14 DAY TRIAL // Palm Pre Plus, the high end smartphone Palm launched on the market with its webOS mobile operating system on board, might soon see a replacement on the market in Europe, some of the latest reports on the matter suggest.
It appears that the device is already being pulled off shelves, most probably in preparation of a hardware refresh, the guys over at PreCentral suggest in a recent post.
The Palm Pre plus is no longer available for purchase via O2 UK's website, and reports on it being pulled off SFR France's website also emerged.
[ADMAKR=1]However, the webOS-based mobile phone is still available for purchase in stores, the news site notes, adding that it might be removed from there too in the near future.
Interestingly enough, the Palm Pixi Plus smartphone is still available for purchase at O2 UK. Pixi Plus is the lower priced webOS device Palm launched on the market last year.
For the time being, no official announcement on the matter was made, and there are no details available on whether Pre would be completely removed from O2's offering, or this is only a temporary thing.
However, there are great chances that a new webOS-powered mobile phone from Palm would soon make an appearance on the market.
Various rumors on this already emerged, the latest of which suggested that we might see a Pre Plus2 released in the near future, with a 1GHz application processor packed inside.
The said device was already spotted at FCC, with the P102UEU model number attached to it, but nothing is known for sure on the matter.
Palm did announce that it would release a new version of webOS this year, namely webOS 2.0, and that devices powered by it should land sometime next year, but it appears that we might see these handsets on shelves earlier than expected, PreCentrals states.
For what it's worth, Palm does need to come out with new hardware powered by its webOS platform, as the said Palm Pre and Pixi did not enjoy the expected popularity on the market.