Palm Pre to Launch June 6th Priced at $199.99

Sprint today announced that the Palm Pre will launch on June 6th and will be priced at $199.99 with a two-year contract and mail-in rebate.

Sprint today announced pricing and nationwide availability for the highly anticipated Palm Pre phone, offered exclusively from Sprint. Palm Pre will be available nationwide on June 6 in Sprint stores, Best Buy, Radio Shack, select Wal-Mart stores and online at Sprint.com for $199.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $100 mail-in rebate.

Announced in January, the Palm Pre has been hyped as the most significant near-term threat to the iPhone's market share due to the inclusion of a number of new features, including Palm's new "webOS" operating system, a multi-touch interface, and a faster processor than that found in the iPhone 3G.

Sprint and Palm are also promoting the Pre's ability to integrate data across applications via a feature known as "Palm Synergy":

"The Pre's dynamic 'activity cards' approach to handling and navigating multiple applications is a great advance, but the core breakthrough is the integration of information across multiple applications on and off the phone," said Andy Castonguay, director of Mobile & Access Devices Research, Yankee Group. "With social networking and messaging being so important to consumers, the device's new 'Palm Synergy' functionality -- which gives Pre the ability to automatically pull friends' contact details, messaging addresses and personal calendars from different applications online and on the phone -- will greatly simplify people's ability to communicate with their friends and colleagues the way they want."

The Palm Pre will utilize Sprint's "Everything Data" plan, which offers unlimited data and messaging, unlimited mobile-to-mobile, night and weekend calling, and a choice of either 450 or 900 anytime minutes. The plans are currently priced at $69.99 and $89.99 respectively.

Palm will also introduce its new Touchstone induction charging system on the Pre, which includes both a dock and an additional back cover for the handset to allow for wireless charging. The Touchstone system will be priced at $69.99.