Palm Announces Pixi for US
Like the cheeky little monkey that it is, Palm isn’t afraid to interrupt news from the big boys for their own new gadget announcement, even on 09-09-09. They today unveiled the long rumoured Palm Pixi, a slimmed down version the Pre. The new phone is coming to US carrier Sprint this holiday, and if the history of the Pre is any indicator, it’s likely to come to Bell a few months later.
The design of the Pixi should be familiar to Palm Centro users, as it’s the same candy bar with QWERTY keyboard design, with a screen that’s trimmed back to 320×400 compared to the Pre’s HVGA. It will also come with 8GB of onboard storage, EVDO Rev. A data (no WiFi) and 5 artist-designed back covers if you’re into giving your phone that personal touch. As for horsepower, the Pixi has a Qualcomm MSM7627 CPU, which is somewhat less powerful than the Pre’s OMAP 3 processor. How this will fare in day to day usability remains to be seen.
Given the feature list, it seems obvious that Palm is aiming this to be the replacement for the now all-but-defunct Centro running Palm’s old OS. This means that it should be less expensive than the Pre (which got a $50 price cut in the US – Canada to follow?), and make a compelling upgrade for Centro users, and anyone wanting to dip their toes in the smart phone market without foregoing an actual keyboard.
I thought it was a $100 price cut o_0
I think you might be confused with the various rebates. This is a no-strings attached “We slashed $50 directly off the phone” price reduction.