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Some notes:

-Sprint's got the best overall plan for the money, if you want everything.

-Best Buy and Radio Shack give the rebate instantly.

-There's no substitute for real multitasking.

-The iPhone's SIM will never be unlocked.

-Feel, keyboard, etc are all personal. As for screen protectors, everyone should use them, so glass or not doesn't matter. Ditto for a case on the iPhone, so its looks are moot.

Just curious why you said the iphone's SIM wil never be unlocked. The 1st gen has been unlockable forever and now so are the 3G and 3GS.
 
The 3gs is unlocked now??? I heard its jailbroken, but not unlocked yet.
 
Whichever coverages works best in your area, get it.

Cost and coverage should be the two most important things.
 
WebOS seems nice. Unfortunately right now it seems to be only available through the two companies that over the ears managed to screw me the most: Palm and Sprint.

From someone who was with Sprint for 8 years, I strongly recommend waiting until a WebOS phone is available on a carrier other than Sprint. Their customer service is bad, and their ability to send you an accurate bill is nonexistent.

As for the phone, WebOS shows potential, but the Pre is *not* the phone that would make me consider going back. Palm basically rushed this out of the gate to try and save themselves, and it has too many imperfections. This is very much a beta phone. I'd like to see them try again, yet my expereinces with Palm lead me to be worry the next iteration won't be much better.
 
In my opinion, WebOS is totally worth dumping iPhone for
but the Pre is not

If you really want to switch, wait for a better phone to come out with WebOS on it

I agree with this statement. WebOS looks beautiful and gets the job done, but the Pre is pathetic hardware. Hm, maybe WebOS on the iPhone would be interesting! Apple just needs to find a way to implement multi-tasking. They seem to think that Push notifications is the way to go, but it's just not the same.
 
As for the phone, WebOS shows potential, but the Pre is *not* the phone that would make me consider going back. Palm basically rushed this out of the gate to try and save themselves, and it has too many imperfections. This is very much a beta phone. I'd like to see them try again, yet my expereinces with Palm lead me to be worry the next iteration won't be much better.

So you are saying it is a Pre-liminary version and not ready for prime time.
 
battery

I would also add the battery life on the palm pre seems to be even worse than on the 3gs (which in my experience has actually gotten quite better) whereas the palm pre has not. They ARE going to release an extended battery for the pre, but that will be $$ and be either bulkier or heavier. But, most people are not able to get eight hours on the device
 
my friends dad got me and him a pre to play around on. All i have to say is DONT GET A PRE! they suck very bad if you are used to the iphone you will hate the pre, because it is so different. If you want to know more pm me
 
my friends dad got me and him a pre to play around on. All i have to say is DONT GET A PRE! they suck very bad if you are used to the iphone you will hate the pre, because it is so different. If you want to know more pm me

Well what were you expecting....for them to install a carbon copy of the iPhone OS to the Pre. Palm is a different company with a different OS i.e. things will work differently
 
I played with the Palm Pre this weekend for the first time. I liked the WebOS (but only mildly so. all the hype and raving about it set me up for a minor letdown when I finally used it in person). The hardware, while attractive, is definitely on the cheaper side and the keyboard (and the rubbery texture of the keys) left a lot to be desired. Also, the device felt particularly slow, especially relative to my 3GS (in terms of app speed, etc.; web browsing seemed pretty on par with the 3GS). All in all, I wasn't really impressed. Multitasking, while wonderful, wasn't sufficient to even remotely lure me.
 
I would also add the battery life on the palm pre seems to be even worse than on the 3gs (which in my experience has actually gotten quite better) whereas the palm pre has not. They ARE going to release an extended battery for the pre, but that will be $$ and be either bulkier or heavier. But, most people are not able to get eight hours on the device

That's nonsense for the average user. Yea, I guess if you're spending the day streaming Pandora you won't get eight hours. My phone has been off the charger for 7.5 hours today and I've sent about 20 texts, made several phone calls that lasted over 10 minutes, read emails, and google mapped my way to a local store and I have 82% remaining. On an average day I get to work at 8am and use my Pre a lot and if I happen to go out to a club I can make it in at about 2am and still have about 30% remaining. My Pre's battery life is about the same as my 3G's was.
 
That's nonsense for the average user. Yea, I guess if you're spending the day streaming Pandora you won't get eight hours. My phone has been off the charger for 7.5 hours today and I've sent about 20 texts, made several phone calls that lasted over 10 minutes, read emails, and google mapped my way to a local store and I have 82% remaining. On an average day I get to work at 8am and use my Pre a lot and if I happen to go out to a club I can make it in at about 2am and still have about 30% remaining. My Pre's battery life is about the same as my 3G's was.

Must be one of the lucky ones. Even reviews mention the meager battery life of the Pre. Presumably due to its multitasking (which, IMO, feels much slower and laggy than switching apps on an iPhone).
 
I completely disagree with a lot of the iphone biased statements on here. I had the Pre for 29 days and returned it (but I might go back once palm adds a few more features). Once you have 5 cards open on the pre, switching between them (with or without advanced gestures) is definitely faster than switching apps on the iphone 3g / 3gs. Now if you close apps on the pre and reopen every time, of course its slower!

In battery tests, the pre got longer talk time than the iphone 3g/3gs, but if you are on wifi the 3g / 3gs got longer time. It really comes down to how you use your phone.....if you are a power business user, using 3g talk, 3g data mostly, the pre and 3g/3gs all compare very similarly.....if you are talking about playing music and watching video's constantly, the iphone is definitely a better choice. Leaving the wrong apps open will affect battery life, so you have to have 1 brain cell to figure that out....if you can't, iphone is definitely a better choice.

The hardware on the pre definitely isn't as solid as the iphone, but you have to take into effect that the pre has a significant moving part, while the iphone, does not. I got a pretty solid pre and didn't have to replace it, but I do know that some of the build quality isn't great. I think some of the problem has to do with how people are opening the slider. If you push from the bottom, I think it creates problems with the sliding mechansim, if you push from the middle and pull down on the back side like the manual states, it works well.

I like both devices and it was hard giving up the pre and the money I would have saved with sprint, but a few exchange features on the iphone tugged me back to evil ATT and the iphone 3g/3gs.

I'm not going to provide biased information like other people, I think you should give both devices a try and see what works better for you. You should go into it knowing the things that are important for you....thats what works best. In the end, for me, it was still a really difficult decision because they are both great devices.
 
I love the Pre so much. WebOS is great, so is multi-tasking. I love the keys. I have huge, simply massive, man-hands for a female and phone keypads are usually a pain in the butt for me. I can't use many of the Blackberry type phones. I have no problem with the Pre's keyboard. I would get the Pre in a heartbeat if it had more apps, stand alone gps, the ability to make playlists ON the phone and a bit better build quality. I could really use voice control also. I am seriously infatuated with the Pre though, I can't stop thinking about it, trying to figure out how to make it work. Unfortunately there just isn't a way to make it work for me unless there are several improvements in only the next couple of weeks.

I know the iPhone doesn't have the stand alone gps (tomtom) app yet, but its coming for sure. The Pre has zero certainty of more new apps. As for customer service, I called both Sprint and AT&T to ask some questions and had a really good experience with Sprint and really poor with AT&T. Sprint's customer service has really improved since I had them a few years ago.
 
I completely disagree with a lot of the iphone biased statements on here. I had the Pre for 29 days and returned it (but I might go back once palm adds a few more features). Once you have 5 cards open on the pre, switching between them (with or without advanced gestures) is definitely faster than switching apps on the iphone 3g / 3gs. Now if you close apps on the pre and reopen every time, of course its slower!

In battery tests, the pre got longer talk time than the iphone 3g/3gs, but if you are on wifi the 3g / 3gs got longer time. It really comes down to how you use your phone.....if you are a power business user, using 3g talk, 3g data mostly, the pre and 3g/3gs all compare very similarly.....if you are talking about playing music and watching video's constantly, the iphone is definitely a better choice. Leaving the wrong apps open will affect battery life, so you have to have 1 brain cell to figure that out....if you can't, iphone is definitely a better choice.

The hardware on the pre definitely isn't as solid as the iphone, but you have to take into effect that the pre has a significant moving part, while the iphone, does not. I got a pretty solid pre and didn't have to replace it, but I do know that some of the build quality isn't great. I think some of the problem has to do with how people are opening the slider. If you push from the bottom, I think it creates problems with the sliding mechansim, if you push from the middle and pull down on the back side like the manual states, it works well.

I like both devices and it was hard giving up the pre and the money I would have saved with sprint, but a few exchange features on the iphone tugged me back to evil ATT and the iphone 3g/3gs.

I'm not going to provide biased information like other people, I think you should give both devices a try and see what works better for you. You should go into it knowing the things that are important for you....thats what works best. In the end, for me, it was still a really difficult decision because they are both great devices.


Don't get me wrong -- i think the idea of cards is a terrific one (even if it is ripped off from iPhone's Safari). But I think today's phones are too underpowered to really pull it off without adversely affecting battery life and smoothness of the UI, as so prominently evidenced by the Pre. WebOS on future hardware will be really, really nice.
 
Multitasking is too much of a kill feature to give up for battery life and UI speed.
And they could always add an option to turn multitasking off.
 
As an Engadget review put it, the "Apple-inspired fear" of multitasking killing a battery is not really an issue.

Plenty of people on iPhone forums also complain about the 3GS battery, which is just as meaningless right now.

It's common for people to play extra with a new phone. Palm has already put out an update to fix a battery issue, and historically it seems that every other Apple release does the same.

Let's see how they both do in controlled tests in another month or two.

One advantage the Pre owners have, is that they can buy a more powerful replacement battery already.
 
there's a rule that some people follow (no I'm not saying I do)...never buy first generation anything...there's bound to be problems...and it won't be nearly as good as later versions. If you were already on Sprint I'd say go with the Pre...but since you aren't, iPhone.

The Pre may be the start of iPhone competition...they've certainly come the closest...but it needs to grow up a bit more. The Platform needs more devleopers behind it. I say the same about Android. In that case they just need a better handset to go with the OS.

I think those two platforms are the closest competitors to the iPhone...Android is getting there I think and Palm came close on it's first try, only to be one-upped again 2 days later by the 3GS. In two years time, if Palm is still working on WebOS...and Android is still a player in the phone market...I'd say we'll have a very competitive market.
 
there's a rule that some people follow (no I'm not saying I do)...never buy first generation anything...there's bound to be problems...and it won't be nearly as good as later versions. If you were already on Sprint I'd say go with the Pre...but since you aren't, iPhone.

The Pre may be the start of iPhone competition...they've certainly come the closest...but it needs to grow up a bit more. The Platform needs more devleopers behind it. I say the same about Android. In that case they just need a better handset to go with the OS.

I think those two platforms are the closest competitors to the iPhone...Android is getting there I think and Palm came close on it's first try, only to be one-upped again 2 days later by the 3GS. In two years time, if Palm is still working on WebOS...and Android is still a player in the phone market...I'd say we'll have a very competitive market.

I agree. I think future Palm devices with more horsepower will indeed be nice, but I really don't see Palm attracting the number of developers that Apple has for the iPhone. That's what makes a platform succeed. Palm's efforts look to be too little, too late.
 
I've seen enough complaints about the PRE that I'd steer clear of the phone. Maybe palm will have a better touch screen phone in the works but so far the PRE is not it.

Here's some other advantages the iPhone has over the Pre
Apps - The iPhone has tons more
Track record, palms track record with updating the OS is horrid.
Utility - The iPhone easily syncs with iTiunes, does movies and has more usefulness. the PRE syncs to Itunes only through a hack which may or may not work in the future.
Size - I think the PRE is too small in some ways and bulkier in other ways. The iPhone has a sleekness and fits nicely in your hand and in your pocket. The Pre is smaller but is also thicker.
ATT network over sprint. Lets cut to the chase and state what everyone knows and some experience. The sprint network is awful. Yes some people do complain about ATT but there's much much more complaints about sprint. They're the only carrier bleeding customers at an alarming rate. People are leaving sprint for a reason.
 
All I have to say is that I was put on the waiting list. I was concerned due to being a heavy user I would damage the phone due to the screen being plastic. NO SCRATCH RESISTANT COMPOSIT I looked at the warrenty to see what it covered.
The Sprint Equipment Service & Repair Program does not cover damage beyond repair, liquid damage, cosmetic damage, or damage resulting from customer misuse or abuse.

There are alot of forum posts that people are trying to get their phone swapped due to the screens scratching and a know problem of them spider cracking near the home button and sprint and palm are not covering it. They are calling it user damage. People have been paying $100 deductible within 2 weeks of having their phone to get a replacement.

That is what turned me off from changing from Verizon to Sprint. Now I am with ATT
 
Utility - The iPhone easily syncs with iTiunes, does movies and has more usefulness. the PRE syncs to Itunes only through a hack which may or may not work in the future.

I think the DOJ should really do something about that issue... It's as bad as anything they have gone after microsoft for.

All I have to say is that I was put on the waiting list. I was concerned due to being a heavy user I would damage the phone due to the screen being plastic. NO SCRATCH RESISTANT COMPOSIT I looked at the warrenty to see what it covered.

Yep glass is great. What's the first way a touchscreen phone is likely to get damaged? Scratches of course, the iPhone is near immune to that problem!
 
Yep glass is great. What's the first way a touchscreen phone is likely to get damaged? Scratches of course, the iPhone is near immune to that problem!

Drop both phones and the glass screen is more likely to crack/break. We don't know how the anti-fingerprint coating will hold up after a while. It doesn't matter if the glass won't scratch if the coating does and is noticeable. If you are clumsy then the sprint's screen is better, but its up to you to decide which we like the feel of more.

What are your opinions or insight?...
Would you buy a computer if you didn't like the OS? So which, Apple or WebOS, do you prefer more? Have you handled both phones? The App Store has more programs now, so are you happy enough with Palm's app store to buy a Pre?
 
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