Sprint is famous for spending big bucks on advertisements, but i seriously hope they will do well, at least folks at http://www.PalmPreForum.org spent sleepless nights try to find out the lastest and greatest info about the Pre!

Also, the phones will likely be in sprint hands far before us ‘normals’ see them – and once that happens, every loose lipped franchise owner with a friend ‘higher up’ will be yakking about the thing nonstop.

Lastly, the $299 price makes sense: look at the touch pro, its still on the sprint site at 299, despite being available (subsidized on a sprint contract) for as low as $149. Sprint will kill the pre with horrible pricing tables – all their high end phones run 300-350usd, sith SOME running over that occasionally.

Apple/ATT got the iphone price down by requiring a 3yr contract, once they brought the first gen to market and amortized its development and tooling, they have been able to retain the price moving into the 2nd gen version – which Im sure is a cash COW, as all the major development was already accomplished, and from here on out its software updates.

Palm cant just give us a phone through sprint and hope to succeed, and most folks must know that they (palm) know this. I hope they also know that anything over $199 with a contract will KILL sales. This phone isnt just an iphone competitor or killer – its a different KIND of phone with similar functionality that helps make a business device more fun. If they try to spin it as an iphone killer it will fail, simply because the price point WILL be higher for some time unless they have extended contracts. The business user will like the fact that its compact and trendy, but will get turned off if the focus is on glitz and not function. A mix of both can be appreciated by all users, but to sacrifice use will kill any potential business users. If the price was reasonably under $300, say near $250-275 it would likely still do very well, but competing with an 8gb iPhone rather than selling the phone ‘on its own’, the price point must be similar, if not, there has to be a lot to offer above and beyond what the iPhone IS.

I hope palm/sprint get this right, neither company has been able to get the buzz going in their favor for many years, they’re both ‘ho-hum’ companies with the potential to become the next trendy provider/manufacturer, or will both wind up in the ‘what were they thinking?’ files…

“Battery’s going strong after 8 hours of mixed use”

I guess it depends on what he considers mixed use, but the other tweets have made it sound like he’s using it relatively heavily, and 8 hours and going strong with that sort of usage sounds like wishful thinking. (Though I’ll still be buying it anyway).

Honestly, if this is a scam, it would make sense. He’s drumming up more publicity for his company right now than he could any other way.