your reply. I suppose cell phone plans here are truly overpriced. For example, after signing a two year contract and paying $200-$300 for an iPhone 3GS through AT&T, the minimum plan is USD$40/month (~28 pounds) for 450 minutes, plus a required $30/month (~21 pounds) for unlimited data. Unlimited texting is $20/month (~14 pounds) on top of that. There are some cheaper carriers out there, however.
@duffman55 And the cheapest plan in the US that can run a Pre is Sprint's Everything Data 450, IIRC.
450 minutes, unlimited text and data.
How much? $70. So, nearly 48 GBP per month, on a 2 year contract... and you still have to pay $100 for the phone, or $50 if it's a Pixi.
@bhtooefr
I suppose you have to take into account population density.
Carriers in the US must have much high overheads due to how spread out people are and the sheer size of the country. Plus they may also be shafting you guys....
@asnozz
Also the fact you have both CDMA and GSM carriers may come into play, as competition won't be as good (people can't switch so easily etc.).
@asnozz Haha, I was just thinking about the lower population density in the US being part of the higher cost before I read your comment. I still think part of it is the carriers taking advantage of us. The cost of living here is much less than in the UK, which allows the cellular carriers to get away with charging more for their service. In addition to the GSM/CDMA phones making it difficult to switch carriers as you mentioned, there are a lot of locked phones that won't work on another compatible carrier without some extra effort (e.g. jailbreaking on the iPhone). Not to mention that in order to pay a sane price for a phone, one essentially needs to sign a two year contract.
you really have to wonder if O2 really want to compete any more, vodafone and the new mega network are gonna wipe the floor with them especially as you can't get 3g never mind hsdpa in the centre of london.
I paid £35 a month on 2 years to get the original Pre on o2 so Im not all that suprised by the price of the Pre Plus, but I would have expected the Pixi Plus to be cheaper.
With Sprint and Bell and possibly other carriers having trouble selling the Pre why are other carriers still jumping on board? Presigned agreements?
I know WebOS is amazing and all so I'm not attacking it, but more the aging hardware, lack of momentum, etc.
To all readers...I need some much needed gadget advice.
My iPhone contract on O2 is expiring end of June and I'm not sure whether to wait for the next iPhone or go for the Pre Plus. Is WebOS a good substitute? Please advise! Thanks.
@Ignition1 I obviously can't speak for iPhone OS4, but WebOS is most definitely better than iPhone OS3.
At the moment my Pre is being fixed (The only way in which the iPhone beats the Pre, in my opinion is in build quality, and by quite a long way), and going back to my old iPhone 2G feels like going back in time a bit.
I really miss being able to have more than one card open. Although multitasking on a phone always seemed stupid to me, when it is taken away from you, it kind of feels very natural on the pre.
@Maxwell Yeah multi-tasking doesn't appeal much to me right now, but I'm sure I'd find uses for it. So is the Pre good at GPS etc? What maps software does it use? Does it have a compass which is integrated into the maps (like the 3GS)?
Thanks again!
@Ignition1 Yeah, it didn't really appeal to me either, until I started using it. Even if it is just reading engadget whilst waiting for a large file or page to load.
The maps is Google Maps, and is OK. GPS seems to be reasonably accurate, although I don't have any other phone to compare to, it finds satellites faster than my old Garmin eTrex, although it isn't as accurate (Although fine for navigating around roads, I had trouble finding a Micro Geocache, although it was also under tree cover).
No compass, which is a slight annoyance, as I do think that all of the augmented reality things on the 3GS look cool, but I haven't found it to be a major issue. One annoying thing is that there doesn't seem to be any turn by turn navigation apps, which would be really cool, but maybe they will come one day.
Overall though, WebOS is excellent, like really good, but the hardware is only okish.
(I mentioned that mine was being fixed, the front screen became wobbly. It does have a 2 year warranty though, although I'm not sure how Palm being bought by HP will affect that)
In case anyone is actually interested you can get the HTC Desire from O2 free on the £35/month 18 month contract, apparently they're price matching Carphone Warehouse.
300 Mins, Unlimited Txt and Unlimited Internet + Wifi, good deal, shame about the 3G coverage though!
No wonder palm is down the toilet.
@Johnny Ive So is your head.