It is a day of price cuts for the Palm Pre. According to a leaked Sprint document, the now one-year old handset will be dropping to $49.99 starting September 12th. While the Pre will receive a much needed $100 reduction, the Pixi will see a $50 reduction, bringing the final retail value to the irresistible price tag of free. Both prices are after a $100 mail-in rebate so potential buyers will have to cough up $149 for the Pre and $100 for the Pixi and wait for their rebate to be delivered via snail mail.
Off-contract pricing will also see a similar reduction with the Sprint Pre now available for $349 and the Pixi available for $299. Though some may balk at paying $349 for a handset, these prices are very reasonable and place the two webOS handsets in the position of being amongst the least expensive current generation smartphones available from Sprint.
While Sprint finally reduced the prices on its webOS handsets, Verizon Wireless has cut the price on its two webOS offerings several times since their early 2010 launch. This latest round of reductions slashes the price on the Verizon Pre Plus to free, a strategy presumably designed to move the standing inventory of this webOS handset.
First the release of webOS 2.0 to developers and now these price cuts, one cannot help but assume that this is an indication of upcoming new hardware. Palm is rumored to be sending the next generation Palm Pre with webOS 2.0 to Verizon Wireless. Along with Verizon, a similarly spec-ed handset may also be landing on Sprint and/or AT&T. I can not speak for the tech world in general, but I am interested in seeing fresh new hardware from Palm that rocks an exciting new build of webOS. How about you?
[Via PreCentral]