HP Pre 3 pre-orders start in the UK, £349.99 and shipping on July 8

This February, HP announced its new lineup of webOS-powered hardware for 2011, while also getting rid of the Palm brand. Since then, we've played with the devices, and while we've heard a lot of things about the TouchPad and the Veer, the Pre 3 isn't a device we get to write about every week. Which is a bit strange, since it's HP's flagship smartphone. Perhaps the brand evokes Palm's failures to get any webOS traction.

Anyway, the Pre 3 is now up for pre-order in the UK, with two well known independent online retailers already listing it for similar prices, and with deliveries expected to start at the beginning of July.

First off, Play.com lets you pre-order a Pre 3 for £349.99, and it promises it will start shipping the devices on July 8. Now that price really is very good, especially if you consider what you're getting for the money in terms of hardware and integrated software. Then again, it may still prove too expensive to overcome the main issue that webOS has: the lack of apps. That's what's always been plaguing this OS, but hopefully HP will manage to do something about that over the course of this year. The OS is solid, functional, and dare I say it – beautiful – but in today's app-ridden world, that still isn't enough to reach mainstream smartphone success.

Clove is the other UK retailer which is already taking pre-orders for the Pre 3. It asks £360, and announces delivery in “early July” – so about at the same time as Play.com.

If you're looking forward to getting the latest webOS-powered smartphone, and want to be among the first people in the UK to own it, you should probably pre-order one from the retailer that you like most.
source: Unwired View