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Verizon slashes Pre/Pixi prices, makes tethering free

Verizon slashes Pre/Pixi prices, makes tethering free

Verizon Wireless today announced that it has reduced the price on Palm’s Pre Plus and Pixi Plus handsets to incredibly low levels of $49.99 and $29.99, respectively. The company also announced that the mobile hotspot feature for both handsets has been made free.

Despite drastic price cuts, the two devices continue to be eligible for Verizon’s BOGO program, which offers two Pres for $49.99 or a pair of Pixis for $29.99.

Further, the mobile hotspot feature, which allows users to tether their laptop in addition to providing WiFi connectivity to four additional devices, has received a price cut to $0. The new price is a full $60 less than the MiFi, which offers the same functionality, and $50 less than the fee for any other tethering-capable device in Verizon’s stable of handsets.

All changes announced today are effective immediately, and can be purchased via Verizon’s online storefront.

Comments

  1. Garg
    Garg Pretty sweet deal. Now do it with an Android phone and I'll start looking at coverage maps.
  2. Thrax
    Thrax This, ladies and germs, is what you get when a smartphone sells so poorly that its manufacturer is dying.
  3. MachineDog
    MachineDog It's really sad, because I think WebOS is fairly cool.
  4. AlexDeGruven
    AlexDeGruven WebOS is actually really cool, but Palm really pooched it with the marketing.

    It's been put on a whole 2 devices, so saturation is minimal.
    It hasn't been marketed to the world hardly at all, outside of a couple of carrier shorts.
    They haven't done much at all to support a developer community (they should have been flogging SDK availability to the public long before the first devices emerged).
  5. Komete
    Komete It's ugly and that is why it failed. There is nothing about either of those phones that say's touch me. There was plenty of hype about the Pre when it launched, but from day one it didn't sell well because, outside of the geek community, no one wanted to pick it up and hold it.


    The best thing palm could do is to have another company redesign the outer casing and change up the color scheme on the os. It would then sell like hotcakes. Palm wouldn't be able to catch andriod or apple but they could steal plenty of market share from Blackberry.

    Palm still has a few options but but the window to do anything is closing quickly.
  6. Thrax
    Thrax Personally, I believe that the Pre is one of the most sleek-looking smartphones on the market. Glossy, black and seamless, it has the air of a high-tech, space age gizmo, like some sort of mysterious monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

    The real failure of the Pre, however, is in early missteps with developer support (which irritated the nerds), underwhelming hardware (relative to other flagship phones) and HORRIBLE ADVERTISING. IIRC, not one ad demonstrated the convenience of webOS (which is very intuitive).
  7. Komete
    Komete Style is subjective, but for me it has all the appeal of a Playschool toy painted black. I think your comparison of the Pre to something out of 2001 A Space Odyssey is spot on. It was outdated looking from the get-go.



    There was plenty of buzz and it did have a good launch, just sales never took off because it didn't have mass appeal. Why would they waste money on something that the public at large were not interested in? I think all this talk about advertising and developer support are just excuses thrown out there to shift blame from the fact they made a very competent flop.

    When I first saw it I said it looked like a black maxipad and that all it would do is keep palm around. I guess I was a little too optimistic about that. Palm could still turn it around. I just think there leadership needs to be changed.

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