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UK Carriers Don’t Want the Pre2 Either?

By: , 11/12/2010 11:18 pm | 31 comments

Just a quick night time story for all the kiddies out there. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there was a magical smartphone that crapped rainbows and magical unicorns. Ok so maybe we were being a bit far fetched with “galaxy far, far away” because we are actually referring to the UK. We think we might have stretched the truth on “magical smartphone” too, but we swear this thing craps rainbows and unicorns!

All joking aside the Pre2 seems to be on all webOS user’s minds lately. We all know this phone should have come out several months ago, but we are still happy to see it none the less. Unfortunately, this phone has come so late to the game that very few carriers actually want this thing. We are all familiar with Sprint turning their backs on this spec bump device and now it seems they are not alone. Pocket-lint has reported they contacted every single one of the major UK carriers to ask if they will be carrying the Pre2. Their answer? In a nutshell, they all said no in their own way. So, if you are in the UK and were hoping to pick up a Pre2 on contract it looks like you will be out of luck. You might as well click here to buy it SIM free and unlocked through Palm for the paltry sum of £399.

In the end Americans will not be the only ones harboring a little resentment towards their mobile phone carrier for not offering the Pre2. It’s unfortunate, but can you really blame the carriers? As stated earlier this phone should have been released months ago and from a hardware perspective it is pretty far behind the pack at this point. No need to be mad at Palm either. We are sure they intended to bring us this phone a long time ago yet could not due to the move to HP. In the grand scheme of things the Pre2 is destined to be the phone that “could have been” and it’s sad many of us will never get to use one. All many of us can do is wait patiently for the next webOS device to roll out to our carrier of choice so we can get a piece of that new hardware pie. Until then, we still have webOS 2.0 to look forward to.

[Source: Pocket-lint]

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About Ryan St. Andrie

Ryan is a WOR News Hound and super geek who is always working to melt his phone with the latest experimental kernels. He is husband to lovely wife Keira and father to adorable baby girl Kyla, ASE certified mechanic and self proclaimed gearhead turned to railroad mechanic. Last but not least lover of all things tech.
View all posts by Ryan St. Andrie →
  • Anonymous

    Ouch. Any info about a drop date for 2.0? Why do I feel like it will be beyond Christmas?

    • Ryan St. Andrie

      No official info yet. Just a whole lot of rainbows and unicorns buddy.

  • FAngo

    I bought the pixi from sprint for my lady, and I asked briefly about it, and thelady informed me that a 4g phone was coming and they are waiting to get trained on, not like they are trying to hide much.

    • Joe Hamel

      Yea that 4g phone is the evo. I haven’t heard anything about palm making a 4g handset.

      • FAngo

        She said it was from Hp Palm.

      • FAngo

        She said it was from Hp Palm. Also, Best Buy stopped carrying palm and all they an talk about is android. Annoying stuff, come on webOS, I love my pre.

        • Jmills

          I talked to a Sprint representative a few weeks after the announcement that the Pre 2 was going to be dropping on Verizon. He said to wait it out, they are going to have “a 1Ghz palm phone in about 6 months.” that was about 2 months ago. I’m not sure if it will be too little, too late.

        • Jmills

          I talked to a Sprint representative a few weeks after the announcement that the Pre 2 was going to be dropping on Verizon. He said to wait it out, they are going to have “a 1Ghz palm phone in about 6 months.” that was about 2 months ago. I’m not sure if it will be too little, too late.

        • Jmills

          I talked to a Sprint representative a few weeks after the announcement that the Pre 2 was going to be dropping on Verizon. He said to wait it out, they are going to have “a 1Ghz palm phone in about 6 months.” that was about 2 months ago. I’m not sure if it will be too little, too late.

  • Nk

    Will verizon cripple the pre 2′s gps?

  • Panoga

    If pre 2 is dead, why hold out hope for webos 2. It took forever for verizon and att to release 1.4.5, and we all want an alternate to ios, why doesn’t hp-palm put there strong foot down and either release some new phones or require carriers to support web os? It work well for apple, is hp to involved in to many things? I love my pre, but if hp doesn’t release something that’ll be supported and let us know it’s going, I’m afraid for the future of webos

  • Zevo

    It’s sad to see that so many of us die hard palm fans are losing faith. It may be true that palm is behind the curve, but like Ryan said, soon we will all have rainbows and unicorns to look forward to……stay true fellow palm users.

  • Happydnmead

    who wants another crappy palm pre agen anyway?

  • Happydnmead

    who wants another crappy palm pre agen anyway?

  • http://www.michaeldcarney.com/ Michael D Carney

    I have not lost faith. I have had my Palm Pre with no issues since it came out. I love it more than an iPhone. As a sprint user who loves sprint I was sad I can’t upgrade to the Pre2 as it is all the Pre should have been… But I also understand that the pre2 is a phone Palm did before the buyout. It was a fix to the pre. It is not the phone that HP will do. HP will release cool phones and tablets with the webOS in 2011. It will be great. I can wait. My pre is fine – and I haven’t even overclocked it yet. If sprint never carries a palm again then i’ll leave them once this contract is up. But the webOS is too good to leave for an EVO. Palm has me. Faith is not lost.

    • Mike G

      I’m with you on that one brother. Android just does not impress as an elegant OS. I’ll get an iphone before I jump ship to some android driven phone.

  • http://twitter.com/Mechanical_Mind Ryan

    You know what, having no carrier support is no biggie for people in the UK. I would much rather buy the phone unconnected than to pay £35per month over 24 months for a contract I didn’t need. Things in the US are slightly different I feel with contracts, especially with CDMA and it being tied in to the device.

    • Ryan St. Andrie

      Well I guess that makes my article crap :p it still says a lot by the carriers not wanting it

  • eid

    If there isn’t carrier support in UK, then palm better sell unlocked for cheaper. At least that way, get some Palm buzz going.

  • Tim

    This makes me hope that at CES 2011 H/Palm show off a killer piece of hardware that will truly show off WebOS 2.x. These carriers need to get both Android and the iPhone off their pedestals and realize a truly innovative OS like WebOS easily puts them to shame. But then again, we all know that, don’t we Palm fans?

    • JDM

      A 19 year I work with got an Android (Motorola I think) and she hated it at first because she liked her old basic take pictures, send texts, make calls phone, and the Android was too complicated for her. “Too much s***!” she said. “I don’t need all this!” Someone then actually showed her how to use it and she loves it now. She has simple tastes and doesn’t need fancy things. My thoughts were that of course iPhone and Android (and actually Blackberry with their Curve) are eating up the marketshare. Most cell phone users aren’t ready for an elegant system like WebOS with the catch being that the phones are teribally slow and don’t have cool things like that Skymap thing App on Android. People want cool toys that work and aren’t so different from the phones they’re used to. Even the Ipad isn’t that intuitive and people love those things! It’s just a bigger iphone. Whoopee.

  • Adam Chandler

    Something I have been wondering about a sim free pre2. Lets say I buy a sim free pre2 in the US when it becomes available, and I put in the at&t sim from my pixi. How will I get os updates if at&t is not carrying my model (pre2)?

    • Blaize

      I think you could Dr. it from the Palm website once they make it available, but I am not sure.

  • gman900

    People in the uk must gate o2,vodafone,orange,3,and tmobile

  • gman900

    People in the uk must gate o2,vodafone,orange,3,and tmobile

  • http://www.facebook.com/suruato Taurus Omejia

    Palm ….. *signs*

  • Mark

    I recently upgraded on O2 to the pre plus from the 3gs, my wife has the iphone 4 and my son the htc desire.I can honestly say without a doubt the pre plus with webos is far superior. It’s not the best hardware I agree, but the combination it creates with webos is light years beyond ios and android. I love the fact I can make the phone my own.. And even love the hardware, you know it’s a phone after all not a tablet.

  • Mark

    I recently upgraded on O2 to the pre plus from the 3gs, my wife has the iphone 4 and my son the htc desire.I can honestly say without a doubt the pre plus with webos is far superior. It’s not the best hardware I agree, but the combination it creates with webos is light years beyond ios and android. I love the fact I can make the phone my own.. And even love the hardware, you know it’s a phone after all not a tablet.

  • Naz

    i think because of the poor success of the pre in the UK and the whole build quality issues most networks feel that the pre2 will have the same stigma attached to it. Even though the pre2 looks much better then its predecessors. They are most probably holding out for something like the EVO, Iphone or any of the WP7 phone form factors. It all depends on what HP bring to the table come CES if they can create the same buzz they had at CES2009 then i dont see any UK networks saying no… I only hope they dont make the same mistake like last time by going exclusive, because O2 UK did a very poor job of promoting the pre worse then any US carrier IMO.

  • eid

    Hopefully unlocked Pre 2 will sell well enough to convince them to change. Only good news is that HP is too large to be hurt by this minor setback. 2011 has to be and will be different!

  • Anonymous

    Yes, I actually wouldn’t buy it with a contract. I’am paying now around 12 € per month (around 16,5 $) for all my calls and data (unlimited data plan which gets a reduced speed after 1,5 GB, voice does cost me around 17 $ Cent per minute to all networks and per message)… And if I would like, I could use an even cheaper service. I know in the US it almost makes no difference, but here (at least in Germany) it is much cheaper to buy the mobile on your own.But I understand that it would sell better if it would be sold ALSO via the carriers, thats for sure.