Is Palm Pre an iPhone killer? We find out June 6

The wait is over for Sprint's highly anticipated Palm Pre phone. It debuts nationwide June 6 in Sprint Stores, Best Buy, Radio Shack, select Wal-Mart stores and online at Sprint.com

The phone will cost $199.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $100 mail-in rebate. Sprint claims the device will "consolidate your important information – professional, social and personal – into one revolutionary device using an operating system that redefines the experience of living and working wirelessly."

A key for the Palm Pre is that users will save up to $1,430 over two years for the all-everything plan -- unlimited minutes, text and internet -- versus similar offerings on AT&T and Verizon, though Sprint's 3G network is routinely panned by critics.

A little about the Pre, from Sprint's press release:

The new webOS platform introduces Palm Synergy, a feature that brings together your personal and professional calendar, contacts and e-mail into one centralized view, making transitions between work and personal life smooth and easy to manage.

With Palm Synergy, users get:

-- Linked contacts – a single view that links your contacts from a variety of sources, so if you have the same contact listed in your Outlook, Google and Facebook accounts, Synergy recognizes that they’re the same person and links the information, presenting it to you as one listing.

-- Layered calendars – Your calendars can be seen on their own or layered together in a single view, combining work, family, friends, sports teams, or other interests. You can toggle to look at one calendar at a time, or see them all at a glance.

-- Combined messaging – Synergy lets you see all your conversations with the same person in a chat-style view, even if it started in IM and you want to reply with text messaging. You can also see who’s active in a buddy list right from contacts or e-mail, and start a new conversation with just one touch.

-- Palm's operating systems lets you keep multiple activities open and move easily between them like flipping through a deck of cards. You can move back and forth between text messaging and e-mail, or search the web while you listen to music. You can rearrange items simply by dragging them, and when you are done with something, just throw it away by flicking it off the top of the screen.

Finding what you need is also easy with universal search – as you type what you’re looking for, webOS narrows your search and offers results from both your device and the web.(4) WebOS crushes the barriers to true mobile computing.