Palm Pre Plus on tap for CES?
updated 08:05 am EST, Fri December 18, 2009
Verizon to get upgraded Palm, Moto Devour
One of Verizon's first webOS phones will be a direct upgrade to the Pre if a leak is accurate. The company's internal systems reportedly show a "Palm Pre Plus" without supplying further details. What it would involve isn't clear, but the badge suggests a similar design and that upgrades are most likely to revolve around more storage or better performance.
The tip to Phone Arena is the first to directly point to a new Palm model outside of Sprint and backs up a report of advance Verizon training for webOS as a platform. The carrier is also rumored to be receiving a Wi-Fi equipped Pixi and appears to be committing to Palm in a significant way. Both phones could be critical for the smartphone maker as its lack of carrier choices, combined with competition from the iPhone, has led to declining sales even compared to its pre-webOS days.
Palm is slated to hold a keynote at CES and may use the gathering to launch one or more new phones destined for Verizon.
Simultaneously, the same sources also point to the carrier adding the Motorola Devour. Also known as the Calgary, it's considered a low-end alternative to the Droid that will use a simpler 3-megapixel camera and a smaller screen. It should nonetheless run Android 2.1 and will be one of Motorola's first phones to use its customized MOTOBLUR interface with a version of Android later than 1.5.
Lastly, LG's VS750 should be Verizon's first smartphone from the Korean company and should be a slim Windows Mobile 6.5 phone with dual-mode (CDMA and GSM) networking. It's not likely to launch in the near future but has appeared in a Bluetooth SIG filing.
