Palm Pre Promotion In Canada – Q4 Release Date?

(UPDATE: It looks like the Pre will be launched in Canada in August if not shortly thereafter as Bell Mobility dealers in various cities recently completed training on the device. This means we could see the Pre in Bell stores as early as August. Previously, I thought we’d see the Pre sometime early in the fourth quarter, September specifically. We’ll see.)

Gadget lovers enjoying the Canadian summer weather may have missed Bell Mobility’s Palm Pre Web promotion, which will see the provider give an unnamed number of contest entrants one of the most anticipated smartphones come September.

The provider kicked off the contest on July 7th – it runs until Aug. 31st. Given the promo’s end date, it seems more likely the Pre will be released in Canada sometime in the fall timeframe. Bell has already revealed the retail price of the device – it’ll sell for approximately $650, presumably, for subscribers that don’t want to take a contract. I’m guessing the device will be subsidized down to the $250 mark by Bell assuming of course the user wants to take a three-year contract. Does that mean Bell will launch the Pre on its EVDO Rev. A network & not its HSPA+ network, which it’s building out with Telus? It seems that way. We’ll see.

Anyway, you’ll recall that Bell, way back in May, said it would launch the device at some point in the back half of this year. Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. carrier by subscriber, launched the Pre with much fanfare on its network in June.

The Pre, of course, is one of the most discussed smartphones this year, which is saying a lot given the fact Apple has introduced the iPhone 3GS, the $99 iPhone, while Research In Motion will likely introduce a variety of new BlackBerry models in North America.

Reviewers of the Pre in the United States, where the device was launched last month, will tell you it’s lived up to the hype. Early indications are that Palm has lived up to the promises it made in January, when it introduced the device at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In other words, they seem to love it without exception (as far as I can tell). Whether it’ll make a mark in

Anyway, I was given the opportunity to play with the device for a few minutes and talk to Palm representatives about it in May. It was hard to form any sort of substantive conclusions except to say that it did what Palm has promised it’ll do. In the world of tech demos, where things can and often do go awry, that’s not insignificant.

Canadians dying to catch a glimpse of the Pre in advance of the device’s release date should check out the video review of the Pre by David Pogue of New York Times below. Not surprisingly, he likes it!