O2 to launch Palm Pre in the UK on October 16

O2 confirmed today that the Palm Pre will be available in the UK on 16 October exclusively on the O2 network.

O2 will make the device available to pay monthly and business customers initially and hopes to offer the device as pay as you go "soon". Both O2 and Palm are excited to offer the device in the UK. "There's a lot of excitement about Palm Pre in Europe as we continue to expand Palm webOS products across new carriers and countries," said Jon Rubinstein chairman and chief executive officer, Palm, Inc in a press announcement today.

Palm Pre for consumers

O2 will be offering the Palm Pre to customers on 24 month plans for free with a Â£35 a month subscription which includes 600 UK minutes and 500 texts. All Pre plans offer unlimited data and use of BT Openzone and The Cloud's Wi-fi hotspots across the UK. If you don't wish to sign up for a full 24 months then there are also 18 month contracts where the phone cost is Â£96.89. See below for full tariff deals:

The Palm Pre was originally introduced at the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas earlier this year. Palm recently issued a software development kit allowing developers to code applications for the device. The impressive spec list for the Palm Pre is listed below:

High-speed wireless (EV-DO Rev. A or HSDPA, depending on version)
802.11b / g WiFi
Integrated GPS
3.1-inch 24-bit color 480 x 320 display
Dedicated gesture area below display
Slide-out portrait QWERTY keyboard
Exchange email support in addition to POP and IMAP
IM, MMS, and SMS messaging
High-performance browser
3-megapixel camera with LED flash and "extended depth of field"
3.5mm headphone jack
Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR with A2DP
8GB of internal storage
USB mass storage mode
MicroUSB connectivity with USB 2.0
Proximity sensor for detecting when phone is near face
Light sensor to automatically dim display
Ringer mute switch
Removable rechargeable battery
59.57 x 100.53 x 16.95mm closed
4.76 ounces

It remains to be seen how popular this device will be in the UK. There's tough competition against Apple's iPhone 3GS which is currently selling out on a weekly basis. Palm plans to launch the Pixi phone in the US this fall too so O2 could be a little late to the party.