Canadians are readying for the launch of the Palm Pre on Bell Mobility, most likely a 6 month exclusive, which will shut the doors on rival CDMA provider Telus (whether hackers will open this up is another story, similar to how Verizon was hacked to work with the Sprint handset).
According to MobileSyrup, Bell has started to ramp up their in-store advertising for the Pre, featuring a large "Coming Soon" line, and "Order yours today", hinting that preorders have already started for the new handset. As for when Bell will start rolling out the Pre ads (akin to Sprint's ad campaign), it should be only a matter of time. Rumors peg the launch in just a couple days, on August 1st, although an online contest to win a Pre (see below) doesn't end until the end of August.
In any case, Bell will beat O2 to the punch as the first carrier outside to the US, and only the second carrier after Sprint to carry Palm's webOS handset. Are you a Bell user, or know someone from Canada planning to pick one up when it arrives?
Friday, 31 July 2009