A self-proclaimed Palm Pre beta tester, Jim Van, claimed on Twitter that the Sprint has a tentative launch date of April 30th for the Pre.  Van says that it’s a “line in the sand” and isn’t final, but that his source is usually dead on.

This would put the launch of the Pre well within the promised Q2 release period, and over a full month before Apple’s WWDC.  This should give Palm and Sprint plenty of time to get the Pre into the hands of users who might otherwise be persuaded to purchase an iPhone, especially if more rumors start to leak regarding a new model to be released.

Other tweets from Jim Van claim that they’re in the final testing stages of the Pre, and that he got his device just two days ago, on the 26th.  If the Pre is truly in the final testing stages, hopefully we’ll start seeing a massive advertising campaign from Palm and Sprint.  The lack of advertising over the Pre has cast some serious doubt over the chances of a successful Pre launch.  Keep an eye out for new advertising, and if you see any, please tell us.

[Via Twitter, Thanks to Philip Lam for finding this!]