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Palm Pre Reviewed
mlingojones writes "The Palm Pre doesn't come out until June 6th, but the Boy Genius Report not only got their hands on one but also posted a review of it. They liked webOS, but not the hardware (especially the keyboard). Overall, they feel that 'once people are able to play a real unit themselves, there will be more than a lot of happy Palm Pre customers.'" On the downside, this review says the keyboard is lousy.
After reading the review and watching this video I'm disliking my iPhone even more. Mulitasking alone sets it above the iPhone; it's very frustrating having to close and reopen applications anytime you want to do something, however I frequently have iPhone apps crash due to memory shortage so I have to wonder how stable it is with multiple apps open. The keyboard does look like a deal breaker though, granted the iPhone's keyboard isn't perfect and even less so when the iPhone assumes you're a moron that can't type and "corrects" what you meant to type with a completely different word (if I wanted the word it suggested I should have to press what comes up to select it, not the other way round). I doubt it will be an "iPhone killer" though, not because it's an inferior product but because the iPhone already has a hugely established userbase.
Palm Pre on Sprint
It's just... it's unspeakably horrific.
Yup. I got that from the first time they mentioned it in the summary. But anyway. So I clicked on the link actually. And the review isn't really worth anything since they couldn't actually use the phone as, well, a phone. Looking at the picture of the keyboard, I have to agree that it would probably suck to use. And in my opinion that's a deal breaker. the buttons are really close together, but that's expected for such a narrow a phone. It probably should have had the keyboard come out to the side and use the phone in a landscape position. It's also quite apparent this guy is biased towards the Blackberry.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
I didn't understand the review. They figure everyone is going to love the Pre but the device feels badly put together and cheap, the keyboard is crap, the screen (the best feature) is "almost as good" as an iPhone, the zoom (a pretty critical feature in a small screen browser) doesn't work well and there are no apps. The only positive thing they really had to say seemed to be that it's small. But then, that means the screen is small too.
So this is a Pre-Palm Pre review.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
the iphone doesn't win on features
It wins on features hands down - the features people actually use.
Just the other day I was asking to see someone's Storm, and asked where the browser was- they didn't even know! And after using it for a few minutes I could see why, there was hardly any point.
The iPhone makes things usable that a lot of people would otherwise never use - and the same goes for apps, I think Apple probably has surpassed the old Palm V installed and use app count at this point.
You can decry the iPhone as a creature of marketing all you like, but you're only deluding yourself and will never understand the real reason why anything succeeds or fails.
That said the Pre looks like an excellent phone and I think will do very well. This is because they understand the iPhone is about building a great phone and not about marketing, and the Pre looks to go into the same space with a different take on it that I think can carry a large bit of the market.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
> A 6-month exclusivity on Sprint means many people won't purchase one right away.
> why limit it to a single CDMA carrier?
Um... think about what you just said for a few minutes. The iPhone is *STILL* exclusive to AT&T. Didn't seem to kill the iPhone. The G1/Android is effectively exclusive to T-Mobile. There are lots of phones that are introduced to a single carrier for a while after launch. I am not saying I like this behavior- I think phones should be completely decoupled from carriers, completely (and without subsidies and contracts). But this is certainly nothing new or unusual. Sprint has always been Palm's greatest champion, so it is only logical they would work out a deal for exclusivity for a while (most people think it will be less than a year).
Sprint needs Palm just as much as Palm needs Sprint- they are both "gambling" on each other. Hopefully they will both do well for taking the chance.