Word surfaced Wednesday that O2 has been tapped to be the exclusive carrier for the Palm Pre in the UK.

According to a report from The Guardian, Palm will announce the deal next week. If true, O2 - which already has an exclusive deal with Apple for UK distribution of the iPhone - will further lengthen its lead over Orange as Blighty's go-to provider of top-of-mind smartphones.

Launched on June 6th, the Pre has garnered its share of positive reviews, although The Reg's own assessment ranked its capabilities behind those of Apple's new iPhone 3GS, chiefly because of its problematic keyboard, challenging navigation, and understandable kinks in the 1.0 version of its operating system, webOS.

Apple recently announced that the iPhone 3GS sold over one million units in its first weekend of its availability, but the Pre isn't doing too shabbily. Estimates of its sales range between 150,000 and 300,000 units. ®

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