Update #3: In the article below, I'd said that BGR reported that Eldar Murtazin was told by sources that the Palm Pre will launch with a steep price tag of $399. Well, a reader has written in to bring to our attention that "In his LiveJournal entr,y Eldar actually states that subsidized/unsubsidized price in US from Sprint will likely vary from $149/$399 to more hefty yet more likely $199/$499. He explains that the future Apple handset Pre is about to compete with will be even more expensive (iPhone HD in my mind). European price range of $550-600 was named for unsubsidized devices."
Update #2: Forum member roams11 wrote in again this evening to let us know that he found this, a Reuter's mention of a correction to the Scottrade article referencing the Palm Pre's pricing:
Corrects to remove reference to $199 price for the Pre in the fourth paragraph. Palm has not announced pricing for the phone.
So, like roams11 said, it looks like we were not the only ones who noticed the price being mentioned.
Update: TreoCentral forum member roams11 has just let us know that he saw the price of the Palm Pre mentioned at Scottrade as $199. I'm not a member and can't actually login to the article, but roams11 says that the price is mentioned in the 4th paragraph.
This is of course considered a rumor and very UNconfirmed.
So the Palm Pre has been announced and everyone is talking about this revolutionary smartphone. The WebOS sounds great and the UI looks like a dream come true. We know that the Palm Pre that will be exclusive to Sprint for now. But what about the price of the Palm Pre? People were instantly curious as to how much this revolutionary smartphone is going to cost them. During Dieter's TreoCentral live blogging yesterday, there were a crapload of people asking in the comments on the price of the Palm Pre. Palm never mentioned price during the CES event. I believe the closest to anything money/business related was when Sprint's CEO Dan Hesse took the stage and talked about ARPU (average revenue per user).
Many TreoCentral forum members are discussing the possible price of the Palm Pre. In one forum thread, forum member m12x13adass revealed a link to a Gizmodo article that mentions an All Things Digital article
"Palm Unveils Its iPhone Rival: The Pre. Dont Expect to Buy One Cheap" by Peter Kafka.
Kafka notes that the biggest unknown regarding the Palm Pre is price. He said that his assumption is that Palm would try to take market share by pricing the Pre significantly lower than the $200 or so that Apple wants for its iPhone. Kafka ran that theory by Palm's CEO Ed Colligan, and Colligan replied:
Why would we do that when we have a significantly better product?
Kafka said that Colligan walked away after his response.
Well, so far, from what I've seen and read, the Palm Pre does look to be a significantly better product than the iPhone. I haven't held one in my hands and gone through all the apps. I don't know how the phone reception is going to be or how things will turn out with the web based apps. But Palm knows how good it is. They've been working on this for two years. They've brought in some top-notch designers who know what they're doing. And some are from the big competition Apple themselves.
The Centro was a huge success and we all know that Palm could have raked in so much more money if they'd priced it higher. Palm quickly sold over 2 million Centros. The Centro is still my favorite Palm smartphone at the moment and the one that I rely on everyday.
The Boy Genius Report is saying that Eldar Murtazin of Mobile-review was told by sources that the Palm Pre will launch with a steep price tag of $399. BGR also says that regarding the GSM version of the Palm Pre, Murtazin's sources state an early 2H release in Europe at a price of $500-$550 USD.
So, there we know that the Palm Pre is headed for Sprint and to the UK. We have read speculation on how much the Pre is going to cost.
TreoCentral's opinion is that it's pretty clear that Palm wants to price the Palm Pre higher than the iPhone. Our hunch is that it'll be $249-$299 after subsidy.
Well, no matter what it will cost, I just have to say that the Palm Pre is definitely "drool worthy". And I hope I can get my lusting hands on one very soon!
