The Verizon Palm Pre 2 was recently spotted in Best Buy’s inventory system and now the elusive handset has made its appearance on Walmart’s wireless website. The listing details the now familiar features of the handset and it is expectedly not available. Availability is an issue that has plagued the Verizon handset since it was announced last year. Initial rumors suggested the handset would debut in November, but that target passed with nary a word from Verizon or Palm. A leaked internal Verizon document suggested the Pre would debut in Q4 2010, but that official launch has yet to materialize.
Fast forward to January and a new rumor suggests the Verizon Palm Pre 2 will debut in the January and will be available for a brief time from the wireless carrier. The rumor, fresh from Phone Arena, suggests production of the now Palm-branded Pre 2 will be terminated after two months. After this eight week window, HP will begin producing its own line of webOS handsets. This move from a Palm to HP-branded hardware is not surprising. In select portions of the webOS development center, the mobile OS is called HP webOS and not Palm webOS. Recently, former Palm head Jon Rubinstein took the stage at the D: Dive into Mobile conference and confirmed that HP was debating the future of the Palm branding. If this rumor pans out, then it is likely the diminutive Pre 2 may be Palm’s last hurrah.
[Via PreCentral]