14 DAY TRIAL // HP and Palm announced officially not too long ago the upcoming availability of a new smartphone powered by the webOS platform, the Palm Pre 2. The mobile phone was already made available for purchase in France on SFR's airwaves, and should arrive in the US soon, on Verizon Wireless' network, according to rumors.
However, it appears that the GSM flavor of Palm Pre 2 will also hit shelves in the United States, and that it would be sold directly from HP.
The best part of this deal is that the handset will come unlocked, though it would feature only support for T-Mobile's AWS 3G bands.
For the time being, it appears that AT&T customers were left outside from the equation, though there are great chances that a new version of the device would be released soon.
We should also note that Palm did say before that they plan on releasing an unlocked Palm Pre 2 smartphone in the US for developers, and this might be it.
However, it appears that Tim Pettitt, product manager for HP Palm, announced officially that the unlocked Palm Pre 2 won't be made available solely for developers, Engadget reports.
Basically, HP.com will soon start selling an unlocked GSM Palm Pre 2 that will work only on T-Mobile's network.
In a way, this story is similar with what Google did in early 2010 with Nexus One, when it made the smartphone available only with support for T-Mobile's 3G network, even if a contract agreement was not required.
In addition to unveiling the company's plans on marketing the unlocked Palm Pre 2, Tim Pettitt also brought to the light the fact that this smartphone comes with Gorilla Glass technology to keep the display scratch resistant.
Moreover, he said that the phone's 5-megapipxel photo snapper is capable of taking a shot every second, which is pretty impressive, one should agree.
Additional info on the smartphone should start emerging as it nears market availability, so keep an eye on this space for more.