Hasta La Gadget!

So it looks like Barron’s and The Wall Street Journal have talked to enough store clerks and Sprint reps today to confirm that Radio Shack is definitely dropping the original Palm Pre and Pixi from its in-store lineup. For what it’s worth, Sprint says that “this is in line with Radio Shack’s normal product planning process — there is a designated amount of space in stores for handsets and they work to keep the line up of devices as current as possible,” and we actually tend to believe that story since the phones (the Pre in particular) are getting awfully long in the tooth and we wouldn’t blame the retailer for trying to cycle in some fresh stuff. The bigger question is whether the move indicates that Palm has some hot new gear for Sprint around the corner; if not, this gives Palm one less avenue for sales at a time when it needs all the help it can get, especially since you won’t find these guys hawking Verizon’s versions.

[Thanks, Brent]

Radio Shack nixing sales of Sprint’s Pre and Pixi, but what does it mean? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Apr 2010 20:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Palm’s news activity doesn’t seem like abating any time soon, as the company has just made the Deutsch arrival date for its Plus-ified phones official as April 28. It matches earlier speculation about late April, but also — very importantly — introduces a new carrier options for our Teutonic brethren in the form of Vodafone. Formerly locked in with Telefonica (whose local representative is O2), Palm seems to have finally seen the error of its ways and started offering choice as a side dish to its delectable WebOS main course. So, forget about who’s buying the company, will you be buying its phones?

[Thanks, gizmo21]

Official: Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus hitting Vodafone and O2 Germany on April 28 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 06:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been a rough month or so for Palm, as the only thing keeping the company’s tanking stock price from falling completely into the gutter are buyout rumors — RIM here, HTC there, even Lenovo, for some crazy reason. But that’s apparently not enough to get CEO Jon Rubinstein down: he just sat down with Fortune for a remarkably candid chat, saying that although his company hasn’t done so well, he still thinks there’s potential — and that he obviously wishes some things had gone better. The big one? The Verizon launch — and Jon thinks that if the Droid and Pre had had their launch dates flipped, the Pre would have done better.

One of the analysts on our earnings call asked if we had launched when Droid launched, and Droid launched when [we] launched at Verizon, would the story have been opposite? I said I think we have a better product than Droid, and customers would have been happier with it.

It’s certainly an interesting thought experiment, but we’ve always said that the Pre’s marketing had a lot to do with its failure on Big Red as well — and Palm apparently agrees, since it’s fired its ad agency and Jon told Fortune that Verizon’s changing their ads as well. As for the buyout rumors? Well, obviously Jon didn’t say much, but it sounds like he’s not too interested — although that can always change if the right suitor comes to the table . We’ll see if Ruby actually manages to turn things around — we’ve got some ideas on how to make that happen. Hit the source link for the full interview.

Palm’s Jon Rubinstein: ‘I think we have a better product than Droid’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to a report from Advertising Age, Palm has mercifully, finally, really parted ways with its ad agency, Modernista — the house responsible for some of our least favorite ads ever. If you need a memory jog, here’s them telling the world that they loved creeping people out with Palm ads. The AdAge article says that the company is currently in talks with various other ad shops, though there’s no clear word on who that new team will be, or when we’ll see the fruits of their labor. We don’t have much to add to this in commentary except to say that this is probably the second smartest thing Palm has done in a span of seven days — the first was striking that amazing deal on Verizon for a super-cheap Palm Pre Plus along with free Mobile Hotspot service. Now, we can look forward to a future where our children won’t cower in fear when they see a Palm ad on television, and we can sleep at night without the image of that pale woman burned into our minds. Of course, now that we’ve seen it, we can never un-see it.

Palm splits with ad agency Modernista originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Apr 2010 19:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With Palm’s Pre Plus (model P101) and Pixi Plus (model P121) already granted US domicile by their FCC host, it’s only natural that they’d seek adventure elsewhere before getting serious and going to work for AT&T. Now the Global Certification Forum (GFC) has approved what must be the European versions of Palm’s Plus handsets: models P101UEU and P121UEU. Both are quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE as well as dual-band UMTS/HSDPA on the 2100/900MHz frequencies. Now if only Palm could get a few more carriers and countries on board it might actually move some meaningful device quantities in Europe.

Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus approved for European vacation originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Mar 2010 06:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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