When companies start plunking down money on print ads, you know a device is coming soon. Sprint dropped a big color picture of the Palm Pre on the back of the Wall Street Journal today, paying Rupert Murdoch $264,000 for the privilege. (We've got an image of the full ad after the jump.) The Pre has played a cameo role in Sprint's most recent TV ad campaign, popping up at the very end, but here it stands out as if to say it's the one gadget Sprint wants to associate with the Now Network. Sprint has also given Twitter a prominent role in the ad campaign, as shown by the blue bird in the picture.

AT&T started featuring the BlackBerry Bold in print ads about a month before the device launched, on November 4. Print ads also heralded the launch of the Palm Treo Pro on Sprint, but that launch process was such a mess that I don't know if the timing was intentional or not.

We still don't know when the Pre is coming out, though it will probably be sometime in May.See more at www.gearlog.com