AT&T Pre Plus drops to $99.99 online with activation 20
The Palm Pre continues to become more and more reasonably priced. Reader Chris sends work that AT&T's online store now has the Pre Plus available for $99.99 after instant discounts and the like. That's the good news. The bad, as you can see above, is that they're temporarily out of stock. Given all the news about overstock over on the CDMA side of things, seeing the Pre Plus out of stock on AT&T feels a little discordant -- but we're not thinking it portends anything other than a temporary shortage at AT&T's warehouse.
The Pixi Plus is still clocking in at $29.99 on AT&T, if you were wondering.
Update: after noting the comments about Sprint's pricing, we figured we'd compare the prices on the three US carriers. All of the below with 2-year contracts:
- AT&T Online: Pre Plus: $99.99; Pixi Plus: $29.99
- Verizon Online: Pre Plus: $49.99; Pixi Plus: Free. Both come with free Mobile Hotspot
- Sprint Online: Pre $149.99; Pixi $49.99
In other words, Sprint really needs to update with the times here while, in our humble opinion, Verizon's combined low prices and free mobile hotspot might be the best deal - granting that you're paying more for data over the life of your contract.
Source: AT&T Wireless; thanks, Chris!
20 Comments
What about Sprint it still 149 which is not worth it!
sure it would be, if foxxconn would pay their employees anything close to a US minimum wage.
I think we can safely assume that hell will freeze over before Sprint drops their price on the Pre.
We have seen many guesses as to why the price is still so high there, but we may never know the true reason...
Never know the reason? Where have you been?
The hundreds of dollars saved on monthly service is the reason Sprint's price is still half of what it was on release day. Sprint customers still come out way ahead on total cost.
Penny wise, pound foolish, if you think Sprint customers are getting shafted.
Hello...McFly..!! Do the math and you'll see that Sprint is the the least expensive choice by far
I just got two from the hp online store for nothing. They are giving them away, why would anyone pay anything for them?
Does this mean that I can walk into an AT&T store and buy a Pre Plus over-the-counter for $299.99 (once they're back in stock) without having to sign up for any service plan?
If yes, can someone tell me where I could find such a place in the US north-east? I would happily pick up two or three phones for my employees at that price.
Thanks!
If I remember right, that is what paid for my Sprint version with a 2 year contract, back almost a year ago. Then again, it had a $100 mail-in-rebate that I forgot to mail in. So that's my own fault.
yep! idk wat part of the north east ur in but i'm in rhode island and u can go to any ATT store and they'll take care of it, except my att store is sold out of pre pluses but i'm sure if u find one near u there should be a few left
Thanks! I'm actually doing a bike trip through PA, MD, GA, VA, NC and NY over the next three weeks, so I'll be able to look for stores along the route....
Fry's sells it for $349.99 but gets a $300.00 discount for new activations.
are the phones more expensive if you're an existing customer? if so, should i just go to a new carrier for my webos device every two years to get it for cheap or free?
Verizon and AT&T can afford to sell them cheaper because they'll quickly make up the difference with their higher monthly fees. More galling to me is that Sprint has never updated to the Pre Plus. I sure hope that's because they plan to leapfrog soon with the Pre 2 (or whatever HP decides to call it.)
The fact that they've "bottomed" on their discounting and not offered the plus would seem to indicate:
1) They still have limited inventory of Pre
2) They dont plan to order more Pre's.
3) They dont see a benefit to offering the Pre+
4) Their focus is on keeping a Palm product available until the next gen is ready to go.
Sprint might be in that nice sweet spot with just enough inventory to support warranty swaps and new customers, but not so much they're in a panic to unload what they have.
Something else interesting to note is the No-contract pricing:
AT&T $300
Verizon $600
Sprint $550
AT&T can have reasonable pricing on contract because their cost from Palm is apparently so much lower. VZ appears to simply be eating the cost of the handset on contract hoping to make it up with the Data add-on. Sprint is sticking with their pricing so they won't have to take such a large loss on hardware the way VZ is. I think the days of $600-800 handsets are coming to a end, there is simply too much competition. Lately the high end handsets from HTC and Samsung have been $350-450 and this is a good price point to allow the carriers to subsidize these phone without taking a huge loss.
True story. ATT store was going to charge me $150 to upgrade. Luckily, Pre was hot and out of stock. I ordered one from Amazon.com the same evening for $50. Not sure if that was a mispricing error, or what. This was a couple of months ago. Interestingly, the reason I knew to check elsewhere was that I had seen the Pre on the AT&T site for $50, but was given a different price at the store.
My wife and I picked up a couple Pre Pluses from Verizon with the Mobile Hot Spot thrown in. Granted our data access is a little high, $30, but the Mobile Hot Spot was originally $40. So if you think of it that way, we're each making $10 bucks on the deal each month. Not to mention it has saved me on more than one occasion.
I noticed no one mentions ebay pricing. Is there a negative on buying this phone from ebay?
Just the usual grey market pitfalls; support, possible warranty concerns, general Ebay fraud risk.
Also note, the CDMA devices are tied to their intended carriers. You can get a better price on service for bringing your own phone, but you cant take a VZ phone to Sprint and make it work.
If you snag a ATT phone, should work nicely on any GSM provider. So, temper any savings with a suitable amount of risk. I'm sure there are quite a few used phones out there since Sprinters can upgrade after a year, and there is hotter non-WebOS hardware to be had, so pick a great deal carefully and hope for the best.
Does anyone else think that the Pre+ shown in the AT&T screenshot looks quite different from the real thing? The lighting and reflections make it look like a metal bezel with a slightly angular keyboard surround, plus a metallic highlight to the speaker.
I don't think that's what the AT&T Pre+ looks like in person, does it? I kinda like that look more than the real deal.