The first sighting of a GSM version of the Palm Pre was during the Mobile World Congress earlier this year. This was first uncovered by Precommunity.com but was never confirmed by the manufacturer. In an interview with PC World, Palm's ex-CEO Ed Colligan said the Pre would go on sale in European countries in the first half of 2009. This would naturally be a GSM device with HSDPA because the US CDMA version would not work there.
The Palm Pre with a Vietnamese GSM SIM
(Credit: Tinhte.com)
The rumour mill is hitting closer to home as photos of a GSM Pre have emerged on a Vietnamese forum. Not only aren't the photos blurry as many rumour shots tend to be, they are of pretty high-quality and clearly show the SIM card slot behind the battery cover. It's apparent that a GSM-flavour Pre does exist, but the question remains: why is it in Vietnam and when will it go on sale?
A possibility is that it's a test set for either an operator or distributor. A separate report from Romania dated 9 June claimed the Pre will be available in Eastern Europe at the end of September, citing a local distributor of Apple products in Romania as its source.
One thing's for sure. There's no reason Palm Pre and the webOS should remain only in the US, not if the company wants to make an impact with its platform. The introduction of a GSM smartphone running webOS will surely come. It's only a matter of when. We have contacted Palm for an updated time frame since the first half of the year has elapsed. We will update this blog post as more information becomes available.
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