The newest entrant in the “iPhone Killers” line-up, Palm Pre, will reportedly hit the markets by the middle of the year. Going by one of the reports, the employees at Sprint – Palm Pre’s select telecom carrier – will, this month, receive specific training for the forthcoming device.

Initially, the Pre will be available in the US exclusively from Sprint, who will add its mobile broadband service EV-DO Rev. A. However, the Pre’s GSM edition for Europe and Latin America will support the 3G standard HSDPA.

With mid-2009 round the corner, Sprint has refrained from granting any vacation time to its employees during May. As per source familiar with the proceedings, the proposed launch date for the Palm Pre is May 17; and if that is missed, the device will be released on June 29! However, official disclosure about the launch date as well as the price of Pre is still awaited.

The Palm Pre, which was first introduced in January at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show, comes equipped with Palm’s recently-announced webOS – capable of wireless coordination of wide-ranging data with online services like Facebook and Google.

The basic features of Pre include a strong user interface; a 3.1-inch multi-touch-proficient display; a sliding QWERTY keyboard; Wi-Fi b/g; Bluetooth 2.1; 8 GB on-board storage capacity; and a 3.0 megapixel LED flash camera.