BGR was able to grab the retailer’s director of merchandising, Scott Anderson, and ask him some questions about the upcoming launch of the Pre. Anderson admitted that the device could be in short supply for the first 4-8 weeks following the June 6th release. To deal with the expected crowds and lines, Best Buy plans on using a “ticketing process” starting June 6th, and once a store runs out of stock, names will be entered on a log in chronological order. In other words, there will be no deposits taken for the Pre. Every Best Buy store that offers Sprint products will have some inventory of the handset to sell on the launch date.

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The Pre is one special smartphone, and it’s so special that Sprint is departing from their traditional Sunday launch to get an early jump on Apple’s next big move on Monday. A photo has surfaced of what appears to be an “official” Sprint document declaring special store hours for Friday, June 5 and Saturday, June 6. Sprint is closing stores early Friday (4pm) in a likely move to prepare their stores nationwide for launching the Pre at 8am on Saturday morning.

Are you a set-up-your-tent-the-night-before kind of Pre addict, or will you show up at 8am as the doors open to hand over your cash? Perhaps the likelihood of limited supply and early shortages will make that pup tent look a little more attractive?

source:  BGR

Sometimes good things happen when good news is shared, like the release date for Palm’s Pre on the Sprint network. With June 6 fast approaching, Palm’s earnings estimates have been raised by Barclays Capital. How much have they been raised? Try $2 billion on for size.

If Palm can garner sales of $2 billion for 2009, it will go a long way in righting the ship of a troubled company. However, before optimism rockets into the stratosphere, leave it to analyst Amir Rozwadowski to bring expectations down to earth when he cautions “that rising costs and problems with older products could affect profits. Palm has had six consecutive quarters of losses and has had to raise cash for the Pre’s launch.”

Although Palm has been limping along for a while now, $2 billion sales equals quite a few webOS-based Pres streaming into the market place – a few million of them, actually. Will Palm achieve $2 billion in sales for 2009, and will it be enough?

source: toptechnews via precentral

The news is out that the Pre will be running $199.99 after mail-in-rebates with a two year contract. For those that do not want to commit to a contract, you can purchase the device for a mere $549.99. It might be a worthy investment for those who don’t like the idea of being tethered to a long term agreement. Still, the price point is similar to what is found on similar devices. From the looks of an online Sprint chat with a customer service agent, its a safe bet to say you can get your hands on this device on day one without a contract.

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Ok, the big news is out. We know the date of the Pre’s launch and the pricing. But one thing we didn’t consider was if there would be enough units of the phone to satisfy demand on the day of release. According to MobileBurn, a tipster who works for one of Sprint’s retail partners told them that only 30,000 Pre’s would be available for purchase on launch day. Unfortunately, that number is in a vacuum and we really can’t tell if it is referring to the total number of units across all distribution channels or if it deals with a single source of product; at any rate it looks like a lot fewer handsets will be available on June 6th than originally thought. Even Sprint’s CEO and star of commercials Dan Hesse confirmed this when he told Reuters, “We don’t intend to advertise it (the Pre) heavily early on because we think we are going to have shortages for a while.”

If you plan on waiting on line to pick up the Pre on June 6th, there still is time to start training because there are going to be some massive lines snaking their way around Sprint stores throughout the country on that day. There will be pushing, shoving, biting and kicking and that will just be the news media trying to get a good shot of the event for the news.

source: MobileBurn

After the announcement of the Palm Pre being offered starting June 6, Best Buy Mobile has stated it will be selling the phone without the need of mail-in-rebates. They have been known to sell competitively priced phones at the point of purchase without the need to send in a mail-in-rebate. Customers won’t have to worry about filling and sending out those rebates for their money. So it’s a great thing that you’ll be paying for the device and getting those instant savings right away.

source: Yahoo

Well, it has finally happened – Sprint has put an end to all speculations and rumors by officially announcing that the Palm Pre will be available on June 6 (Saturday). The Pre will set you back $199.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $100 mail-in rebate, but in return, you will get the much-much-anticipated phenomenon the Pre is and all of its highly popularized features, such as the Palm Synergy, which will try to bring personal and business contacts, calendars and so on into one, centralized view. The price of the Touchstone charger has also been announced – $69.99.

And… that is all – you will be able to get the Palm Pre at a number of stores, including Best Buy, Radio Shack, Wal Mart and online.

Press release after the brake

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The New York Times weighed in on the new national pastime of guessing the release date of the Palm Pre. In an article published on Monday, the Times wrote about the upcoming summer season of blockbuster smartphone releases and said that people who have been briefed on Sprint’s plans have been told by the carrier to expect the launch of Palm’s handset to take place during the first week in June. That timing would fit in perfectly with our previous report of a LAUNCH LUNCH being held by the manufacturer on June 5th at noon. A release during that time frame would also allow Palm to trump any iPhone announcement that Apple might have at its WWDC that kicks off June 8th at 10 am with a keynote speech by Apple Executive Philip Schiller. For the Times, it is all the Palm Pre news that is fit to print.

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Wal Mart executives are claiming that the discount retailer will soon be carrying the yet to be launched Palm Pre in its electronics department. Previously, we have reported that Best Buy was going to get a limited supply of the smartphones to sell at its stores, but the word “exclusive” was never used in those reports. Sprint is thought to have an exclusive deal to be the lone carrier for the Pre in the U.S. from launch until the end of the year. No availability date or pricing was mentioned.

With Circuit City no longer in business, Wal Mart would like to grab the business that would have gone to the now bankrupt electronics retailer. For the world’s largest grossing retail chain, that means improving the quality of the electronics that it offers. Brand names like Sony and Samsung have been added to inventory and earlier this year the Apple iPhone 3G was added to the slim selection of cellphones that is offered by the discounter. Being able to offer the Palm Pre could be the beginning of an effort by Wal Mart to become a legitimate destination for shoppers to find “Hot” cellphone models like Palm’s much awaited handset.

source: WSJ

PreCentral has been tipped by a few Sprint employees that the stores have been receiving an Advocate copy of the Palm Pre. Each store is supposed to receive one unit that is given to the store’s expert on all things Pre. Early comments on the handset say that it is small but that the webOS is “responsive” and “amazing” with the cards being intuitive. The sliding mechanism was described as “stiff” and mistakes in typing were made due to the cramped letters on the QWERTY keyboard with buttons that were said to be “harder” than those on the Centro.

Nothing new has come forward on the Pre’s pricing or release date, and even the Advocates have no idea about the cost of the phone or the launch date. Two days of mandatory management training on the Pre will have to be completed before the actual release of the handset.

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