An update on Pre pricing. Yes, $474 is the correct price for the Pre if you are between 12 and 22 months of your contract, as mentioned by the Sprint customer service rep’s email yesterday. Justin has issued an apology and correction on Twitter, as well as reached out to me personally, so I really appreciate that effort.

However, I am still very disappointed in the pricing. There must be additional instant rebates involved for the two-year upgrade price to be $299 before the mail-in rebate, since when you subtract the extra $75 the two-year folks get from the $474 it’s still only $399. Unless, of course, the $199 after rebate price is only for new customers and the two-year upgrades will end up paying $299 after rebate. The press release didn’t make it seem that way, however.

My theory is Sprint knows there will be a shortage at first, so they are making an effort to limit the device to new customers (switchers) and folks they can easily lure into contract extensions. Not sure many folks will be willing to drop $474 for a phone, so right away they can meet demand by limited the number of potential buyers. We’ll see how that works out… but it’s not the kind of strategy you’d expect from two companies that have been on many of the “likely to go out of business” lists market analysts have been posting since the recession started!

Well, October is a long way off, so I will consider all of my options at that point. The Pre may still win out, but I will be looking at the iPhone and various Android-based phones that will be released between now and then – not to mention the possible plan pricing changes I mentioned yesterday. Lots of options, at least.