02 have announced the launch of the Palm Pre on 16th October. The handset, which has already been available in the US for some time now will come to the UK with the price tag of between £0 and £96.89 depending on the contract.

The Palm Pre, running Palm Web OS is directed at business users, with multitasking capabilities, a full QWERTY sliding keyboard, advanced e-mail and business capabilities and Microsoft Office. Equally, the 3-mega-pixel camera, 8GB of internal memory and music sync feature provides a good foundation for progression into the consumer market.

Ronan Dunne, CEO of Telefonica 02 UK said “Today’s announcement reinforces 02’s position as the home of the smartphone, With the addition of the excellent Palm Pre to our already extensive portfolio, we will continue to offer our customers the widest range of the very best devices on the market today.” There’s no mistaking 02’s motives behind getting the Palm Pre exclusive, with it being a fierce contender of the iPhone. Similarly it’s no secret that Palm have been fighting against the smartphone tide for some time now, with both BlackBerry’s and Apple’s regular instalments blowing Palms products out of the water. The Pre could be the lifeline they’ve been waiting for.

After two years of losses for the company, Palm finally saw success in the USA, with shares in the company quadrupling since the launch of the Pre. 02 hope to mirror that success by offering the phone on a number of different tariffs. Pre-orders from both 02 and Phones 4U will be available soon.

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