14 DAY TRIAL // Palm Pre, the first smartphone to come to the market with Palm's webOS platform on board, is now available for purchase on the European market, via O2 Germany. The new handset that reached the old continent is a GSM version of the US Palm Pre, which sports CDMA connectivity and can be purchased exclusively via Sprint.
The GSM Plam Pre also comes with an exclusivity deal, this time to O2 Germany, although it can also be purchased free of contract and unlocked, for the price tag of EUR 481. Basically, this means that even mobile phone users that have contract agreements with other carriers in the country, such as T-Mobile, Vodafone or E-Plus, will be able to enjoy the features of this handset, in case it appeals to them.
The Palm Pre is expected to become a very popular device among users in the UK, a recently published survey from TNS has showed, and it might appeal to German users too. The handset comes with quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE and dual-band UMTS / HSDPA connectivity options, although it does not sport HSUPA.
According to a recent post on The Unwired, the handset does not allow for APNs, MMS and SMS settings to be configured, but it comes to O2 Germany with a series of predefined profiles that offer support for a wide range of foreign networks. Basically, this means that one can easily use it with a T-Mobile or Vodafone SIM card, just as with an O2 SIM card.
Some interesting pieces of information regard the applications for the webOS too, such as the fact that some German apps have been already included in Palm's App Catalog. These apps are said to be billiger.de, wetter.com, ran and VZ-Netzwerke, and they are free solutions, since the firmware does not support paid apps at the moment. Even so, users will be able to see all apps available with the software portal, unlike other storefronts, which only list localized apps.
