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Palm Pre Is Out, Time For Discussion
caffiend666 writes "Palm Pre is out, let's discuss the status and compare stories. The first day seems to have gone as well as expected, with many selling out before noon. I bought the second at the local Sprint store, and so far I like it. Much more one-hand friendly than the iPhone. I haven't gotten the main apps to sync with Linux, but the media portion functions much like a thumb-drive with my Fedora-8 Linux system. For the Pre-verts out there, here's some Palm Pre dismantling pictures."
experience on this thing in comparison to previous Palm OS devices? In comparison to an iPhone?
The Holy Grail of mobile phones, for me, is the phone that can give a really good browsing experience and can thus replace (at least in some small way) the need to carry a laptop at all times.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Please let me know if it syncs with your Windows 95 PC as well. It's the one thing that's kept me from buying one on launch day.
Pro-Tip: For mass market appeal, don't call your fans Pre-verts.
AnimePapers.org: Anime Wallpapers Handled With Care
I had a chance to play with one a little bit, it was really nice. I was particular impressed by the quality of the screen and the fast response times in Google Maps.
... with a block of cheese?
On a serious note, I'd like to hear from some really picky (but sane) people about how the browser compares to Safari. Does it support iPhone optimizations (viewport) and handle CSS/JS well? If you go to facebook or google do you automatically get the iPhone version? How is the speed?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
"For the Pre-verts out there, here's some Palm Pre dismantling pictures."
Yes, but does it blend?
I too bought the palm pre today...just as a note, I came from a motorolla q9h, not an iphone. Overall, I love the phone. I wish palm would release the sdk already so more apps would come out and so I could start customizing/contributing, but the apps that were there generally feel solid. There's about as much delay as one would expect on a smartphone, but the phone overall feels very responsive (which was my very first impression.) The webos's shortcuts are very intuitive, and between quick launch, synergy, etc, I can probably match my productivity on the Q9H that has windows mobile.
:) I feel much safer with it in my pocket in a nice sleeve.
I don't care about syncing anything other than mp3's and emails over imap so I can't answer syncing questions. Ubuntu 9.04 detected it as a usb device just fine.
I think that tales of the keyboard being way too small are overrated, but it definitely will take getting used to...I think you will pretty much know instantly if you will be able to adjust to it or not.
Really the only thing that may make me regret buying it may end up being the battery life...but it's hard to tell considering I didn't really give it a decent first charge (I charged it for 4 hours then took it out exploring for 6 and it was dead by the time I got home with about an hour's worth of talk, constant browsing, and a little pandora streaming.) Even with that said, I think there will need to be a few more battery saving options...like maybe not being logged into AIM/etc. (you can just not enter aim information...but I don't want to disable it completely)
Another thing I wasn't expecting was a free (cheap?) sleeve that came with the phone.
The browser is nice...it can be hard to zoom in and click on certain links, maybe like the iphone? But it is nice having a fully functional browser with ajax. The only problem I had was with iGoogle not loading properly (I think due to the calendar widget), and I just had to use the mobile version.
So far though, I've loved the palm pre. I hope it returns the love.
For me, the PalmOS emulation is going to sell it - or not. I'm not getting a smartphone until it can replace the most-used stuff on my T3. I hope this is it!
" seems to of"?
I'm not familiar with that phrase, O'Neill.
Seriously, though, I've been with AT&T and didn't want to switch to the iPhone (I root for underdogs), so it's a little disappointing that yet another sweet-looking smartphone is locked in to a single carrier. You have to go with T-Mobile to get an Android phone, and you have to go with Sprint to get the Palm Pre.
I can safely say my store sold out of the Palm Pre by 5pm. We had 125 units, and despite being a store in Louisiana posted numbers that put us in the top fifteen of the company. I called places like Best Buy, and they were sold out of the few they had almost instantly. Our entire region sold of first party stores sold out by the end of the day. [800 or so phones for the state of Louisiana.] We had a few devices that had issues activating right out of the box, but that's pretty common when it is a new activation method or device. Palm even had a rep at our store the entire day to provide further information for customers.
I was lucky enough to pick up the last available one in Long Beach, and I have to say that so far I like it.
:)
I came from the iPhone and AT&T, so it looks like I will be able to not only save almost $50/mo but also have a better device.
The good: The screen is much more crisp and vibrant than the iPhone. I'm really happy about that. The keyboard takes a bit of getting used to, but anything is better than the on-screen iPhone keyboard, plus I have smaller fingers so it doesn't affect me as much. The screen is smaller than the iPhone, but the lack of on-screen keyboard makes for efficient use of screen real-estate. So far I haven't noticed the lack of larger screen in regular use. Not much to say about battery life, but it seems to be on-par with the iPhone from my current experience, which is fine for me. I don't particularly care about having it last more than one day, since I plug it in nightly anyway. Running multiple applications is extremely helpful, and it seems to be implemented very well. I've not yet had a problem with it. Sprint Navigation is amazing too, by the way, and definitely is on-par with most GPS devices out there; on top of that, it re-routes according to traffic and road speeds, which, unless your GPS is network-connected, you'll be lacking it. So, I'd say it's *better* than most stand-alone GPS devices out there.
The bad: The UI response is a bit sluggish. I think that I may have been spoiled by the iPhone's extremely smooth UI, but I also recall that for a while after the release of iPhone OS 2.0, it was fairly laggy for quite a bit. They did release an update to webOS (1.0.2) that did increase the response time by about 50% (I'm really just ballparking that number, but it was significant enough to notice), so if you haven't ran the updater, do it. I hope that as more updates come out, they'll fix the response time and it will be as smooth as the iPhone. The other problem is more with Sprint than with the Pre -- EV-DO does not support data usage during voice calls. This sucks, as there are times when I'm on the phone and I need to look something up or send an email... however, I had so many problems with the 3G in the iPhone, that more than half the time I had to run with it off anyway, so I don't think I'll miss it too much. Currently, you are not able to send meeting requests using the calendar... I hope they add that functionality soon. That is what iPhone lacked as well, and it is available in the 3.0 update, so hopefully it will be added to webOS quickly, too. Lastly, (not really much bad to say about it... so far) what did end up annoying me a bit was that, while you can specify multiple IM accounts, you can't choose which one you are sending from when you send a message. This is unfortunate, though it is possible that I have no idea how to specify this.
So, all-in-all, I think that I will be very happy with the device. I hope they fix the response time issues quickly, however, as that is the biggest problem that I have encountered so far. It's not a deal-breaker, because the other features of the phone make up for this, but after a while it will become more and more annoying.
Oh yeah, I forgot about one thing. The thing I loved about the iPhone was in both contacts and music, you can jump to a specific alphabet letter by selecting one on the right side of the display. The Pre lacks this, and I have to start typing to find what I want. Not a big deal, but sometimes I don't want to open the keyboard.
Anyway, great work, Palm! 4/5 stars in my book! Fix that UI issue, and you've got yourself a 4.8. Fix everything else I mentioned, and you get yourself a 5
This phone is going to flop if palm doesn't have a fix for the mail app that allows it to work properly with exchange active server. It's disappointing they have it working fine on EVERY OTHER PHONE they make, yet their new, top of the line, g-wiz, i-phone slayer completely dies on this basic app.
part of me wanted to turn around and go back to the store and demand my old plan and a refund, but it really is a VERY cool piece of technology, and I like EVERYTHING about it, except the fact it won't get my work stuff in like it's supposed to.
I can get by for a few days on just plain old web access, but come ON guys. Give me a break!
I think I can say it's a notch better than the iPhone's web browser. I'm not quite sure what it is, but there's something about the way it's antialiasing the fonts and the way it's wrapping lines of text that makes non-mobile-targeted sites easier on the eyes on the Pre than on the iPhone, despite the iPhone even having a slightly larger display.
This was the one thing I was pretty sure the Pre wouldn't do as well as the iPhone, go figure.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
Might I suggest that when a story submitter is too dumb to comprehend the difference between "to of" and "to have" that they have proven themselves incapable of meaningful participation anywhere outside Facebook and Myspace?
It's not even a difficult piece of grammar. "To of" is quite simply never correct in any situation.
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
Any bets on how Palm will screw over the developer community this time and finally ensure their belated demise?
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I went to a site that had managed to moderately flummox my iPod Touch (the MacUpdate promotion bundle) and the performance was significantly better. On Mobile Safari, the expanding boxes (which are supposed to operate on mouseover) either wouldn't expand when touching them or would only respond after a few seconds, the background was shifted off-center, and zooming seemed to do something strange to the text.
On the Pre, the site rendered the backgrounds properly, and the boxes expanded after a much shorter wait (1/2-1 second). I was impressed.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
Time for a big front page ad!!
Get yours today! First 3,000 customers get this cheap plastic carrying case! Absolutely FREE!!!
Close the door, and the light stays on!
Two shelves where none are needed...
Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
Trojans2Go
Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
This seems like the phone I have been waiting for. When will it be available in the Netherlands? How much will it cost?
-- Cheers!
Microsoft is the real underdog in the cell phone world these days. Surely you're not holding out for a Windows Mobile device?
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
What is Fedora Linux?
I use a real Linux distro.
Weird because while I love my Treo I hate my Treo, but using version 1.0 of web os makes me appreciate my Treo much more.
So yeah yeah yeah, Pre is great. But here is where I think it sucks compared to my Treo.
The calendar program is puny and worthless in comparison to the Treo + Agendus. It's very hard to visualize what is happening a month at a time on the Pre. On the Treo + Agendus, there are icons for birthday cakes, and icons for dentist appointments and all sorts of very useful 16x16 icons that help a great deal visualizing what's going on a month at a time.
The memos and tasks are truly worthless. Very hard to make detailed notes. No way to categorize or organize the notes. I have over 200 notes on the Treo and they are simple to find and all are searchable. None are searchable on the Pre and there is not even a way to categorize them.
Touchscreens are for noobs. All this time I've wondered what the iPhone crowd was crowing about with their touchscreens, but today, on the Pre, I really miss the fidelity and precision of a stylus and a 5 way navigation button the stylus lets me precisely hit exactly the point on the screen I am looking for and the nav button lets me precisely scroll up and down the number of items I desire. Exactly. Each time. Repeatedly.
The software is at a very simple and unsophisticated level. Websites constantly need to be zoomed and the browser doesn't remember that I've zoomed this website the last three times I've been to it, and so does not automatically zoom it the next time. Compare to Firefox.
And webos is slow. The whole thing feels slow compared, yes, to the PalmOS on the Treo 755p EVEN with it's white screens of death. It's frustrating and may go back to the store within the 30 day period while I wait for webos 2.0.
And I fear that contrary to what Palm has been saying, the problems will be firmware related and not an easy download. And frankly, the Treo experience is that Palm will release one new set of firmware, maybe two, and then consider the phone dead and push people to get the next one.
So we'll see. I think the hope of the phone is:
* a firmware upgrade from palm
* release of mojo sdk and native apps from long time palm developers
Ya know, just because the iPhone only has one button doesn't mean Apple was right to go that route. Apple loved their one button mouse for a decade when everyone else knew how stupid that was. 5 way nav buttons and a stylus isn't such a horrible klugey interface as much as forcing touchscreen for everything is.
My friend went to Best Buy to get one this morning. Got there @ 9:30 and was 6th in line. Gets in the store and goes to mobile department to find out the 13 they had gotten in were already sold. Smelling a rat he asked where the people buying them were, since they obviously had to be in the store already. He ended up being 20th on the waiting list - so not only had the first 13 been filched already, but somehow another bunch of people had gotten on the list before launch day.
Way to go BB. You're as slimy as ever.
"Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."
Basically Palm has punted on the PIM. One complaint about the Treo and later Palms was the PIM never advanced past what it was in 1997. But on the Pre they've dumbed it down even further and gotten rid of categories and search.
So while I might keep notes or web clippings in a memo (best restaurants, best bars, all npr stations in the nearby states, lan settings for home and work, ...) now such long collections of notes are horrible to browse through or find.
It is in some sense a Google/Facebook phone, but they haven't embraced all the Google Apps yet (no google tasks, no google voice, no google reader)...
And in six months to a year, Palm's timer in these units will start to go off.
Telling the phone to start crashing a few times a day and disabling random applications until you reinstall them, and people's factory charger cord will be so loose it'll pull out under its own horizontal weight.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
I had a Sprint employee warn me never to remove the battery, or else it'd lose everything in memory. Which seems odd, since 1.) Palm hyped the removable battery over the iphone's soldered in one and 2.) Everything's on flash memory, which isn't volatile.
Actually its half past fail.
Go to a sprint store. Call 'em first thing tomorrow morning.
The huge majority of the stock went to sprint-branded retails stores -- not Radio shack, wal-mart, or best buy.
Right, if we cared about "mass appeal" then we'd be interested in buying phones that only run apps that are approved by the church ladies who vet them at the app store.
So you find it superior that the church ladies decide who can even develop apps for the phone?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
On a serious note, I'd like to hear from some really picky (but sane) people about how the browser compares to Safari.
I've only seen a video, but on a demo of the Pre browsing vs. the iPhone the Pre was faster - it's basically the same browser (and supports the same tapping techniques that makes the iPhone so usable browsing) so you'd expect it to be somewhat faster as the Pre itself has a faster processor, and also more memory than the current iPhone/Touch (meaning you can browse to more pages without the browser reloading).
The next iPhone will probably also have more memory and a faster processor, but it's a good thinking on Palm's part that it stays a forward thinking platform instead of going cheap with the resources.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
2: Go look at a random sample of 100 iphone apps that were actually purchased. Find me 25 that aren't essentially web-applications anyway. (Find a local cab? A bird-watcher's aide?
Yes, those make good apps. You want something you can use anytime, without having to rely on the cell network - that's the key to why apps work when web outs could seemingly be used just as easily.
Also native apps have more UI options and input possibilities, which makes them faster/easier to use.
That said the Palm apps are going to be more than just web apps too, because they use a combination of standard CSS/HTML along with custom native API calls via Javascript to access richer features of the phone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There seems to be many people having issues with s self signed SSL certificates on Exchange. The phone requires you to load the certificate and "trust" it before you can connect. It doesn't allow for you to "trust" it inline with the EAS setup (ala Windows Mobile and iPhone). If you get past that, and you are running a standard SBS sever which by default creates a self signed cert with CNs for the private AD host name, the public dns host name and some SBS specific websites (companyweb and others). The pre supports multiple CN certificates, but it seems from some early research I did with a friend who just picked one up, that it uses the 1st CN to create the SSL connection (or verify the root ca) instead of the server url the user entered in the setup. Since many small shops don't use their public domain name as their AD domain name there seem to be many people having an issue.
Also, the error message it provides is not very helpful and is generic "SSL certificate error. Is the date and time correct"
Thankfully my friend's company happened to own the domain they used for the internal AD as well and since he is the admin he just added in the DNS records for it. It then worked as designed.
Error: Sig not found.
It's good to know one's priorities.
I liked the phone while I had it, but there were problems with the USB port. This would have been annoying if it were isolated to file transfers, but I couldn't get it to consistently charge either. That made the problem a deal-breaker. (The Sprint store had sold all 7 of their Touchstones before I got there.) Fortunately I was able to get a Sprint employee to witness the connectivity problem. But for some reason the manager wasn't convinced the phone was bad. I explained to him that a phone that charges sporadically wasn't useful to me. His employee even confirmed that the phone wouldn't charge when he tried it. But the manager countered by reminding me that one of his employees got it to charge for awhile. To be fair, the manager did try to get guidance from Sprint tech support, but the only suggestion they came up with was to reset the phone. That didn't solve the problem of a defective USB port.
The manager told me that he wouldn't be able to reserve a replacement Pre for me, because I can't just "cut in line." He said I'd have to keep checking with the store to see if they had any available. I disagreed about whether an exchange should be considered "cutting in line," but he was still convinced the Pre was working fine. Hard to reason with somebody in that frame of mind.
They offered to let me keep the Pre until new supplies arrived, but I explained that a phone that wouldn't reliably charge was useless. I gave everything back, and had them reactivate my Treo. The employee who witnessed the problem entered some notes in my account to ensure that I get the existing customer discount when I return. He also gave me his business card so that I can go straight to him for the purchase. I won't, however, be purchasing the $200 of accessories that I returned today. They lost that sale due to the way they handled my situation.
I really hope Sprint and Palm have a very successful year. I'm looking forward to getting a Pre, and I expect that the next one will be fine. But the store manager's attitude during this ordeal was disappointing. Once things have settled, I'll send a letter to Sprint Customer Relations explaining exactly what transpired. (There's quite a bit more than what I've posted here. I made 4 trips to the store during a 6 hour period to get this resolved.) I've been with Sprint for 11 years now, and the only time I have trouble is when I deal with their staff in the stores.
Go to a sprint store. Call 'em first thing tomorrow morning.
The huge majority of the stock went to sprint-branded retails stores -- not Radio shack, wal-mart, or best buy.
I suggested that, but he wants to do the rebate instantly, not have to mail it in (which we all know usually doesn't work).
"Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."
Also: Apple has a one-year head start and tens of thousands of apps, but 90% of them are absolutely useless, cluttering up the store. If Palm can build a better meritocracy for the App Catalog and promote quality...
Sorry, but as we all know from Sturgeon's Law - 90% of everything is crap.
Apple has in fact achieved the pinnacle of what it is possible to achieve by way of quality from an App Store.
That said I think Palm has a good chance of meeting that same loft goal of only 90% of everything being crap. It takes work to build nice apps but a lot of people know Javascript/CSS well enough now the approach of bolting on an SDK to that mechanism could yield good results in a lot of cases. The range of apps may be more limited but the quality will probably be about as high.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
1. Keep in mind that everyone has the exact same needs you do, so everyone by extension should own your device because you are happy with it.
2. Point out that nobody would ever buy it because your current device does everything anyone could ever want in the world.
3. When someone points out that not everyone owns your device, say they should and thus have no reason to have any interest in the new product which is just a ripoff of your device anyway.
4. When someone points out that your device probably doesn't suit every user, say that only the stupid ones who don't know how to use it would be unhappy with it.
5. If they persist, question the sexuality of the person and call them a fanboy of the competing brand. Checkmate.
I don't understand why anyone would buy a Pre today. With the new iPhone just around the corner (~30 days or less) I would hold off and see just what the iPhone 3.0 has in store, make my comparisons and then decide. Unless of course I've already made up my mind that I'm buying a Palm-anything and it makes no difference what else is out there. And people making comparisons between the Pre and the current iPhone -- I'd think this is a close enough race that the fair comparison would be to the new iPhone. Oh well, in 30 days that will be the case.
If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
I really don't want to know why these Pre-verts need their phones to be one-hand friendly.
</holds ears> (with both hands)
That said, just out of curiosity: how does one perform a thumb-drive?
Reading the detailed specs, I didn't see any mention of SD card support. While 7GB is not bad, it would have been much better to be able to extend that flash storage. Sure, one could use the USB mass storage suppot, but it makes it quite a bit less convenient to have to plug in a USB drive to listen to one of the songs you have there. Can you imagine having a USB flash drive protruding from the side of the Pre like that?
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
There is a trade between complexity and efficiency. You can cram information, shortcuts, and tricks (eg: the vi editor), but it requires a mental switch, unless you really really have been used that particular application.
I think one goal of Apple is to free yourself from that switch. Making each application UI a no brainer, you can concentrate on your job, and not in UI interaction. I think that's where most of the love for the iPhone comes from.
You should consider that an iPhone application is designed to be used with your fingers, and then ponder if designing for a stylus would improve it as much as to make it worth it.
No mention yet about Copy&Paste which the iPhone got a lot of comments about lacking, and was always brought up as a bonus for every other new phone.
Here's how it works on the Pre: You can't copy text that you can't edit. No copying text from a website, or an SMS, or an email unless you reply and copy from there.
http://forums.precentral.net/palm-pre/182854-copy-paste-you-kidding-me.html
I tracked the likely rumors and they seem consistent that things I'm not happy with on iPhone aren't fundamentally going to change.
-High barrier to entry for SDK (I don't want to buy a new system to run the OS required and the cost on top of all that seems steep)
-No physical keyboard (they have a philosophical beef with physical keys that I don't share)
-AT&T (in my usage scenario, there is a significantly important gap in their coverage where *no* GSM carrier hits for some reason, on top of AT&T being more expensive before some discounts I qualify for and *much* more expensive after service discounts are considered)
-Fixed battery (they sacrificed a key serviceability issue to achieve high capacity for form factor, which is a trade I'm not prepared to make)
-The ability to multitask (Apple seems to have a philosophical view that users must be protected from themselves using a feature that might possibly run down the battery faster. The WebOS platform at least lets me decide whether using it is appropriate.
I admittedly took some risk with the pre in buying before their SDK was actually in my hands, but I'll take the leap that they are at the very least desperate enough to catch up to apple that they will follow up on their promise of a free SDK to do that. I would have personally loved to do Android earlier because of the open-ness of the platform, but the only hardware I like is currently on a GSM carrier and the upcoming ones I like are only announced for GSM carriers (for most, GSM is a good thing, but as above, my coverage area has a unique aspect to it)
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
When they say 'USB mass storage support', they mean the phone presents some aspect of its filesystem as a USB mass storage device at your request. So you have a 7GB 'thumb drive'.
AFAICT, your only options are via another computer to change the 7GB of content.
I think this was a pretty glaring mistake to make that they probably made based on 'hey, iphone doesn't have it!'.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Anyone yet find a way to manually load your calendar or address book? iTunes moves the files over, but I can't find a way to get the Pre to look at them.
(Palm's "Data Transfer Assistant", for Macs requires 10.5, and I'm still on 10.4)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
On the whole happy, but not without qualification:
-The browser was good. Relatively fast load and rendering, good touchscreen interaction. The one site so far that I have some problems using is google reader. The scrollable viewport for the articles isn't accommodated well. There are enough alternative navigation options in reader that I can get by, but I have to get used to them. Other sites depending on users to scroll within subelements like this may have issues.
-The multitasking worked well. I did manage to hit a few websites with huge images that ended up exhausting the memory and requiring me to close 'cards' and only have 4 or so open, but these were very rare websites.
-The device showed up as a usable mass-storage device, could access my pictures and stuff trivially. Can not access their 'OS' files.
-The physical keypad works ok. The only other keyboard I've tried much in this class has been blackberry. The blackberry I could use 'reasonably' without any experience. My proficiency with the Pre is growing, but it wasn't as trivial as Blackberry keypads.
-I didn't think I'd care much about one-handed operation, but it was more comfortable than having my hands so close together for a longer time. This might not have been the case for a landscape keyboard, but certainly the ability to operate one-handed is there if one cares, has comfort issues, or use it in relation to 3.1" porn.
-The battery was relatively short lived in my first day usage. I was hammering the thing a lot more (constant music playing and browsing) than I would normally. An extended battery option is very possible (battery is quite accessible) and I wager likely. If I settle down in usage, it might be reasonable. Only time will tell.
-The microUSB cover was a royal pain. After a few opens and closes, it freed up some. Still, it's a lot more inconvenient than what I had done previously. It's almost as if they are exacerbating a problem to make the overpriced Touchstone more appealing.
-As well known, there is no storage expansion supported. I am disappointed with this in principal, though I don't have that much content myself.
-No tethering yet. The device does not preset a CDC ACM device via USB, I don't think it does DUN profile (never used it before). Sprint's CSO said tethering will be possible, but no evidence to date.
-It refuses to download files from the web it does not explicitly have a handler for. For example, if you have Classic and want to try a prc you see on the internet, you can't download it and move it on the phone to the right location. You must use another system to retrieve it and manipulate the Pre via USB mass storage mode.
-The SDK is not out and their selection of applications is rather slim at the moment. I've played with 'WebShell'/'AjaxTerm', but it's impossible to use with Pre's inabliity to see that I'm trying to type in the page instead of a search. Even when it does work somewhat, it's clear I need a real SSH client and other applications.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
...do the rebate instantly, not have to mail it in (which we all know usually doesn't work.
No, we don't all know such an unsupported assertion. Although most mailed refunds will arrive on the last possible day, I have never had a refund fail to arrive. If the refund is sufficiently large and the refund issue seems questionable, spend an insignificantly small fee and mail the refund by registered mail.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
No flash. I'm actually mixed on this one.
On the one hand, it's inconvenient with the web as it is.
On the other hand, I hate how the web is, and if all these smart phones don't do flash, maybe the flash ads go away more.
More to the point, I don't see flash being supported without causing flash-based advertisements to go nuts and suck down battery life. 'FlashBlock' I use on my desktop to avoid annoyance. Flash on a phone could likely require it to not be totally screwed.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Palm has always been a workhorse for me. I have a Zire. Although it has a crappy screen, it easily handles all of my business needs. I use it daily to help keep my life organized. I have heard that the calendar application on the Pre is dumbed down and doesn't do categories, etc. If true, I will be forced to continue using my Zire. I don't need a glorified web browsing toy. I, and I'm sure many others, need a device that can meet demanding business needs.
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
EV-DO does not support data usage during voice calls. This sucks, as there are times when I'm on the phone and I need to look something up or send an email
I know, that really bugged me about Sprint's network, until I figured out I could use Google Voice, Skype and fring to get around that.
Da Blog
Took one look at the phone and the $199 price tag and said "ooh cheap SmartPhone", of course than I took a look at the monthly plans that they require with it and realized I'd have to pay nearly double what I give Sprint now per month. Let me know when they're more rational on the monthly plans and I'll go for it otherwise, fuggedaboutit....
...in bed
Are you talking about refunds in general, or refunds from Sprint in particular? I have been a Sprint customer for seven years, and have sent in five rebates in that time. I only received a check back for two of them. Two they claimed to never have received, one they said was postmarked a month after I sent it. All of them were sent in within a week of purchasing the phone, before the deadline, and were filled out perfectly and included all the required paperwork. This doesn't seem to be an isolated thing, either. A lot of people have trouble getting Sprint to honor rebates.
> in the cell phone world
In the cell phone *world* perhaps, but when it comes to the USA, Nokia are surely the underdog.
Max.
I am looking to buy a "smart" phone soon. One of the critical things I need is an ssh app so I can log into my linux servers. Does the Pre have an ssh app yet?
So I'm holding back on purchasing one for about the next week or so -- based on Apple's announcements on Monday. -- But I did get to hold a Pre in my hand at the Sprint store -- I have to tell you that the crispness of the screen is incredible -- at first I thought it was a "stupid plastic sample" of the phone with a "photo sticker" representing the screen -- and then the image moved. AMAZING! -- my very next thought was ... wow -- there are a lot of fingerprints on this screen and can the screen be scratched??
Does anyone know what the screen/glass is made of? I know Movado utilizes a sapphire crystal for their watch faces which are truly scratch resistant. I suspect that that beautiful Pre screen image would be considerably disappointing with a big ol' scratch in it. Supposedly iPhone uses a synthetic sapphire crystal on it's screen.
The one thing that I love about my palm e2 and about my psp is that I can save html files to the device (html-ized books, notes for myself, etc) and read them, it is very simple and painless. As far as I know on the iPhone/iTouch and Android devices this isn't nearly as simple because you can't use file:///blah/blah/blah.html.
So can you browse local html files on a pre? Or maybe I am wrong and you can do this with Android or iPhones. So really I just want something that will mount as a mass storage device, or that will take a sd card, etc and let me save html files on to it that I can read anywhere.
No kidding. Fedora 11 is due out any second now.
Uh, I thought iPhone was AT&T only, and some of us don't want to switch carriers, much less switch to AT&T. If iPhone 3.0 is indeed going to multi-carrier, I can agree with a wait-and-see plan of action, but since that doesn't appear to be the case, and as I'm with Sprint and don't want to switch to AT&T, I have zero interest in the iPhone. How could you not understand that?
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
What I would like to know is whether the Palm Pre is indeed a good PIM (Personal Information Manager). What was great about Palm OS were the quality of the basic PIM applications (calendar, contacts, tasks, to do's) : fast, responsive, requiring a minimal number of clicks (or taps), and easy to hotsync with my desktop PIM.
Of course my iPhone is overall much better than the various Treos I had, but I still long for the efficiency of the Treo when doing basic tasks. I hope that Palm has not forgotten what made the Palms and Treos such great tools.
First off, the battery on this thing is atrocious. With GPS enabled and brightness fully turned up, expect 3-5 hours of battery life, and that's just web browsing and contact management, no phone calls. The phone clarity and speaker is very good. I'm not sure if there is any wired headset option. I don't know if the 3.5mm headset jack supports a microphone.
The Contact management features are great - I love how 3 years of Gmail and 10 years of AIM contacts simply popped into my phone. The only downside is browsing. Scrolling through a list of 500+ contacts without using the keyboard is a PAIN IN THE ASS. You also can't rename contacts in the phone. Say you have a contact "Joe Blow" with just an email, but another contact with "Joe Blo" with address, phone numbers, more emails, etc. You can make "Joe Blo" the primary profile source, but you can't rename it. I'm not sure how I feel about this, or whether it's a limitation of Palm profile service.
Browsing - is just like the iPhone.
Keyboard - it's sunken a bit, which is new. As a longtime Treo user (which took me some time to get used to), I adapted pretty well, and I have HUGE fingers. The autocorrect is good, but annoying at times, as auto-correct can be.
Text fields and data entry: If you make a typo, it's hard, using your finger, to position the caret at the exact spot you want to hit delete, or add new data. I thing that they would have been well-served to at least keep a left/right scroll button on the phone. I'm not sure if there's a simple feature of the phone I'm missing.
Speed dial: I know it has the capability, but it appears to only be limited to 10 speed dial entries. I like the Treo - I can put a speeddial entry on nearly the entire keyboard.
Wifi: Works great.
Fits great in the hand.
Mostly, it takes a LOT of time to get the gestures down. There are so many, I stumbled on many by accident. But most are intuitive if you take a few minutes to think about it.
I've been looking for an upgrade (with wifi) to my Treo, with a touchscreen, and the Treo keyboard style, minus WinMo. The Pre is apparently the only thing coming on the market in the near future that meets those requirements.
As a PIM, the Pre is hands down the best I've EVER used (minus the scrolling bit above). I synced my Gmail account 10 seconds after I had the phone paid for. I was reading email 60 seconds later, and playing Youtube a few minutes after that. Palm has gotten it right. Now they need to get Mojo out so their community of vendors can flesh out the platform. There is a Palm Classic emulator - the question I have is if the emulator speaks to the Pre contact manager?
I hate to say it, but not everyone likes the iPhone. I've had two chances out of contract to buy one, but stuck with other devices (that were both windows mobile) and bought a palm pre for a few reasons:
- PIM Management/Business. The iphone lacks on multiple points...when my phone is the only device I have access to, I want to continue to be able to do work like normal. Also, the basic purpose of the iphone is consumer appeal, not practicality...apple seems to have not put any thought into using less gestures, better workflow, etc.
- Lack of keyboard. I hate the iphone's soft keyboard, and could never get used to it, and will never buy another phone that hasn't have decent feedback.
- Lack of multitasking. My windows mobile phones were basic, but it is important that I be able to switch back and forth between apps.
- Popularity. While some people may disagree with this point, I am prejudiced against the iphone because it's apple and because it's popular. Just because a product is popular doesn't mean it's good...I'm not saying the iphone is bad, but it really doesn't match what I require out of a phone. I'm not about to buy a phone just because everyone else and their mother have one
- If I want to play games, I would buy a gaming device like a psp or a ds and carry it with me.
- Non-replaceable battery. Really? The first thing in a phone to fail is almost always a battery. Plus I typically have two per phone for long days traveling. Not to mention their battery life sucks in the first place
Frankly, I don't care about apple's announcement because their goals with the iphone and my goals in seeking a phone are almost an instant clash. I'm not really impressed with their phone on a technical/business point of view. But for my mom and nieces, it's a great fit!
A Mac mini is comparable to the cost of Visual Studio.
Where can I find a Mac Mini Express?
Reality is the ultimate Rorschach.
Sprint apparently has a roaming agreement with Verizon - if my Pre can't get a Sprint tower it'll use a Verizon tower (or so I've been told by the Sprint guys).
My Sprint phone (on a SERO plan for $30/month for everything) does have that Verizon roaming option included. You can see it itemised on the bill. It rarely has a problem with coverage.
Da Blog
Before you go modding something as "redundant", check the goddamned timestamps, will you?
I was the FIRST to bring this up.
Igging fridiots.