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Palm has officially announced the launch date for the Pre — they choose June 6, which as most of the iPhoneFreak readers will recognize is two days before WWDC. Normally I would not feel the need to write a post about the release of handset aside from the iPhone, however I think this one deserves a little attention simply because of the hype that it has received. And honestly, I am also a little intrigued, not enough to ditch my iPhone, but it may be enough to convince me to add the Palm Pre to my growing collection of smartphones.

According to the official press release;

“Palm Pre will be available nationwide on June 6 in Sprint stores, Best Buy, Radio Shack, select Wal-Mart stores and online at Sprint.com for $199.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $100 mail-in rebate.”

If nothing else, the Pre will have one thing going for it — you will be able to grab it just about anywhere. Of course, as we are all expecting to see the next-gen iPhone get announced during WWDC, which means the Pre will have (at least) two-full days to shine.

What does this mean for the iPhone? Most likely nothing, after all they are on different carriers and any iPhone 3G owners will still have another year on contract with AT&T. If anything, we may see a few geeks (like myself) pick up both and have multiple handsets.

If nothing else, it should be interesting to see the overall response to the Pre and although I hate to use the term iPhone “killer,” the Pre seems to be one of the first that could potentially offer some competition. All that aside, I am sure we are going to see quite a bit of comparison following the launches.