Well, it seems like Sprint's talk about the Palm Pre costing $549 is right out the window, as BestBuy lists the phone available through Sprint for $199 with 2 year contract, giving this device a no-cotract price-point of as much as $849. You think it’s just a bit steep? Read on, we’ll gladly put things in perspective.

Take our yesterday’s article for example - a full-blown HP AMD quad core system costs $399, and while Pre is of course more mobile than two large boxes, we’d still rather bring home two excellent rigs for that money. We're aware it's not an appropriate comparison, but still, no one can say that $849 isn't a lot of money, especially for a such a device.

That’s not to say that the Pre won’t sell well, but rather that it needs some price adjustments ASAP. On the other hand, another yesterday’s article might actually shed some light on such high pricing – “Don’t sell the Pre to wrong customers. We can’t afford it."