It could be argued the O2 exclusive on the original Palm Pre didn’t help it become the sales success it deserved. Then again the implosion of Palm and its subsequent sale to HP for $1.2bn probably didn’t help either. Still let’s try again…

Perhaps not learning its lesson, Palm has once again chosen to go with an O2 exclusive this time for the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus. Both will launch on 28 May across a wide array of tariffs (included below) and be available from free.

Sweet spots? As a shunner of 24 month contracts I’d argue the 18 month £40pm deal (600 minutes, unlimited data and WiFi) works out best for both models, but with the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus going for peanuts on US networks all plans seem on the heavy side for handsets announced over five months ago. And for those asking: “whatever happened to the original Pixi in the UK?” It was never released.

Tech highlights? Both Pre Plus and Pixi Plus have faster performance and more memory (16GB in the case of the former), but all other specs stay the same making them the iPhone 3GS of upgrades.

Furthermore with HP’s plans for Palm still up in the air (webOS will come to other sectors includes tablets and even printers) it may be worth holding off to see what the new joint venture can come up with. Sorry O2…

Link: Palm UK