It’s been four years since the last major piece of news from Palm and Verizon in January, which was the Treo 700w launch on January 5th 2006. Yesterday marked the occurrence of an event that many (yours truly included) feared would never take place: Verizon launched not one, but two new Palm devices and both are currently Verizon exclusives. Palm fans that refused to jump ship to Sprint now finally have the opportunity to grab a webOS device on a second domestic network.
Not wanting to miss any of the launch excitement, I accompanied my boss to the local Best Buy to grab a Pre Plus. He’s a long-time Treo owner, having used a Treo 600 since its launch on Verizon in 2003, and was clinging dearly to his Centro. I convinced him to take the plunge to move to a webOS device since his Centro wouldn’t last forever and he was yearning for a device with a larger, higher-resolution screen. Besides, I told him he might as well learn to cut the cord and embrace the cloud. Best Buy was the natural choice as a purchase destination, due to the retailer’s customer-friendly policy of eschewing the hassle of mail-in rebates. Read on for a full report on the in-store experience, as well as the device migration process and my initial impressions of the Verizon Palm Pre Plus.
