HP Pre 3 won't be sold in U.S., is down to $75 in Europe
Hewlett-Packard's decision to get out of the WebOS hardware business has meant $99 TouchPad tablets in the U.S., and now officially it also means no Pre 3 smartphones for America.
The Pre 3 phone launched in Europe one day before HP announced that it was giving up on making WebOS tablets and phones, as well as considering spinning off its PC business, which is the world's largest.
The phone is already sold out in Germany and down to a price of about $75 in the Britain and France, and it is available "unlocked," so consumers can use the Pre3 with carriers of their choice, HP told PCMag on Monday.
The cancelation of a U.S. version of the Pre 3 isn't a huge surprise, as the company is no longer making any new WebOS hardware, but the unlocked Euro editions would work with SIM-card-using carriers stateside, such as AT&T and T-Mobile, PCMag said.
The Pre3 features a 3.58-inch touch screen with a 480-by-800-pixel resolution. The previous two Pre phones had 3.1-inch displays.
A 1.4-GHz Qualcomm processor powers the Pre3, which also has a forward-facing camera for video calls (a first for a Palm/HP phone) and a 5-megapixel autofocus camera paired with an LED flash on the back that could shoot photos and HD-quality video.
Meanwhile, the TouchPad is sold out at most retailers in the U.S. and Canada. HP says it has tablets in a warehouse that will soon go on sale on its online store.
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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Image: The HP Pre 3 smartphone. Credit: Hewlett-Packard
