Interested in hopping on board with that Palm Pre Plus or Palm Pixi Plus on Verizon later this month? Well, Big Red is looking out for you and with their brand new plans you can get away with sacrificing only a single limb instead of an arm and a leg. Boy Genius Report got the scoop on Verizon’s new plans, and not only have they been made less expensive, but made fewer as well through means of consolidation (from sixteen choices down to six). How it breaks down is all after the break.
The base of any Verizon plan will be a voice choice. The Unlimited Talk plan (with Verizon-to-Verizon and Friends & Family baked in) will run for $69.99 while upgrading to Unlimited Talk & Text (SMS and MMS) will hit you for an additional $20 a month. You can also grab 450 minutes for $39.99 or 900 minutes for $59.99, with the same $20 upgrade for unlimited texting (otherwise you can pay $1.99 per text). All plans are available as a pre-paid option, though it will cost $5 more and you loose Friends & Family.
Unlimited family plans will start at $119.99 for just voice and $149.99 a month if you want texting thrown in as well. Each line thereafter will run for $49.99. Don’t want unlimited chatting? You can also grab a family plan with 700 shared minutes for $69.99, 1400 minutes for $89.99, and 2000 minutes for $99.99. Upgrading to unlimited texting will cost an additional $30, but each additional line for the not-unlimited plans will run only $9.99 instead.
New data packages are also coming down the pike, with Verizon crafting a new 25-megabytes-a-month plan that will be mandatory on any “3G Multimedia phone,” such as the LG enV line, Chocolate Touch, Samsung Alias, and other feature phones. 25 MB is something that a webOS user could easily burn through in an hour, so we’ll be interested in the unlimited data plans, and the 3G Smartphone data plan with cost you $29.99 a month. Frighteningly, if you require access to corporate email (e.g. Exchange), Verizon is ready to charge you up to $49.99 for your data access (though given how webOS directly accesses the web, we’re not sure how Verizon will enforce this).
So how does this mean for the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus? The plans, which will go live on January 18th, will definitely be available to grab when webOS hits Verizon on January 25th. We still don’t know how the Mobile Hotspot will factor in, but we have to assume that the mandatory unlimited data plan won’t include it.
Here’s how it will work for your average Pre Plus or Pixi Plus owner:
A Verizon 450-minute plan packaged with unlimited texting and data will run $89.99 a month, while the same package on Sprint (Everything Data) is $69.99. On AT&T the same plan for an iPhone will cost the same $89.99.
If we bump it up to unlimited voice, text, and data, Verizon will hit at $119.99, Sprint at $99.99 (Simply Everything) and AT&T at a painful $149.99.
MobiChimp is proud to announce the release of their first two Palm Pre application to the Plam catalog.