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We have, in the recent past seen the GSM Palm Pre get announced with O2 over in the UK, Ireland and Germany, but until now that was not doing anything for potential users here in the US.

Thankfully, online retailer Expansys has changed that up by making that same GSM Palm Pre available for shipping to the States.  That said, your handset will come with some O2 branding and a few catches.

To begin with, the Pre will set you back a whopping $714.99, which although expensive it also a pretty normal sounding price for an unlocked and contract free handset.

Moving on though, the Pre is GSM and will be able to be used on both AT&T and T-Mobile, however it will not be able to take advantage of 3G speeds.  And finally, the last, and also the strangest catch is that the QWERTY keyboard is a little different.

According to the Expansys website, and just to make sure nobody things this is a strange typo on my part;

“The QWERTZ keypad is the same as a QWERTY keypad, the only difference is the Z and Y locations are swapped around.”

Bottom line, if you can deal with no 3G, a high price and switched around Z and Y then this could be the GSM Palm Pre you have been waiting for.  Otherwise, it looks like it will be back to waiting.

Product [Expansys]