Palm announces pricing, availability for GSM Pre in Europe

Finally, our friends in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany are getting their moment with the Palm Pre, as Palm and European carrier O2 announced pricing details and availability dates for the GSM version of the WebOS smartphone.

Germany will be the first to get the Pre, with sales starting on October 13, while the U.K. and Ireland will follow on October 16. The various price plans for each country is listed below, and just like Sprint and Bell Mobility in Canada, the Pre will be an exclusive to O2 for an undisclosed amount of time.

The European version of the Pre is a quad-band (850/900/1800/1900), tri-band UMTS/HSDPA (850/1900/2100) phone, so if unlocked, you could pop in a T-Mobile or AT&T SIM card and be able to make calls, but you'd only get 3G service from AT&T since T-Mobile's 3G network uses the 1700/2100MHz bands. It's not as easy as importing the phone and just popping in a SIM card, though. As Precentral.net points out, the U.K. and Ireland models are SIM-locked to O2, though Precentral readers are saying that the German Pre will be available unlocked.

There have not been any announcements about when the U.S. might see a GSM version of the Pre, though AT&T expressed interest in the device a few months ago. Sprint has the exclusive on the Pre through 2009.

O2 pricing plans for GSM Palm Pre:
U.K.
Ireland
Germany