Palm Pre 2 Coming to Verizon February 17

The big news at Verizon Wireless recently has been the arrival of the iPhone 4. But if the iPhone isn't your smartphone of choice, Verizon has more to offer. Hitting stores on February 17th is HP's Palm Pre 2 smartphone, the first device to run on HP's webOS 2.0.

Features include a 3.1-inch glass multi-touch screen with 320x480 resolution, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 5-megapixel camera with LED Flash and geo-tagging, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 3G mobile hotspot capability. The Pre 2 also supports Microsoft Exchange e-mail and is VZ Navigator capable with audible turn-by-turn directions. The device is loaded with a 1GHz TI OMAP processor with 512 of RAM.

Additional features:

• Contact Integration via HP Synergy –Keep contacts and calendars up to date automatically with built-in integration for Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Yahoo! and Microsoft Exchange.
• Customized Inbox – View all of your accounts together or separately to access work e-mail alone or combined in a favorites folder with personal e-mail from places like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail.
• Full HTML Browsing – Access to full websites just like on Macs or PCs. Play video, upload photos, access online banking and more. webOS also now integrates a beta of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 in the browser for access to Flash-based Web content.
• With Just Type in webOS, customers can start an e-mail, create a message, update their status and search their favorite websites – all before they even open an app.
• Mobile Music Store – Buy and download music right from the webOS smartphone using the Amazon MP3 app when on a Wi-Fi hotspot.
• Skype mobile – webOS 2.0 supports Skype-to-Skype calls and messaging while in the United States to anywhere in the world, and low-rate calls to international landlines and cell phones.

Pre 2 will be available from Verizon Wireless for $149.99 (after a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement) at Verizon Wireless stores and online at www.verizonwireless.com. As with all smartphones these days, Pre 2 customers will need to subscribe to a data plan.