The Palm Pre smartphone is shown Jan. 9 at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

New York ? Sprint Nextel Corp. plans to start selling Palm Inc.’s much anticipated new smart phone, the Pre, on June 6 for $200. The device could give Palm a needed boost in sales and help Sprint stop the defection of subscribers to other wireless carriers.

The price — which requires a new two-year service plan and a $100 mail-in rebate — and the launch date are both close to what industry watchers were expecting.

The Pre, which looks like an iPhone but sports a slide-out keyboard in addition to a touch screen, is seen as Palm’s chance of reversing a long slide and taking on newer smart phones like the iPhone and BlackBerry.

In its fiscal third quarter, which ended in late February, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Palm reported its loss widened as sales of its phones fell 42 percent year over year to 482,000.

Meanwhile, Overland Park, Kan.-based Sprint lost 1.25 million of its valuable contracted subscribers in the first three months of the year, even worse than the drop of 1.1 million in the fourth quarter.

Given their challenges, Collins Stewart analyst Ashok Kumar said the device is a “make or break product” for both companies. Kumar is skeptical that the Pre will be a runaway success because the smart phone market is already so crowded.