O2 has just announced the pricing of the Palm Pre handset which is due out next month. We thought we’d take a closer look.
The price of the handset seems reasonable enough (free to £97 is a pretty good launch price for a high end smartphone) but we’re not fans of 18 month contracts and the monthly tariff is higher than we’d like – even if it is slightly sweetened by the unlimited data and free wi-fi.
At least O2 had the sense to price it the same as the older iPhone 3G 8GB – anything higher would have been crazy.
We think they would have been better off pricing it slightly under the all-conquering iPhone just to give consumers a reason to go with the comparatively unknown Palm, but it’ll ultimately boil down to the amount advertising they throw at it.
The iPhone has enjoyed immense advertising recently – you can barely move for TV and full page newspaper ads -so it’s going to be hard to persuade people dazzled by the ‘there’s an app for that onslaught‘ to switch to the Pre, even if it is a perfectly capable iPhone alternative
However, if O2 and Palm are prepared to put their collective weight behind the handset and promote the Pre with gusto, they might just have a winner on their hands.
