Palm’s new ‘ēthos’: create the hypes without an actual product

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting the feeling that Palm got a new attitude on how they’re trying to promote their upcoming new webOS™-based smartphones without in reality releasing the actual products.

Like we all know, the Prē™ was lend several times to celebrities and seen on the wild, causing plenty of some kinda free promotion for Palm before launching the device into the market. Sammy has posted up a JKOTR blog link at PalmAddict, it’s about the Prē™ round-up which the opening line pretty much sums up the anticipation for the device: "Seldom does a single phone stimulate so much conversation, so many rumors and so much lust.”

As if we’re not drooling for even the tiniest bit of a Prē™ rumor, Engadget has unearthed what seems to be the next second webOS™-powered handset: Palm Ēos. Before the name came up, there have been rumors about this mini-Prē™ handset around the blogosphere and there are two codename circled around: Pixie and Castle. But the last one: Ēos, sounds about right considering Palm’s naming strategy lately.

Juicy rumors surrounding the Palm Ēos keep on leaking and getting more intriguing every minute, it’s said Ēos is the Cēntro™ version of the Prē™, that means Palm is going to slam the price as low as possible and get the revenue by the high sales; just like they do with the Cēntro™. Palm Ēos is said for AT&T, and Sprint will also get the CDMA version of it soon after.

But a great mind-gobbling rumor won’t complete without the follow-up specs of the device itself, so let yourself drown in fantasy with the following Ēos specs rumor:

• 4GB storage
• 10.6mm x 55 mm x 111 mm
• 100 grams
• 2.63-inch, 320 x 400 capacitive display
• Price: $349 before rebates
• Camera: 2 megapixel fixed focus digital camera and flash / video capture
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.1 w/ A2DP and EDR, USB 2.0 via micro USB
• Removable 1150 mAh battery (4 hours 3G talk time)
• Messaging: SMS, MMS (picture and video only), integrated IM client
• Contact sync with AT&T Address Book
• MediaNet
• Cellular Video
• Email: POP3, IMAP4, and EAS support
• A-GPS
• Audio: WAV, MP3, AAC, AAC+ ringtones
• Video Playback: MPEG4, H.264, H.263

Apart from the excitement from knowing that Palm is ‘highly possibly’ going to release another webOS™-based smartphone soon after the Prē™, I found it rather weird to see there are plenty of rumors about this so called Palm Ēos. Because before the Prē™ was finally introduced at CES 2009, we hardly hear any rumors about it or the new OS, Palm managed to keep their (and also other vendors’) lips tight.

So why now rumors about this Palm Ēos is so easily leaked? Is this just another Palm’s new marketing ‘ēthos’? Will see…

Sources are from Engadget and IntoMobile.