Germany goes gaga for Pre 35
Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:27 am EDT
The day has come and the Palm Pre is now officially on sale on the eastern shores of the Atlantic. While a survey in the UK indicated that anticipation for the Pre is running high, we had little indication how the Pre would do in Germany. If the pre-launch launch parties that O2 held across Germany were any indication, the Pre will do well there too. A reader who works at a German O2 store told us, “Our shop is on a good run to sell all 40 Pres we had in stock. I’m waiting more than an hour right now to get the employee contract for the Pre. Telesales are flooding.” That sounds like a sign of brisk sales to me.
Those pre-launch launch parties took place all across Germany and the folks over at Tamspalm.de collected a ton of photos from the events. Every store seemed to be crowded with champagne, hors d’oeuvres, and most importantly: people. Those people were there for one reason: the Palm Pre.
That, or they've been wooed by O2's excellent television commercials, one more is after the break.
[YouTube Link] - thanks Carsten!
35 Comments
Hell yeah go PRE, take over the world.
why are there ads so much better than ours? we get the creepy girl....and they get the hip, cool people..
IMO, these commercials suck just as bad.
They really, really do! I love the ad with shaolin monks, but "our" ads are...weird.
No I don't agree, these are more relevant and exciting than the creepy chick. These ads are what I like about the UK. The US ad concept was cool but it just seemed like a big waste of money.
Did palm have to pay money for the add??? :D
did anyone notice the bucket of beers on the counter ???? now that's how you have a launch party !!!!
Yea I did!!! Stupid Sprint just had crappy wait lines and no drinks. However some other people waiting in line brought donuts for everyone!
Sprint needs beer at their next launch party!
Actually that's not beer, it's "Bionade". A lemonade.. but I'm sure they also had some beer ;)
Yes, they had beer and red wine. There were launch parties in six german cities and you had register for them. The picture in the article is from the launch party in cologne where 1200 people wanted to come but only 100 got invitations.
Guys from Germany: Pls., confirm/turn-down sim-lock! From O2 site I get that you can buy Pre for 481 EUR, but you still must sign contract w O2. Hence two questions:
1. Is the device actually sim-locked?
2. what is minimum contract price what you have to sign to get device, and does it have step-out fee, I could pay up-front (how much?)?
3. any rumors on sim-lock removal options?
Erix,
Desperately seeking the way to get my Palm Pre to Latvia...
You don't really need a contract, you can pay 481 Euros and take it with you. What O2 is also offering (and likes to offer because that way they have more "contracts") is 1 Euro for the Pre, and 20 Euros per month for 2 years. That is the same price, it's basically just a 0% financing but you don't have to do that.
The German GSM Pre has NO sim-lock! It's 100% sim-lock free, but you have to be aware of the "qwertz" keyboard instead of "qwerty". If you don't mind that I don't see a problem.
The UK version will have a qwerty, but I don't think it will be sim-lock free.
So a non-german can come to O2 store, pay 481
gee, i waited 12 hours in line in front of the store and got no bathroom or drink when the phone came out .... lucky people...
@cochiloco
That is what O2 announced yes! Of course they want to sell you a contract, you will have to insist on buying it without.
Sorry mjcstudent013 ;)
The German Pre having no Sim lock has been known already for some time. The problem is in the GPRS/UMTS settings. You cannot set these manually. The Pre comes with profiles preloaded for multiple operators, but the question is which. If Dutch KPN is not in the list, I can't use it.
True, I forgot about that.. isn't there a way to change these with rooting?
GPRS settings for KPN in Netherlands are available here :
http://www.unlocks.co.uk/gprs_settings.php#netherlands
But now how to configure Palm WebOS to use these parameters ?
Is there any readers at www.precentral.net that have a tips or solution to do it and explain us the steps how to do it ?
I'm in France and maybe I will buy a Palm Pre in Germany if I can change the WebOS language from german to french and use it on the French carrier/operator : Bouygues
Yes you can set the language to English, German, French, Spanish & Italian.
Maybe the method described here works for the GSM Pre also?
http://www.mobile-files.com/forum/showthread.php?t=114023
Ramon, thanks very much for this URL.
It's a gopod basis to start.
I take a look and it seem to be very difficult, maybe european users need help from US Palm Pre hack gourous to hack and configure Palm Pr
Wow, I am on the picture making a post on facebook.
I'm sure there will be a solution for "manually set UMTS settings" out soon.
Well, I'll wait either until this functionality/patch or until someone publishes a list of the providers supported by the Pre out of the box and I can confirm KPN is in it.
And maybe if this all takes too long the Pre may eventually be officially available in Holland.
Got my Pre today, its awesome... tomorrow ill start my work life with it, switched from an old sony ericsson 580i, so you might know how i feel right now :D
Congrats krizz0r! Post some insights tomorrow, if you'll still like it :D
thanks^^ and yes i will post tomorrow, definitely!
I love my new Palm Pre! I really do!
Just FYI...;)
I'm furious with Movistar and its abusive plans.
I will get the Pre sim-locked free on Spain, I promise!!
You know what, Palm should get this add, translate it into English and run it here in the states. The adds in Canada were better than the ones here. And now this German add actually shows off some of the functions of the Pre. And it sounds and looks hip and modern.
Palm! run the foreign adds here too!!
Yes we are GAGA... we sit the whole Day and test/play the Palm Pre.
I was at the Pre Flagshop Launch and the Pre Business Event on 2 Days. Drinks and Food everwhere for free, O2 do anything to sell the Pre. Like the Americans so the Germans goes crazy with the Pre.
Now we all have a Palm Device for everyone. No more Tx is better than a Treo/Centro, we all will say Pre is better as an eiPhony. Now, Palm is back and the Communitiy is reunited!
That's what we call " Palm Communitiy is Gaga"! :-D
After that now we waiting who will be the next goes Gaga?
Today Spain goes Gaga and on friday it's UK :D
Very disappointed...
Today is Spain's launch and I went to 3 movistar shops already and they even didn't recognized the name, I had to point out the model on the web :-(
None of them had an idea when they will get the phone or the documentation :-(
Did anyone found it on movistart's web?
And no adds at all over here that I'm aware of.
Easy: http://www.internet.movistar.es/detalle/palm-pre
Hard to wait for other europeans like me...
The Pre is simply out of sight in all but 4 countries here in Europe, this marketing trough exclusivities on careers is not effective and the sales will remain weak until those agreements end.
Could be a good solution for launching a new model that gathers high hopes, not a brand new Os that needs a mass market: I don't understand Palm's staff politics.
maybe they are just stupid :)