Palm Pre DEFINITELY KICK BUTTS (puts iphone on shame)!

[kas23]

Its on SPRINT!!! Enough said. It wont even compete with the iPhone. I dont know of anyone that would drop ATT or verizon to go to sprint.

When was the last time you ever had Sprint? I'm certainly not going to rave about Sprint, but they get a bad rap. I was on Sprint for 7+ years before switching 3 months ago. The only reason I switched was due to their lack of good phones. They just kept coming out with the same old garbage. Had Sprint had an Android phone or the Pre 3 months ago, I probably would have stayed with them. In 18 months, if Sprint has the iPhone or something better, I probably will change back to them. I never had a problem with them or their network and they have the best prices in the business.

 

[Palm Pimp]

AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile all offer substandard service on average in this country. Their carrier counterparts in Europe and Japan laugh at us all the time, and I'm not talking quad band stuff, hell look at what passes for 3G in this country. You pretty much have to go on the website or ask all your neighbours about how each carrier's reception is in your area, and be content with that. Another reason why all these smartphones need to spread to all carrier and drop that exclusive nonsense.

 

[dmkemick]

Assuming apple suddenly decides to make a reactionary product, which isnt the apple way at all....

No one said that. However this will motivate them to enhance their products, make them better. Doesn't mean they have to create a whole new iPhone just to compete with the Pre.

 

[NT1440]

No one said that. However this will motivate them to enhance their products, make them better. Doesn't mean they have to create a whole new iPhone just to compete with the Pre.

Thats not what I was saying. I was saying, apple rarely does anything in reaction to whats going on in the rest of the industry, things like bluray.

That being said Id love for apple to continue to make the iphone better.

 

[kdarling]

HTC over Palm?

Just to spice things up a bit, now there are claims that HTC will come out with a unit that's better than the Palm. (If anyone can, it's HTC.)

New HTC will be Palm and iPhone competitor

 

[dissdnt]

AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile all offer substandard service on average in this country. Their carrier counterparts in Europe and Japan laugh at us all the time, and I'm not talking quad band stuff, hell look at what passes for 3G in this country. You pretty much have to go on the website or ask all your neighbours about how each carrier's reception is in your area, and be content with that. Another reason why all these smartphones need to spread to all carrier and drop that exclusive nonsense.

True but you gotta remeber the US is a BIG country. Getting coverage in every nook and cranny is expensive as compared to other countries.

Places like Japan can roll out the bleeding edge pretty quick simply because of geography.

 

[ppc750fx]

Places like Japan can roll out the bleeding edge pretty quick simply because of geography.

Sigh. This one again?

Ok. See that logic works great until you look at a place like New York. By all accounts it *should* have great data coverage. It's got a high population density, and there's a big market for wireless data coverage. Logically it should have data coverage like Tokyo does.

But it doesn't. It doesn't because in the US, wireless (and wired, for that matter) carriers get local monopolies, taxpayer money, and a whole host of other benefits that reduce their incentive to improve their service to near-zero.

 

[ppc750fx]

Just to spice things up a bit, now there are claims that HTC will come out with a unit that's better than the Palm. (If anyone can, it's HTC.)

New HTC will be Palm and iPhone competitor

That reeks of a "me too!" announcement -- the sort that a company issues when they know they've been caught with their pants down.

Palm and Apple have actual hardware, the former as prototypes / alphas, the latter in production. HTC has an unnamed executive saying "we think our product will be good".

 

[kas23]

That reeks of a "me too!" announcement -- the sort that a company issues when they know they've been caught with their pants down.

Palm and Apple have actual hardware, the former as prototypes / alphas, the latter in production. HTC has an unnamed executive saying "we think our product will be good".

I agree. This sounds like a great phone concept, but not actually a phone. HTC probably was getting a little jealous of the press Palm has been getting. Well, the more the merrier!

 

[Indy21]

Well, the more the merrier!

I agree! Bring'em on!

All HTC has to do is take the good of the iphone and the good of the Pre and throw a 32-64gb in and it'll sell.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Just to spice things up a bit, now there are claims that HTC will come out with a unit that's better than the Palm. (If anyone can, it's HTC.)

New HTC will be Palm and iPhone competitor

True, I still am a big HTC fan. The Touch Pro and Touch HD being my favorite devices either on paper (HD) or in hand (Pro). Having both an XT9 touch keyboard and physical one is a big plus for the Pro, using Windows Mobile is the big minus.

The Touch HD has that large screen and a standard headphone jack making it my top choice. The Palm is now above that since I don't see Sprint getting the HD.

I think HTC may put Android on all of their phones if MS can't get their act together with WM7. I don't know what MS had cooked up for it, but I know that Palm, Google, and Apple have raised the bar far above what I can imaging the un-creative folks at Microsoft making.

I agree! Bring'em on!

All HTC has to do is take the good of the iphone and the good of the Pre and throw a 32-64gb in and it'll sell.

Not to mention syncing with most of the productivity apps people use. MS Mail, Mobile Me, Mac Mail, Address Book, Outlook, Entourage, etc. Doing a few of these, the most used, or all of them would be a huge gain for any of these guys. Apple included.

 

[kdarling]

Palm and Apple have actual hardware, the former as prototypes / alphas, the latter in production. HTC has an unnamed executive saying "we think our product will be good".

Errr... no.

It said unnamed Telstra executives had seen the HTC device, and thought it was better than the Pre. HTC refused to comment.

ZDNet article , Original article

Executives from Telstra who had met with Palm at the CES Show in Las Vegas to review their new Pre offering, said that the new phone from HTC was "better and more functional" ...

"We have seen both and we believe that the new HTC phone will be a real competitor to the iPhone and the Pre, which at this stage looks nice but is still not delivered to market".

 

[Indy21]

Errr... no.

It said unnamed Telstra executives had seen the HTC device, and thought it was better than the Pre. HTC refused to comment.

ZDNet article , Original article

Executives from Telstra who had met with Palm at the CES Show in Las Vegas to review their new Pre offering, said that the new phone from HTC was "better and more functional" ...

"We have seen both and we believe that the new HTC phone will be a real competitor to the iPhone and the Pre, which at this stage looks nice but is still not delivered to market".

Let's hope we see this HTC phone soon, as recently stated, the more the merrier!

I want to see answer BIG this summer.

 

[marksman]

I think it has a lot of promise.

I think, besides having a stupid physical keyboard which is a negative for any phone, it has one big drawback.

The drawback is WebOS. Apple found out the hard way that having a cloud-centric web-based center for applications is simply not something people are ready for, nor are developers.

Thus the need for the SDK and the huge success of the App Store now. I think this could be a huge mistake on palm's part. I do like some of the UI things they are doing, with the stacking, attempts at multi-tasking and the rest.

Again though, it is all good on paper, let us see it in practice. It is easy to outspec the iphone on paper. So far nobody has outperformed them in actual usability in the field. That being said Palm has roots outside the horrible cell phone UI market so I will give them a bit of a shot.

I wish they would not have added the hardware keyboard on there though, that automatically means you are trying to appease people who suck.

 

[rjohnstone]

I wish they would not have added the hardware keyboard on there though, that automatically means you are trying to appease people who suck.

So chicks with long fingernails suck?
The iPhone keyboard is all but useless to anyone with long fingernails.
And try and use the iPhone keyboard without looking at it.
Some people actually LIKE the feel of a real keypad.

 

[island]

Edit: I said "I think a lot of users here are going to stay with the iPhone because it has one thing the Palm doesn't have... An Apple logo." – This is MacRumors afterall. Most of us are Mac addicts.

I totally agree that everyone here loves Apple (or just the logo) but the reason I do is because the only other 2 options are Windows and Linux when it comes to a desktop OS. Personally, I find linux is weak with support for 3rd party applications that most businesses & myself use and Windows is just garbage compared to OS X. I have no other options to pick from. Now, lets take this and base it on the cell phones available.

Before the iPhone, we had Symbian (like linux), we had Windows, and we had Blackberry - just forget the Treo. None of them have a real nice user friendly feel to it, all of them were hard and unfriendly. iPhone came out and it was years ahead of others. iPhone 3G came out, still ahead with nothing in the rear view mirror. Even Google is trying it's hardest with the Android platform but it's still lacking, sort of a halfway good job.

Finally, Palm decided to take the idea of the iPhone and add most of the features that it's missing. Multitasking, non-interrupting alerts, real keyboard, Cut & Paste, Wireless Charging, faster browser (WebKit), better camera w/flash, removal battery, search as you type, and more. Lets just hope the Sprint contract is very short...

2009 is the year to make or break the iPhone. Yay for competition!

 

[laserfox]

I am in the market for a new phone so it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. So far I am leaning towards the pre, though I am currently on T-Mobile. Maybe i'll wait until its available on all other networks.

 

[kdarling]

The drawback is WebOS. Apple found out the hard way that having a cloud-centric web-based center for applications is simply not something people are ready for, nor are developers.

Common mistake the past couple of days. It's not web server centric. It's web-standards-based LOCAL programming, similar to desktop widgets. This means lots more programmers, and because of fewer restrictions and more local access, more useful, integrated apps. But probably fewer racing games, and Koi Pond would be difficult.

I wish they would not have added the hardware keyboard on there though, that automatically means you are trying to appease people who suck.

How do you figure?

 

[9822679]

Yes I do realize that it may sound retarded to you, but I'm an Apple fanatic and I like having all Apple stuff. The UI and the Operating System is what I crave and want. I'm not going to step down from that and use some other system even if it has more features. Technically Windows has more "features" and "options" than OS X, but I'd rather use OS X because it's more enjoyable. To me, the iPhone is more enjoyable than any other phone out there... regardless of what features the other phones have. So I guess I'm retarded then.

Edit: I said "I think a lot of users here are going to stay with the iPhone because it has one thing the Palm doesn't have... An Apple logo." – This is MacRumors afterall. Most of us are Mac addicts.

ummmm... no

I think a lot of people are on the Macrumors Iphone forum because it's the most trafficked Iphone forum

I am not an Apple fan, nor am I an addict ( I still love and use windows xp)

I bought the iPhone because it was the best phone out at the time

accepting an inferior product because it has an apple logo on it.. well you can see how that sounds foolish.

I will wait until version 2.0 of the android phones or 2.0 of the Pre Palm pilots before even considering switching over.

 

[bbplayer5]

When was the last time you ever had Sprint? I'm certainly not going to rave about Sprint, but they get a bad rap. I was on Sprint for 7+ years before switching 3 months ago. The only reason I switched was due to their lack of good phones. They just kept coming out with the same old garbage. Had Sprint had an Android phone or the Pre 3 months ago, I probably would have stayed with them. In 18 months, if Sprint has the iPhone or something better, I probably will change back to them. I never had a problem with them or their network and they have the best prices in the business.

Yes and its horrible.. Their coverage maps dont lie. They are horrible.

 

[kdarling]

I am not an Apple fan, nor am I an addict ( I still love and use windows xp) . I bought the iPhone because it was the best phone out at the time

I think this is an important point. I would bet that, by now, the number of Windows users with iPhones (and/or iPod touches), easily outnumbers the owners who are Apple-centric.

Have to find the article again, but there was something last year from ATT about this.

There also seem to be a lot of multi-OS owners around, with both PCs and Macs.

I'm sure that's been true for iPod owners for years now. Anyone know of any surveys?

 

[TheSpaz]

I bought the iPhone because it was the best phone out at the time

accepting an inferior product because it has an apple logo on it.. well you can see how that sounds foolish.

You see... to me, Apple products are not inferior. I've owned quite a few Apple products over the years and I never even thought about getting rid of any of them for a different brand with similar capabilities. Once, I almost got a different brand of display, but then I saw Apple's Cinema Display and the color was MUCH more accurate and the viewing angles can't be beat. I don't see how I'm being foolish. To be honest, I never liked any handheld device or phone until Apple revealed the iPhone/iPod touch... this is because Apple finally made a handheld device that was worth using because they did it "right". I don't love every decision Apple makes, but no company is perfect.

 

[ieko]

Yes and its horrible.. Their coverage maps dont lie. They are horrible.

Huh?

Sprint has the second largest data network in the USA, largest being Verizon which Sprint is allowed to roam on..

 

[shk718]

i have one big concern with the pre - they had better handle duplication of data really really well. they've got multiple sources of information coming in for each contact and calendar and the potential for disaster is huge. i constantly had duplicate events in my winmo calendar and nothing i would do would make it go away. and they also need to handle "whose in charge" really really well. Which bit of data takes precedence over the other. another concern is cross pollination - hopefully data from one source won't get over to another.

 

[bigmouth]

I said "I think a lot of users here are going to stay with the iPhone because it has one thing the Palm doesn't have... An Apple logo."

The very definition of a fanboy...

The Pre looks a little clunky to me, but they got a lot of things right, including the 3.5mm headphone jack. Like others, I'm hoping this will force Apple to be a little more responsive to customer demands for functions like background processing and cut & paste. Does anyone know if the Pre system is backwards compatible with old Palm OS applications?