Palm Pre at Best Buy – Part 2

Late last week we posted that the Palm Pre had shown up on the Best Buy website toting a massive price of $849.99, I speculated that this was likely an estimation, mistake considering how overly overprice that would be, but Best Buy has proven me wrong and posted that they will indeed be selling the Palm Pre for a ridiculous price of $849.99 without contract. Oddly, the old page has been pulled completely, only an ad with some fine print contains the price now. The reasons are unknown, but it was likely damage control due to the backlash against the very public price.

But why is this price so high? Well, obviously the phone isn’t worth that much, sorry Sprint/Palm fans. There is no way that price is justifiable, at that price point Palm would likely be able to produce as many as five more devices from each individual sale considering speculations on manufacturing costs for the device. The only substantial reason I can fabricate is that Sprint is utterly trying to crush any notion of people buying this device off contract, Sprint needs the revenue more than anything right now, and at $850, very few are going to fork over such a wad of cash, so this plan will likely be successful even if it means a few less sales. Sprint is relying on Palm to pull them out of their current financial hole, a plan which could easily backfire.

The Pre will apparently be hitting other carriers in the future, I suppose we will just have to wait and see if it’s for sale less there to get a handle on the price structure.