The Palm Pre 2 smartphone is to go on sale in the UK today without any support from the major mobile network operators.
According to reports, the handset has been shunned by all of the four major wireless carriers in the UK, with O2, Vodafone, Orange and Three and O2 saying they do not have plans to carry HP’s successor to the original Palm Pre at this point.
The cold reception comes as a surprise, particularly for O2 given that the company already stocks the Pixi Plus and the Palm Plus, and had exclusivity on the original Palm when it was launched in the UK in 2009.
Speaking to Pocket-link, O2 said: “The Palm Pre Two will not be available on O2. We offer a range of the best handsets through our product portfolio and regularly review this to ensure it continues to meet the demands of our customers.”
“We’ve always offered our customers a choice of experiences when they come to buy a new phone and we were excited to add webOS and the Palm Pre to our range. We’re still fans of webOS – the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus are available from us today – but won’t be taking the Palm Pre Two”.
Despite not being available on pay monthly deals, the Palm Pre 2 can still be purchased SIM-free from HP for £399 including VAT and delivery.
The new device runs the webOS 2.0 operating system and comes equipped with a 3.1-inch touchscreen display, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a 1GHz processor, a 5-megapixel camera and 16GB of on-board memory.
