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Walmart chopping down its Verizon Palm handsets - Pre Plus for $30 & Pixi Plus for free

posted by John V. / Mar 10, 2010, 7:51 PM

Walmart chopping down its Verizon Palm handsets - Pre Plus for $30 & Pixi Plus for free

In a way, Walmart's recent price chop to its Verizon Wireless Palm smartphones really highlights the battle handset manufacturers have to endure in order to stay afloat. Almost 9 months ago when Sprint launched the Palm Pre to an awaiting audience eager to test drive Palm's WebOS platform, the long time smartphone maker has seen its highs and lows. Walmart is now giving away two of the latest Palm devices, the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus, at the ridiculously low prices of $29.99 and free respectively with your signature on a contract. Yeah, just about anyone can get their hands on a decent smartphone without having to fork over a penny, but Palm's fate is hanging in the balance as it tries to turn things around. It wasn't too long ago when a just released $99 smartphone was considered a bargain, which of course is where the Palm Centro placed itself, but now the notion of free smartphones feels like a surreal thing. Although the Palm Pre Plus will still require you to fork out some cash, it could very well meet the same fate bestowed upon the Pixi Plus in due time.

Palm Pre Plus Specifications | Review
Palm Pixi Plus Specifications | Review

source: Walmart via Mobileburn

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8 Comments

1. rwolf1984

Posts: 536; Member since: Jun 06, 2009

Pre Plus and Pixi Plus are huge improvements over the device that landed on Sprint...its the design of the device and the app store that are hurting the Palm...hopefully the elan whatever that is will help. i like WebOS, but i don't see myself ever owning a palm product because of iPhone, Android and the coming Windows 7. . .

posted on Oct 20, 2010, 1:45 AM 0

2. rjt185

Posts: 257; Member since: Jun 11, 2009

ok so I analyze financial statements for a living ... and all these extreme price cuts Palm is engaging seem quite radical. granted the more WebOs phones you get out there the better it looks for your figures thus raising investor confidence and thus the stock price. But if someone can't afford the Pixi at $79.99 ... what makes them think they can afford the Data Plan in the long run in addittion to the buying of apps which is what Palm accountants must be banking on for the revenues. it's a risky move ... but I guess desperate times call for desperate measures.

posted on Mar 11, 2010, 6:22 AM 0

3. rwolf1984

Palm under performed significantly last year. Specifically, the Verizon handsets. Palm had a modest performance with Sprint and in order to keep up with Verizon's Android and blackberry offering Palm has contracted a company called Market Source to send "Smartphone Ambassadors" to Verizon and Best Buy to educate, train the sales team and customers and push sales in stores across the country. I withdrew my application as soon as I found out it was Palm. This company also does work with HP, Ford, Apple and John Deere. I was really hoping the job was for a new iPhone, iPad, HP netbook, HP Slate, HP phone, something Android or at least something that has a chance of actually selling!!!

posted on Mar 11, 2010, 8:12 AM 0

5. BigCTM

Posts: 9; Member since: Oct 25, 2009

The Verizon handsets were not released until late January of 2010. So this had nothing to do with Palm's performance last year.

posted on Mar 11, 2010, 8:19 AM 0

7. rwolf1984

Holiday qtr numbers and 1st month VZW numbers were reported roughly the same time..2010, 2009...same story for palm disappointment

posted on Mar 11, 2010, 10:53 PM 0

4. DonLouie

Posts: 594; Member since: Dec 22, 2008

This could mean some more Web OS devices are on the way, I want to see both moto and palm do well because they are American. I see all these people downing the design of the Pre but most have never had one for more than demo time in store and some of those that tried it went in prejudiced. That flush gesture area makes it so much better because now it's not in the way opening 50 cards and every uses 8GB of memory within hours or days of purchase, those are the only advantages over the original but that's purely cosmetic. I'm not paying $50 more for some crap that I don't need, 5 cards is cool and never used up the memory so continue cheering because the C40 will be the best yet.