Palm Pre 2 on its way?

The Gadget Show  Wednesday 13 October 2010

The Palm Pre - heading for an update?

Palm itself may have been swallowed up by HP, but its name has lived on first thanks to the Palm Pre Plus that touched down in May, and now apparently through the Palm Pre 2, which according to one source is due to launch imminently.

The source in question is French mobile network SFR, which leaked the news of the Pre 2’s alleged launch on a quickly retracted product page, though a set launch date wasn’t mentioned.

The Pre 2 was already reportedly well down the development path when HP paid $1.2bn for Palm in April, and the delay in taking the project forward seems at least to have resulted in some of HP’s influence being felt.

One feature that is very much Palm, however – and probably the single biggest reason to get excited about the Pre 2 – is the likely inclusion of webOS 2.0, the follow up to the mobile OS that starred on the original Pre and was one of the main reasons HP decided to step in for the otherwise ailing company in the first place.

That aside, the SFR page noted a 1GHz ARM processor, 512MB of RAM, microUSB port, a flatter screen than the original Pre and better battery life.

HP has already announced it intends for PalmOS to live on powering its own line of smartphones in the new year, but if these rumours are true we could just see a device bearing Palm’s own name beat them to the punch.