Palm Pre to Be Released on Canada's Bell Network -- Exclusively

Palm has confirmed via a press release and a blog posting that Canada's Bell Network will get the Palm Pre in the "2nd half of 2009."  Yes, our neighbors to the north are going to have to wait a bit (Sorry, Jason!).  Hopefully the windows to Bell's launch will narrow down significantly -- our experience with the Sprint "first half of 2009" has been pretty rough.

They've also confirmed that Bell will get the Pre exclusively, sorry Telus customers. 

"Bell is excited to be only the second carrier in the world to announce the 3G Pre," said Adel Bazerghi, senior vice president of Products for Bell Mobility. "With the unique user experience of the world's first webOS phone, running on the country's largest 3G network, we're confident that Canadians will embrace Pre as the phone for their lives today."

Hey Bazerghi, we think you meant "as the phone for their lives sometime later this year."  We're just saying.  As with the release date, the exact price is also unknown.

PreCentral.net first reported that Bell would be getting the Pre way back in January thanks to anonymous tipsters. 

Update from Derek: Bell Canada has a page up about the Pre where you can sign up to get notified.  There doesn't appear to be any new information there, but it's a link, hey?

Update on the Update from Dieter: Hey everybody, if you haven't said hello to our new writer Derek Kessler (nee Captain Hair), you should!