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Palm Pre to Launch June 6th Priced at $199.99

I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of exactly what competition does and why it happens on both sides. We have people treating it as the only driving force for anything in the business world and apparently one person who thinks it is the cause for the economic collapse. Both sides are deluded. I'm not anti-competition, but I don't think it is a panacea like a lot of people here do. You can't just sweep aside legitimate arguments regarding flaws by chanting "competition is good."
 
themoonisdown09 said:
No, it's because some businesses don't know how to manage their money.
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Wrong. It called people went some where else. You can not manage money if you are not making money.. More competition mean less money and less money = less places to sell stuff... Again you need money to manage first.. Sorry but competition does hurt every one down the road.. Why do you think video games in the 80's crashed? Because the market was flooded.. When you flood the market, it crash the market and that what competition does..
 
SandynJosh said:
Induction charging sounds nice until you realize that you need to add a different (and heavy) back on the Pre to pick up the induction current. Then you have to tote that weighty induction core within your phone all the time. I'm guessing it will add 40% to 50% to the weight of the Pre phone and maybe 20% to 30% to the thickness.

It's a gimmick that will be dropped within a year.
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Ouch! I don't like carbunkles on portable electronics. Works well on my electric toothbrush. Maybe things will get smaller/lighter in the near future.
 
flopticalcube said:
Ouch! I don't like carbunkles on portable electronics. Works well on my electric toothbrush. Maybe things will get smaller/lighter in the near future.
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I hope you don't really believe him. What he said is 100% wrong on every single detail of the induction charger. The touchstone back cover is not heaver or thicker than the standard cover - it's just made of a different material. Look here: http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9684/palm-touchstone-hands-on-impressions/


The replacement battery cover is by all appearances nearly identical to the stock cover and does not extend the bulk or weight of the Pre. The back inductive cover units being shown at the demo stations only differed in that they sported a matte, soft-touch like exterior finish.
 
pavvento said:
The OS is going to be a mess? You've used it? Do you have some knowledge that nobody else is aware of?

I fully expect my mail in rebate. I have never once not received one, and don't know why it would happen now.
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I have used the Pre for two days and the OS is amazing. It's fast, responsive, intuitive, and extremely powerful the way it allows multitasking. It's also good with power - I used it all day and had charge left over.

Don't let people that have never used it keep you from checking one out at the store - they are great phones and the demo's that they showed are accurate representations of actual speed.

The browser on the Pre is easily 2x faster than an iPhone browser when both are on WIFI.
 
The Pre will only add healthy competition for Apple to further innovate the iPhone (the bad news is that major innovation = new iPhone, which would render my 3G outdated. :eek: lol.)

But from all the pictures I've seen of the Pre, it looks extremely cheap and plasticy. Not at all as professional or sleek as the iPhone. But I'll withhold actually calling it "uncomparable" until my co-worker (who has been waiting months for it) gets one and I can really compare it to the iPhone.

My prediction....

It'll be just like the CrapBerry Bore, uh, I mean Storm. It'll look like a major contender at first, but eventually, the hype will fade and it'll be just another "iPhone knockoff" like the rest of them. (.....or maybe I'm just a fanboy, who knows. :D)
 
zelet said:
I hope you don't really believe him. What he said is 100% wrong on every single detail of the induction charger. The touchstone back cover is not heaver or thicker than the standard cover - it's just made of a different material. Look here: http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9684/palm-touchstone-hands-on-impressions/


The replacement battery cover is by all appearances nearly identical to the stock cover and does not extend the bulk or weight of the Pre. The back inductive cover units being shown at the demo stations only differed in that they sported a matte, soft-touch like exterior finish.
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Well that sounds a lot better. The few induction-chargeable devices I have seen don't appear to be any larger or heavier than their plug-in counterparts so I was a bit suspicious. I thought maybe Palm did some poor engineering there but that doesn't appear to be the case.
 
All Apple needs to do is bring out a new iphone and make Jobs make a surprise and present it, the media would go bananas.
 
zelet said:
I have used the Pre for two days and the OS is amazing. It's fast, responsive, intuitive, and extremely powerful the way it allows multitasking. It's also good with power - I used it all day and had charge left over.

Don't let people that have never used it keep you from checking one out at the store - they are great phones and the demo's that they showed are accurate representations of actual speed.

The browser on the Pre is easily 2x faster than an iPhone browser when both are on WIFI.
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Nice to see that Palm doesn't mislead in their demos. I was beginning to worry that the actual speed may be worse.

How powerful are the apps that some people here call "web apps"?
 
dragossh said:
Nice to see that Palm doesn't mislead in their demos. I was beginning to worry that the actual speed may be worse.

How powerful are the apps that some people here call "web apps"?
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The ones that I've seen aren't anything like web apps. They look like native applications. The thing that people are forgetting is that the Pre supports hooks into the operating system like the SDK so for all intents and purposes it's a full fledged programming language. I just uses common syntax that most developers are familiar with. Plus, HTML5 supports local storage, so when DataViz releases (at launch) their MS Office reader/editor (yes, it edits) you'll be able to save documents to your device.

Plus, with EVDO your data connection can be put on hold while you get a call unlike older technologies. I'm not sure if GSM allows for calls to come through when you are using data.

It really is an amazing piece of technology. The cards analogy for multitasking is about perfect and you don't even have to think about it. To dismiss an app you just flick it up off the screen. To switch between them you flick left and right in the gesture area. The apps will even continue to update while they are in the back ground. So if you are going through your apps a movie will continue to play in the non-full-screen window so you can keep an eye on it.

I had high hopes for it and I was blown away.

Like I mentioned earlier, the only downside as a Mac person is that iTunes and iPhoto aren't supported out of the box but MissingSync should clear that up quickly.


One last thing to note: The interface is always smooth and quick to respond even when you have several applications open at the same time. I'm not sure how they did it but they really got the UI down well.
 
Too many extremes here. The Pre won't bomb, and it won't kill the iPhone. While the iPhone feels like a portable computer, the demos of webOS seem to put its emphasis more on social networking, email, and internet and looks to accomplish all of them much better than the iPhone does (at least if the 2x speed on webOS internet is true).

On the other hand, it looks weak in its ability to handle more demanding applications and there's yet to have been (to my knowledge) any kind of substantial demo of how to get music/movies onto the device other than through Amazon's MP3 store.

On top of that, all of this throws the logic out the window that these two devices aren't competitors in the US outside of the small percentage of people who are able/willing to change carriers. Otherwise what we're seeing is iPhone is the best phone, imo, on AT&T. Pre should be the best phone on Sprint.

If I could, I would own a G1 and a Storm in addition to my iPhone and soon Pre. Unfortunately I think the most phones I can get away with is two, one personal (iPhone) and one business (Pre). :D
 
Gakusei said:
Too many extremes here. The Pre won't bomb, and it won't kill the iPhone. While the iPhone feels like a portable computer, the demos of webOS seem to put its emphasis more on social networking, email, and internet and looks to accomplish all of them much better than the iPhone does.

On the other hand, it looks weak in its ability to handle more demanding applications and there's yet to have been (to my knowledge) any kind of substantial demo of the music or video capabilities.

On top of that, all of this throws the logic out the window that these two devices aren't competitors in the US outside of the small percentage of people who are able/willing to change carriers. Otherwise what we're seeing is iPhone is the best phone, imo, on AT&T. Pre should be the best phone on Sprint.

If I could, I would own a G1 and a Storm in addition to my iPhone and soon Pre. Unfortunately I think the most phones I can get away with is two, one personal (iPhone) and one business (Pre). :D
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I think you're right on just about everything you said.

My experience with the Pre - it handles the Amazon music store really really well. Seamless and beautiful. I didn't have any videos loaded up to play but if the other UI elements speed tells me anything it must have a pretty powerful graphics driver in it so it should handle most video fine too.
 
Sprint launching a Palm smart phone. Whoa! Slow down with all that competition and innovation. The excitement! LOL

I hope they plan to include a prepaid label to send the thing in for recycling after Palm files for bankruptcy and ceases development on whatever firmware/software package the thing is going to run. :eek:
 
Slim02 said:
Wrong. It called people went some where else. You can not manage money if you are not making money.. More competition mean less money and less money = less places to sell stuff... Again you need money to manage first.. Sorry but competition does hurt every one down the road.. Why do you think video games in the 80's crashed? Because the market was flooded.. When you flood the market, it crash the market and that what competition does..
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You totally contradicted yourself. How can more competition = less places to sell stuff???

And how did video games in the 80's crash? Last time I checked, there are several major gaming platforms, not to mention computers. Sounds to me like they're alive and well.

So, I'm guessing you'd be happier if you had only one choice and had to pay too much for it?

Competition is good for innovation. Bad management is a recipe for guaranteed failure. Just ask Chrysler and GM...
 
Slim02 said:
Wrong. It called people went some where else. You can not manage money if you are not making money.. More competition mean less money and less money = less places to sell stuff... Again you need money to manage first.. Sorry but competition does hurt every one down the road.. Why do you think video games in the 80's crashed? Because the market was flooded.. When you flood the market, it crash the market and that what competition does..
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You do realize palm is already in the smartphone market. Getting in the touchscreen smartphone market isn't going to flood the market. Look at BB and how many phones they have out there. This market is on the rise and competition is good. And no it doesn't mean less money. People have been holding off on the smart phone market and those who are already in it are looking for something new and the pre might be that something people are waiting for. Not to mention because its a phone that you have to buy new almost every 2 years or less there is just more and more money, with more places to sell stuff. This competition isn't hurting anyone until the 4G network is out and all carriers are forced to compete directly with each other instead of being split like today. Even at that stage prices would theoretically drop which would be good for the consumer even if that means some carriers don't survive. That's just business, look at boost mobile struggling to back up their offers on their network.

As for US car companies, sure there is a loss in jobs, but you can't lay blame to people who make better products and more affordable. They also make more reliable products and have a much better reputation. That's not bad for the market or the consumer. Its just bad if you are an employee of a company who fails to compete with companies who are dominating that market.
 
zelet said:
The ones that I've seen aren't anything like web apps. They look like native applications. The thing that people are forgetting is that the Pre supports hooks into the operating system like the SDK so for all intents and purposes it's a full fledged programming language. I just uses common syntax that most developers are familiar with.
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Exactly. People remember the lame web apps from the first gen iPhone, but they are nothing like that on the Pre. For all intents and purposes, Pre's apps are as native as they can be.

zelet said:
Plus, with EVDO your data connection can be put on hold while you get a call unlike older technologies. I'm not sure if GSM allows for calls to come through when you are using data.
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AFAIK, with 3G you can have both at the same time.

zelet said:
Like I mentioned earlier, the only downside as a Mac person is that iTunes and iPhoto aren't supported out of the box but MissingSync should clear that up quickly.
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I consider that a feature :D
 
Cartoonkid said:
You totally contradicted yourself. How can more competition = less places to sell stuff???

And how did video games in the 80's crash? Last time I checked, there are several major gaming platforms, not to mention computers. Sounds to me like they're alive and well.

So, I'm guessing you'd be happier if you had only one choice and had to pay too much for it?

Competition is good for innovation. Bad management is a recipe for guaranteed failure. Just ask Chrysler and GM...
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Not saying I agree or disagree with his point, but the video games industry did indeed crash in the 1980's due to a flooded market.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983
 
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