LS-HACKS

Sprint today announced pricing and nationwideavailability for the Palm Pre phone, offered exclusively from Sprint.Palm Pre will be available nationwide on June 6 in Sprint stores, BestBuy, 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-inrebate. Running on the new Palm webOS mobile platform, Pre bringstogether your important information from where it resides ? on yourphone, at your work or on the web ? into one logical view.

Forthose who juggle life circa 2009 ? bouncing from conference call to carpool schedule, from doctors? numbers to doctoral thesis data, fromsocial calendars to social networking ? Pre marks a new wirelesscrossover standard. Before Pre, you had to compromise when selecting awireless phone. To get the business features you needed, you had tosacrifice the personal entertainment features you wanted. Preconsolidates your important information ? professional, social andpersonal ? into one revolutionary device using an operating system thatredefines the experience of living and working wirelessly.

?Theargument that you need one phone for work and another phone for play,or that you have to make compromises between business and lifestyleproductivity, is over,? said Dan Hesse, president and CEO of Sprint.?With Pre, compromises of the past are history.?

Palm Pre willrun on America?s most dependable 3G network and come with Sprint?sindustry-leading, value-oriented Everything Data plans that offersavings of up to $1,430 over two years vs. comparable AT&T andVerizon plans for smartphones and PDAs.(2)

?The Palm Pre takesfull advantage of Sprint?s Everything Data plans,? said Avi Greengart,research director for Consumer Devices at Current Analysis. ?The Prehas been expressly designed for multitasking among multiple web pagesand applications. It also builds on Palm?s heritage in PDAs by managingyour digital information ? whether that?s on a corporate server or onthe web.?

"The Pre's dynamic 'activity cards' approach tohandling and navigating multiple applications is a great advance, butthe core breakthrough is the integration of information across multipleapplications on and off the phone," said Andy Castonguay, director ofMobile & Access Devices Research, Yankee Group. "With socialnetworking and messaging being so important to consumers, the device?snew ?Palm Synergy? functionality ? which gives Pre the ability toautomatically pull friends' contact details, messaging addresses andpersonal calendars from different applications online and on the phone? will greatly simplify people's ability to communicate with theirfriends and colleagues the way they want."

Pre: A New Kind of Phone

Thenew webOS platform introduces Palm Synergy?, a key feature that bringstogether your personal and professional calendar, contacts and e-mailinto one centralized view, making transitions between work and personallife smooth and easy to manage.

With Palm Synergy, users get:

* Linked contacts ? With Synergy, you have a single view that linksyour contacts from a variety of sources, so accessing them is easierthan ever. For example, if you have the same contact listed in yourOutlook(3), Google and Facebook accounts, Synergy recognizes thatthey?re the same person and links the information, presenting it to youas one listing.

* Layered calendars ? Your calendars can be seen ontheir own or layered together in a single view, combining work, family,friends, sports teams, or other interests. You can toggle to look atone calendar at a time, or see them all at a glance.

* Combinedmessaging ? Synergy lets you see all your conversations with the sameperson in a chat-style view, even if it started in IM and you want toreply with text messaging. You can also see who?s active in a buddylist right from contacts or e-mail, and start a new conversation withjust one touch.

Palm webOS lets you keep multiple activitiesopen and move easily between them like flipping through a deck ofcards. You can move back and forth between text messaging and e-mail,or search the web while you listen to music. You can rearrange itemssimply by dragging them, and when you are done with something, justthrow it away by flicking it off the top of the screen.

Findingwhat you need is also easy with universal search ? as you type whatyou?re looking for, webOS narrows your search and offers results fromboth your device and the web.(4) WebOS crushes the barriers to truemobile computing.

?Pre is truly a new phone for a newweb-centric age,? said Ed Colligan, Palm president and chief executiveofficer. ?We?re a mobile society, and we want our people, calendars andinformation to move with us. With Pre?s exquisite design and the uniquewebOS software, running on Sprint?s fast broadband network, we?rechanging the perception of what a wireless phone can be.

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Precomes with a charger in the box, but for anyone tired of plugging acord into their wireless phone, Palm introduces the Touchstone?charging dock, the first inductive charging solution for phones,available exclusively for Pre. Simply set Pre down on top of the dockwithout worrying about connection, orientation or fit. Pre is activewhile charging, so you can access the touch screen, watch movies orvideo, or use the speakerphone. Set Pre on the charging dock whenyou?re on a call, and the speakerphone automatically turns on; when youtake a ringing Pre off the dock, Pre automatically answers the call.Other mobile operating systems allow multitasking, but Palm hasdeveloped an intuitive method of switching between "cards,? whichresemble clicking different tabs on a Web browser. New applications canbe launched easily using the "Launcher" software button at the bottomof the home screen, and users navigate between different applications.

Withnearly every wireless device today you have to exit one applicationcompletely before you can use another. That?s not what people areaccustomed to; think of your PC and all the applications you can haveopen at one time.

Pre: The latest NOW Network milestone for Sprint

Pre also lets you access feature-rich Sprint content on the Sprint Now Network, including exclusive applications such as:

* Sprint Navigation(5)

* Sprint TV

* NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile Live

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Sprint?sNow Network brings you America?s most dependable 3G network, thelargest push-to-talk community, and in selected markets Sprint is theonly national carrier bringing 4G to life in 2009,?(6) Hesse said. ?TheNow Network is more than just a physical network ? it?s also data plansthat are all-inclusive, eliminating fear of data overages and a perfectfit for Palm Pre users.?

Sprint?s networks are now performing atbest-ever levels, and Sprint?s high-value Everything data plansconsistently beat AT&T?s and Verizon?s comparable plans in savingsby hundreds, even thousands, of dollars over two years. With therevolutionary launch of Ready Now, which Sprint pioneered, customersleave the store educated, comfortable and confident about the phonesthey?re about to take home. As a result of these measures and more,Sprint customer satisfaction indices ? from first call resolution tobilling satisfaction, from customer care response time to service andrepair ? have all significantly improved during the past year.

Pricing and Availability:

ThePalm Pre phone will be available from Sprint on June 6 for $199.99after a $100 mail-in rebate with a new two-year service agreement on anEverything Data plan or Business Essentials with Messaging and Dataplan. An array of compelling accessories also will be available forPre, including the Palm Touchstone charging dock. The Touchstone?Charging Kit, which includes the Touchstone charging dock andTouchstone back cover for Pre, will be available June 6 for $69.99. TheTouchstone charging dock and Touchstone back cover also are availableseparately from for $49.99 and $19.99, respectively.