You can question Verizon’s lackluster launch and marketing campaign, but you cannot fault them when it comes to pricing. They have offered BOGO (buy one, get one free) and now they’ve removed the pesky mail-in rebate. As many of you know, you can always bypass the mail-in rebate by shopping phones at Best Buy. Starting today, you visit any Verizon Wireless retail location or online and purchase the Palm Pre Plus for $149.99 or the Palm Pixi for $79.99. Additionally, these are still eligible for BOGO.
If you are looking for just one, Amazon has got the Palm Pre Plus for $69.99. UPDATE: The Palm Pre Plus is now an incredibly low $39.99. No mail-in rebate required. The Palm Pixi Plus will run you a penny. Yes, the Palm Pixi Plus on Verizon Wireless is available for a shiny penny.
Last week, there were rumors abound that T-Mobile would get their first Palm device since the Palm Treo 600. No doubt Palm could benefit from adding carriers and AT&T is almost certain to join the fray in the coming months. According to Forbes, Palm is not getting ready to launch a webOS device on T-Mobile.
According to Macquarie Research analyst Phil Cusick,
“Our checks indicate that Sprint hasn’t seen any pickup since the Verizon launch. We expect AT&T to launch Pre and Pixi in April or May, but with even less marketing support than Verizon, and checks indicate that recent chatter of an impending launch at T-Mobile is not correct.”
At some point, expansion of carriers will only do so much. Palm needs the buzz it had this time last year and a new device might be the only way to get that back.
Our friend Dieter at PreCentral points us to a survey that shows some disturbing numbers regarding keyboard issues plaguing Palm Pre Plus owners. A myriad of issues including letters being entered twice, some letters not being entered and input lag. Not good, not good at all. The issue is isolated to the Verizon Palm Pre Plus.
As with any forum poll, the numbers are usually not reflective of the greater userbase, but this is still alarming. At last check, only 23% of respondents indicated “No typing problems”, while a whopping 42% are experiencing all three issues. Roughly 20% experience double letter, missed letters, but no input lag.
Have a Verizon Palm Pre Plus? Are you experiencing any of these issues?
Verizon has been very aggressive with their BOGO plans, but that’s not so great for those looking for just one phone (and one 2-year contract). It appears we’ve got our first price drop on the Verizon Palm Pre Plus, available now through Best Buy for $99.99. The Palm Pixi Plus has also seen a major price drop and is available for the price of free.
As with all Best Buy deals, you won’t have to deal with any pesky mail-in rebates. Sound good? We thought so.
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 by Christopher Meinck
Verizon’s previous BOGO (buy one, get one free offer) allowed for a free Palm Pixi Plus with any Palm Pre Plus purchase. Both required a 2-year commitment, but it certainly was a good deal. Verizon has sweetened the pot today, offering up the Palm Pre Plus as one of the eligible phones in their BOGO program. Starting today, you can receive a free Palm Pre Plus with the purchase of a Palm Pre Plus. 2 year contracts are required for both, but you are out the door with two Palm Pre Plus phones for $149.99.
Other phones included in the promotion are the Droid, Droid Eris, LG Chocolate Touch, Samsung Alias.
A Deutsche Bank analyst has reiterated their ‘Buy’ rating on Palm due to improving sales trends at Verizon Wireless, despite the lack of promotion. Ongoing training efforts seem to be paying off with increased sales of webOS devices. Interestingly, the survey found Palm closing in on BlackBerry for “the most preferred at 17%”.
According to Piper Jaffray analyst T. Michael Walkley, Palm has seen modest sell through thus far on the new Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus at Verizon Wireless. In a note to clients, Walkley writes that he is “slightly disappointed” with initial sales at Verizon. Stating the obvious, Walkley believes a more aggressive media campaign should bolster demand. Despite his comments, he does believe Palm is on track to meet his initial forecast of 1 million webOS based phones in the February quarter. To hit his 1.5 million goal for the May quarter, Walkley says it will require “ramping sell-through trends at Verizon.”
Verizon has taken a unique approach to marketing the Palm Pre Plus and it will be interesting to see if the gamble pays off. We’re still wondering where where the Palm Pixi Plus fits into Verizon’s marketing plans, if it does. Does it make sense to split advertising dollars on two webOS devices or get more traction from one campaign?
A big complaint amongst the tight knit Palm community has been the questionable marketing messages in previous Palm Pre ad campaigns. Despite statistics showing that the creepy Palm girl resonated with viewers, it was not very popular with Palm Pre users. (Editor’s note: We actually like the ads). Those ads were run by Palm, who most will agree did a fantastic job with the Palm Pixi ads. Can you get that Sleepyhead song out of your head? In addition to Palm running ads, the carriers also pick up a big part of the marketing responsibility. Most will remember the onslaught of DROID commercials that aired leading up to it’s launch. It was non-stop. As a result, the DROID saw increased sales numbers.
Last week, Verizon launched the Palm Pre Plus and you probably wouldn’t know of it if you didn’t follow tech blogs. So where is the advertising and what’s coming? Well, the first ads we’ve seen cropped up on our iPhone forums at everythingiCafe and color us confused. The banner reads:
“The 3G smartphone
smart enough for mom.”
UPDATE: PreCentral alerts us to a few new ads that have showed upon Verizon’s YouTube account.
Verizon spent a year waiting for webOS devices and this is the campaign that is going to drive adoption of the Palm Pre Plus. Say it ain’t so.
Have you seen a TV ad or perhaps a banner ad with a more appropriate message? What do you think of the new ads. Let us know in the comments.
Thursday, January 21st, 2010 by Christopher Meinck
The embargo on reviews for the upcoming Verizon Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus ended last night with a stream of reviews hitting the Interwebs. So what did sites that received the Palm Pre Plus have to say about the latest webOS device?
Overally, it appears the Palm Pre Plus is modest update from the previous Palm Pre (see our review). The bump up for 256MB of RAM to 512MB of RAM is helpful when you open a significant amount of cards (running applications). Other highlights include the removal of the home button and improvements to the keyboard. Similar findings to what we noticed at Palm’s Lounge in Vegas. Here’s what folks are saying about the new Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus:
The Palm Pre Plus upgrades the Palm Pre in almost all the right places and has a bright future with new features coming via software updates. It’s a cliché to say this, but: the Palm Pre Plus is the best phone Palm has ever made. That’s exactly how it should be and it’s gratifying that we can expect this kind of quality from Palm now. Let’s just hope that it’s enough to keep them in the smartphone game for years to come.
If you’re a Verizon customer, you can get the excellent Droid, or wait for the forthcoming Nexus One, to say nothing of the BlackBerry offerings on the network (if that’s your cup of tea). If you’re carrier independent, then your choice is even harder — T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T offer a stack of seriously great phones that would make even the pickiest geek happy. So why choose the Pre Plus on Verizon? To answer that question, you have to figure out if you believe in the potential of webOS devices; Palm doesn’t have the fastest phone, or the phone with the highest resolution, certainly not the biggest app selection, and it doesn’t have a massive community behind it. What it does have, however, is a brilliant platform with huge potential to change the way you work and live with your phone (provided they tap that potential soon… as in now). If you’re as hopeful as we are that that potential will be fulfilled, your decision should be a simple one.
Sprint customers: If you’re worried that you bought a first gen Palm Pre only to watch helplessly as Palm released a better Pre on Verizon, stop. The Palm Pre Plus is essentially the same phone as the Palm Pre.
Sure, there are minor hardware differences—most notably the doubling of the RAM and the storage space—but it essentially feels like the same phone.
With two Droids, two Palms, and all the Blackberrys they can eat, Verizon subscribers can’t whine about their smartphone choices any more. The Palm Pre doesn’t “kill” the Motorola Droid. It presents a cuddlier alternate reality, where color and feel win out over widgets and apps. If you’re into messaging and Web browsing on Verizon, and it seems like the Droid is a little too geeky for you, it’s time to retire that old BlackBerry Pearl and move on up to a Palm Pre Plus.
Are you planning on picking up a Verizon Palm Pre Plus or a Palm Pixi? Let us know in the comments.
Palm provided us with a demonstration of their new video camera application. As you’ll see from the video, the whole process of shooting, editing and sharing video is very easy and well done. Sharing options include YouTube, MMS or via email. The current video is being shot in HVGA, but Palm representatives confirmed it will be VGA at release. The recording format is H.264. The addition of video camera capabilities will be available to all webOS device owners in the upcoming webOS 1.4 update that will be available over the air sometime in February.
