Palm UK Selling SIM-Free, Unlocked Palm Pre 20

by Dieter Bohn Tue, 14 Sep 2010 6:49 pm EDT

While it probably won't inspire the excitement that an unlocked Palm Pre Plus might, Palm UK is apparently blowing out their stock of the original Palm Pre by offering it SIM-Free and unlocked for £289.99.

So if you've a hankering for a webOS phone that's not tied to a carrier and using an QWERTZ German phone or a 3rd party service isn't your cup of tea, this could be a solid option for you ...while supplies still last.

If only Palm's developer phones were available unlocked (or in AT&T's case, at least at the same cost as AT&T's own no-contract pricing). Hey HP, how's about bringing some scale up in that department?

Source: Palm UK; Thanks Martin!

Category:

News

Tags:

20 Comments

Posted by john-vogel on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 6:40 pm EDT

German Phones have no AZERTY, but a QWERTZ-keyboard. ;) French phones have AZERTY. :)

Posted by Dieter Bohn on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 6:49 pm EDT

fixed - and d'oh!

Posted by SirataXero on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 6:48 pm EDT

It should be mentioned that these phones won't work on US networks, due to band differences.

Will they?

Posted by Orion Antares on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 7:09 pm EDT

I thought they'd still work on the GSM networks?

Posted by ltjSpin on Wed, 15 Sep 2010 8:33 am EDT

It says SIM. So I gather CDMA is out of the question. Not so terribly sure about Sprint's EV-DO though.

Posted by Boopop on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 6:52 pm EDT

Or you can just get a second hand (Mine was like new!) Palm Pre off eBay for

Posted by ToniCipriani on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 6:58 pm EDT

They should've done it from the beginning.

Still remember the days when I was going on and on about Palm releasing the unlocked unbranded version.

Posted by pip smith on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 7:13 pm EDT

Does this include the pixi? I would like to get the girlfriend one.

Posted by scaramanga89 on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 7:38 pm EDT

Or you could get one from Expansys UK for

Posted by kanaka on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 7:42 pm EDT

Weak sauce

Posted by Meltedwire on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 7:50 pm EDT

Ok, this may sound dumb, but explain SIM-free. I have a friend scrambling because he has to go to the Ukraine last minute. Leaves Fri. He only has a Verizon Android POS. I would love to find a way to turn him on to webOS.

Posted by dpaus on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 7:54 pm EDT

As a developer, we tried to order a Palm Pre Plus and a Pixie Plus to go with our iPhone 4 and Android phones. The process was one colossal screw-up from the word 'go'. At one point, I had four charges from Palm for a phone on our credit card, but they kept insisting that every time they tried to put it through, it got rejected. I eventually got so frustrated I canceled the whole order.

So now our app runs on Android and iPhone, but no WebOS device. Pity.

Posted by yourdiyguy on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 8:13 pm EDT

what was the app?

Posted by andrewhime on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 8:50 pm EDT

Credit card processing still not perfect in 2010. You neglect to mention that all those charges ended up coming off.

Try another card or try another source.

Posted by andrewhime on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 8:53 pm EDT

Clarify: I run cards through various processors. My customers frequently swear the money is there and the bank said the customer is totally innocent.

Finding out why the card didn't go is almost impossible in these cases. I have one customer who tries the same card every month and it just won't go. Years and years ago, I couldn't order some shoes from Zappos... no clue why. A year or so ago, I tried to sign up for Magic: The Gathering Online... multiple cards failed. (There, now you don't have to trust my shady customers.)

Sometimes it just happens. Sometimes the charge even gets reserved... and then disappears on its own a couple days later, after the failure.

It doesn't necessarily mean anything about Palm.