I bought and iPhone and a Pre.. Currently Comparing Both

[felixxiano]

My contract with another carrier is about to expire; thus, I wanted to try out a dfferent phone. Both the iPhone and Pre looked like good options, and I bought both since I had a 30 day return policy with both carries. All I have to do is pay a small fee.

I loved the iPhones OS as well as the iPod; the large variety of apps is very appealing to me. 32GB of cap is amazing. The cost is slightly higher (20 bucks a month) for the same data plan. The biggest drawback for me is the lack of multitasting. That's kinda a bummer. What also kills me is the lack of push notificatons; I know they are working on it, so I am tryng to be patient. Gmail doesn't have push, and that's kinda dealbreaker for me so far; I can only get them to update every 15 mins.

The Pre interface is pretty cool too; they actually ripped the iPhone concept. But I am limited to 8GB of space; that sucks. It's cheaper than the iPhone. I can easily multitask, and that's awesome. It's hard to go back to a single task after experiencing multitasking. Instant notification are amazing; however, they have only a few apps. The camera is fantasic; I've taken pics with both phones, and the Pre is far superior by a mile. The keyboard is kinda small, and it takes time to get used to it.

Both phones are very fast; it's hard to tell much of a difference unless you count fractions of a second.

 

[CocoaPuffs]

Pre and G1, you hear about them pre-launch, then post-launch...NADDA.

I went into the Sprint store and played with Pre. Simply not impressed with its touch technology, and the interface is less intuitive than iPhone. Sure I am biased, but it's hard to convince someone to switch from iPhone without more convincing functions.

 

[gloss]

The biggest drawback for me is the lack of multitasting; I cannot listen to my music while I am chatting with a friend or surf the web. That's kinda a bummer.

Are you streaming your music? The iPod itself backgrounds.

 

[xerenthar]

I cannot listen to my music while I am chatting with a friend or surf the web.

why not? i can.

 

[Ferris23]

How about browsing the web or doing anything data related while talking on the phone with the Pre?

 

[GfPQqmcRKUvP]

The camera is fantasic; I've taken pics with both phones, and the Pre is far superior by a mile.

You're talking about the 3GS?

 

[gloss]

You're talking about the 3GS?

By comparison, yes. He likes the Pre's camera more than the 3GS'.

 

[michael31986]

u can listen to music and text on the iphone.

 

[phobic99]

You're talking about the 3GS?

I was under the assumption he was considering the 32GB phone was mentioned.

 

[jmpage2]

The biggest drawback for me is the lack of multitasting; I cannot listen to my music while I am chatting with a friend or surf the web. That's kinda a bummer.

Umm, this makes me question you even having an iphone. The iPod function is a background task that is always running. You can definitely listen to music and even change songs, volume, etc, through double tap of home button regardless of what application you are in.

What also kills me is the lack of push notificatons; I know they are working on it, so I am tryng to be patient. Gmail doesn't have push, and that's kinda dealbreaker for me so far; I can only get them to update every 15 mins.

Push works. In IM applications it's almost immediate.

The Pre interface is pretty cool too; they actually ripped the iPhone concept.

Umm... wow. Pre, which runs Web OS is a complete, from the ground up OS that was started before the first iPhone launched. They didn't "rip" anything other than possibly getting some styling queues for the UI from the iPhone.

If anything it will be iPhone "ripping" from the Pre when they finally bring background apps to the iPhone in another year or two.

 

[SFStateStudent]

Just on the 8GB limitation of the Pre alone, I would go with the iPhone hands-down.....

 

[McGiord]

and your question is?

 

[jmpage2]

Just on the 8GB limitation of the Pre alone, I would go with the iPhone hands-down.....

I agree, for anyone who wants real media player use the Pre is a no go.

 

[felixxiano]

why not? i can.

You are correct; I mispoke.
I take that back.

 

[danny_w]

u can listen to music and text on the iphone.

Music via the iPod function YES, music via streaming (Pandora) NO.

 

[felixxiano]

I mispoke about the music and web. I apologize about that.

What i meant about ripping off the iPhone is the interface and the way things look. the browser is almost identical; the finger operations as well as the settings and buttons in the browser. a lot of similarities

Umm, this makes me question you even having an iphone. The iPod function is a background task that is always running. You can definitely listen to music and even change songs, volume, etc, through double tap of home button regardless of what application you are in.



Push works. In IM applications it's almost immediate.



Umm... wow. Pre, which runs Web OS is a complete, from the ground up OS that was started before the first iPhone launched. They didn't "rip" anything other than possibly getting some styling queues for the UI from the iPhone.

If anything it will be iPhone "ripping" from the Pre when they finally bring background apps to the iPhone in another year or two.

 

[CocoaPuffs]

Music via the iPod function YES, music via streaming (Pandora) NO.

Must be talking to the ol' lady if you need music to be playing during the phone call.

 

[mak10]

Umm... wow. Pre, which runs Web OS is a complete, from the ground up OS that was started before the first iPhone launched. They didn't "rip" anything other than possibly getting some styling queues for the UI from the iPhone.

If anything it will be iPhone "ripping" from the Pre when they finally bring background apps to the iPhone in another year or two.

actually if you're talking about the UI, Apple is probably the one that could be accused of ripping off the styling queues from the original Palm OS, which is why Palm wasn't worried if Apple tried to claim the Pre was ripping off the iPhone OS, since that was essentially ripping of Palm in the first place... it's a big circle. There are only so many ways to display icons on a screen....

 

[pugnut]

Multitasking ? Can you access web and be on the phone

From what I understand that is a big fat no. So why the hell would anyone care about anything else.

I found the device to small and felt really cheap. The keyboard is a joke.....

 

[jmpage2]

Music via the iPod function YES, music via streaming (Pandora) NO.

Eh, you guys can have it. Streaming apps sound horrible, they make a 128kbps MP3 file sound good by comparable and listening to one of those things is like listening to nails on a chalk board.

 

[scaredpoet]

What i meant about ripping off the iPhone is the interface and the way things look. the browser is almost identical; the finger operations as well as the settings and buttons in the browser. a lot of similarities

Truth be told, there's going to be a lot of basic similarities based on certain interface types. We saw it when mouse-based computing first came on scene; different OSes are going to have hyperlinks that you can click on; they're going to have resizable and stackable windows; they're going to represent objects using icons. That's just the nature of the beast.

The same is true with touch interfaces. Your fingers, adept as they are, interact naturally with a visual/touch interface using core concepts that are going to imitate across different platforms. If you can't use a pinch motion to zoom in and out, then how the hell do you do it?

As for the web browser, the similarity is no surprise. Palm Pre's web browser uses WebKit, which is developed by Apple and is the framework for Safari, Chrome, and even the web browser for the Blackberry Storm and some Nokia devices. This piece was "ripped off" from Apple, but in a way that is both legally and morally acceptable since the platform is open source and usable by anyone for free.

 

[maflynn]

The biggest drawback for me is the lack of multitasting. That's kinda a bummer.

What specifically are you missing in multitasking? So far most of the complaints I've heard about the lack of multitasking lack any specific needs, just they hook on to the fact that there's no multitasking.

Personally I'd rather better battery life then being able to run a bunch of apps in the background. From what I've heard/read the PRE's battery life is a little anemic probably due to the fact the OS does allow multitasking and so it consumes even more juice.

 

[QCassidy352]

What also kills me is the lack of push notificatons; I know they are working on it, so I am tryng to be patient. Gmail doesn't have push, and that's kinda dealbreaker for me so far; I can only get them to update every 15 mins.

Hang on here; let's be accurate about this. The iphone software supports both push notifications (e.g. from IM programs) and push email.

Push notifications require the developers to write (or change) the app to take advantage of push, so we're only seeing apps with push notifications trickling in to the app store now.

Push email requires support from the provider. Gmail can push (it does so on the G1), and the iphone can get push email (it does so with mobile me), but google does not currently support push email on the iphone (or the Pre, as far as I know).

So I don't know whether you were talking about push notifications, push email, or some confused amalgamation of the two, but the iphone can do both. Whether or not the service provider (whether it be ESPN with push notifications or google with email) chooses to make use of that is another question.

 

[GfPQqmcRKUvP]

What specifically are you missing in multitasking? So far most of the complaints I've heard about the lack of multitasking lack any specific needs, just they hook on to the fact that there's no multitasking.

If you're getting someone a number from your phonebook to text them you could open your phonebook, glance at the number, switch back with one gesture to a txt and type it in. No copy/paste necessary. No home button necessary. That's just one of many. Multi-tasking really is brilliant on the Pre, you have to try it. That said, I got a shiny new 3GS.

Personally I'd rather better battery life then being able to run a bunch of apps in the background.

Personally, I'd rather have better battery life when I want and the ability to run a bunch of apps in the background when battery isn't a concern to me.

 

[slapppy]

Here

Optical Grade Glass Oleophobic Coating Screen - NOT PLASTIC
3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen Multi-Touch display
480-by-320-pixel resolution at 163 ppi
CPU/GPU same as the Pre, but FASTER
http://www.anandtech.com/gadgets/showdoc.aspx?i=3587
Open GL/ES 2.0 Optimized by iPhone OS
16GB/32GB
8GB for $99
Talk time: Up to 12 hours on 2G - Up to 5 hours on 3G
Standby time: Up to 300 hours
Internet use: Up to 5 hours on 3G - Up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi
Video playback: Up to 10 hours
Audio playback: Up to 30 hours
Size and weight
Height: - 4.5 inches (115.5 mm)
Width: - 2.4 inches (62.1 mm)
Depth: - 0.48 inch (12.3 mm)
Weight: - 4.8 ounces (135 grams)
iTunes seamless integration
Movies
Video PodCast
Audio PodCast
TV Shows
Music
Music Videos
iTunes University
iTunes Latino
50 thousand apps and growing fast
REAL High End 3D accelerated Games
High End Applications
Dock Connector API and I can't wait to see the 3rd party hardware stuff coming this summer. This alone pushes the iPhone way beyond the wanna bees.
BT API
MobileMe with Locate me and Remote Wipe
Apps open and switch instantly now
Superior battery life by a huge margin
Video Recording ( Widescreen ) and Instant Editing right on the iPhone, Instant Share to YoutTube, MobileMe and eMail
Instantly share pictures to MobileMe Gallery
It's an iPod!!
Safari with AI, Multi-Touch controls
Real Cut, Copy & Paste. Yeah even non editable text can be copied.
Voice Memos
Voice Control and yeah not just English, Chinese (Cantonese), Chinese (China), Chinese (Taiwan), Dutch, English (UK), English (U.S.), Finnish, French (Canada), French (France), Germanm, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish,, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Russian, Spanish (Mexico), Spanish (Spain), Swedish
MMS with full copy and paste
Real Universal Global Search to the Framework/API level. It mean all apps, not just core apps get Global Search
Keyboard with the best predictive intelligence yet. Has 40 international layouts and growing. Nice to have a virtual keyboard to easily add languages.
Dictionary supports international languages also
Character recognition so you can write in Chinese characters!
Digital compass ( hikers/bikers/campers ) will love this
Tethering
Nike + iPod
Parental Control - Restrict: Safari, YouTube, iTunes, Installing Apps, Camera, Location, In-App Purchases, Explicit lyrics in music and podcasts, Movies by rating (R, PG-13, etc...) or movies in general, TV by rating (TV-MA, TV-14, etc...) or TV in general, Apps by rating (17+, 12+, etc...) or Apps in general
Autofocus and selectable Focus on the Camera!
Photo and Video Geotagging
Google Sync
Exchange Sync
AGPS - Voice Turn by Turn support
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