Pre Excitement BuildingPre Excitement Building

It looks like there is a lot of anticipation in some circles for the Palm Pre which is due to be released this coming Saturday, June 6. People are going to a lot of effort to make sure they get their hand on one.Last month, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said "We won't be able to keep up with demand for the device in the early period of time." Talking up a shortage will only increase the demand for the product.

There is at least one guy in line already. The Tinycomb blog shows a guy that got in line on Monday. He is apparently dissatisfied with Sprint but the Pre is the silver lining. "I've been so disappointed with Sprint since my parents got me a plan three years ago. I hear there is only going to be 4 phones at each spot, and I'm GETTING MINE!"

Don't forget that Best Buy is also selling the Pre, and the $100 rebate is instant there. If you buy it at a Sprint outlet, you have to pay $299 and then submit the rebate and wait for your $100 to come back. If Best Buy is the way you want to go, you should check out the thread at EverythingPre where anticipated store inventory levels are posted. Last time I checked there were 15 pages of posts and pics showing what each store was allocated, so you might have to hunt for the one in your area.

I am not sure this phone is worth all of the hype, but for primarily two types of people there is a lot of excitement over it. The first is the PalmOS faithful. These are the users that have had a Palm device for years, most likely a Treo recently, that is running the now seven year old Garnet based OS and they are looking for a new phone without leaving Palm behind. Many of them never accepted the Palm Treo devices that came with Windows Mobile. It was like a Chevy fanatic buying a car with the Chevrolet badge on it but it was really a Toyota underneath. Not the same thing. True, the Pre doesn't natively run PalmOS applications, but the Pre can run them on an emulator, which should be good enough for most people. The second group is someone that wants a great web based phone but doesn't want an iPhone, and the Pre fits that bill.

Just four days left. If you know where that guy is that is already in line, stop by and see if he needs some coffee or anything. Will you be standing in line or checking inventory levels?