HP Pre 2 Officially Announced By Verizon Wireless, Will Bring webOS 2.0

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We saw the HP branded Pre 2 come available for pre-order here in the US last week and it looks like it will soon be available direct with Verizon. The details have come by way of a recently released press release, and come with some expected and some surprising details.

Well, with some second though, maybe not so surprising details considering that phones are often more expensive when shopping direct with the carrier. That said, while some will remember that HP has the Pre 2 priced at $99.99 on a two-year agreement, the price with Verizon is $149.99. And of course, the Verizon price also requires the same two-year agreement. But, and this is a not so nice but, the Verizon price also comes AFTER a $50 mail in rebate. In other words, shop with HP and pay only $99.99 and shop with Verizon and pay $199.99 and then wait for $50 to come back in the mail.

Otherwise, the release date with Verizon is February 17th, which was expected given that was the date HP had said their pre-orders would begin shipping.

All said and done, it is nice to see this handset actually come available as promised, but personally — I am not all that convinced it will do well. Just to begin with, the Pre Plus was given free Mobile Hotspot to attract attention, and the Pre 2 is not all that much better in terms of hardware. Granted there are some improvements, but I would think those are not enough to convince Pre Plus users to upgrade. Not to mention, while still not confirmed as coming to Verizon, there was also the official announcement of the Pre 3.

Anyway, in the end, what those who make the purchase will get is a handset running webOS 2.0 along with a 3.1 inch (320 x 480) touchscreen display, hardware QWERTY keyboard, 1GHz processor, 16GB internal storage, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 and a 3.5mm headphone jack.