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Palm Pre US pricing and release date

Palm has finally come clean about when Americans will be able to buy the Palm Pre and for how much: 6 June for US$199.

Joseph Hanlon Special to CNET News
Joe capitalises on a life-long love of blinking lights and upbeat MIDI soundtracks covering the latest developments in smartphones and tablet computers. When not ruining his eyesight staring at small screens, Joe ruins his eyesight playing video games and watching movies.
Joseph Hanlon
(Credit: Palm)

Palm and launch partner Sprint have finally come clean about when Americans will be able to buy the Palm Pre and for how much: 6 June for US$199.

This date allays curiosity about whether Palm would start selling the highly anticipated Pre handset in stores before Apple begins its World Wide Developers Conference on 8 June, an event tipped to be the forum for the Cupertino company to announce the latest addition to the iPhone line of products.

The US$199 price point represents the price customers will pay after sending in a mail-in rebate form and signing a two-year contract. iPhone customers currently pay the same amount when signing a contract for the same period.

The Palm Pre was first announced at the Consumer Electronics Show 2009 in Las Vegas earlier in the year. The handset is a touchscreen device with a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard, and runs on a new operating system developed by Palm known as WebOS.

When contacted, a spokesperson for Palm in Australia said that the company is not announcing any details about an Australian launch, though Palm has previously stated its intentions to develop a version of the Pre capable of working on the networks used in Europe and Australia.