I spent last week at a conference dealing with digital and privacy issues. At one point, we were listening to a pair of speakers - each with a cell phone on the table in front of them. Not too difficult to guess what kind of phones they were - an iPhone and a Blackberry of one flavor or another.

Obviously there are other options out there. But most people seem content with one of those choices.

Is that going to change on June 6?

That’s the day Sprint will begin selling the new Palm Pre, a phone that’s creating a lot of buzz. Some even suggest it could be an iPhone killer. Of course, some of those same people probably said the same thing about the Blackberry Storm.

Here’s one review that asks if the Pre is better than the iPhone:

Initially this phone is only going to be available to Sprint subscribers. Exactly how long that’s going to be the case is unclear. In the past few days, both Verizon and AT&T have said they will be selling the new phone within months, after Sprint’s - apparently brief - exclusive deal runs its course. Sprint says that’s not going to happen until 2010.

Poor Sprint. Analysts say the company has been counting on this new phone to boost its fortunes. Now the company’s competitors are telling everyone there’s no reason to switch to Sprint. They can just wait a few months until the phone is more widely available.

Telecomm analyst Jeff Kagan’s take:

Wow. This is very rare. In the world of cellphones usually when a new device comes out and one carrier has the exclusive, the other carriers don’t even talk about the device until they are ready to carry it themselves. However both AT&T and Verizon have announced they will both be rolling out the new Palm Pre devices within months after Sprints exclusive plays out. Talk about letting the air out of Sprints balloon.

If you’d like to learn a little more about Palm - a smart phone pioneer - check out this article at PCMag.com, which has compiled its coverage of past Palm devices.

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of touch-screen phones. But the fact that this one also has a slide-out keyboard is appealing.