OK so the Pre finally became available in the US on the 6th June and certainly the majority of things said about it are good. Although it has been highly praised I’m afraid it lost me during the first few days after release. If people are actually following this they’ll know that the Pre came to my attention back in January when I started looking about getting a new phone. Since then the Pre was looking good but just a few things have put me off it now and I have to go on what I’ve heard and read on the web as my demo model must have got lost in the post *cough*.
The build quality isn’t what I’d expect from what is suppose to be a high end phone. There seems to be a very plastic look and feel about it and really wouldn’t stand out against and iPhone or one of the new HTC phones. Also the edges of the slide out keyboard are sharp which doesn’t give a nice feeling in your hand.
The keyboard was the main reason I was attracted to the Pre to start with but even that seems to have flaws. The keys are awkward and your thumb bumps against the top half of the phone when trying to use the top row of keys.
The last thing is the applications or rather the lack of. These days it’s the applications that sell devices which Apple have proved very well and currently there are no applications that would make me consider getting the Pre.
Saying all that from what I can gather the Pre will not appear in Ireland until later in the year sometime between September and October depending on what reports you read, so this does give them time to sort out some of the issues and even fill out the app catalog. Telefonica have signed up as one of the operators in Europe so that means the Pre will be available on O2 in Ireland and the UK, who knows I might get my hands on one then to see what it’s really like.
I’ve put together a playlist of videos from PhoneDog.com showing what the Pre is like and what it can do
We finally got a date today from Sprint in the US, June 6th, but still no info on a date for this side of the pond so it looks like we’ll be waiting until after the Summer to pick it up in Europe.
Sprint has announced today that the Palm Pre will be available on June 6. Sprint announced that it will be available nationwide in Sprint stores, as well as at Best Buy, Radio Shack, and select Wal-Mart stores. The webOS-based phone will retail for $199.99 (after rebate and service agreement)
After the announcement of the launch date we were hit with the usual stories of “Expect Palm Pre Shortages” so anyone planning on getting one on or around the day of launch better get planning their over night camping in queues.
For more info on the announcement check out these links:
Sprint have launched a sweepstakes to give two people the chance to win a Palm Pre. It starts tonight and runs until the 18th May, which gives more fuel to the rumour that a launch date will be announced on that day.
There’s still no set date for the release of the Pre but things are still moving along. Palm really need to make an announcement within the next few weeks before Apple pick up speed with the expected new iPhone.
Noah from PhoneDog got a nice update at last week’s CTIA ‘09 show in Las Vegas
Plus there was an interesting report on Bloomberg about how the Pre is turning Palm and Sprint around.
From earlier posts you’ll know I’ve been following the Palm Pre since its announcement at CES earlier in the year. Noah from PhoneDog.com is currently at the MWC in Barcelona and got a hands on demo of the Pre. From the demo the Pre definitely looks like it’s going to live up to the hype and seems to be still on target to hit the street in the early summer.
The two videos from Noah at PhoneDog.com are here
Synergy Calendar and Contacts Sync
I’ve been looking around lately for a new phone but just can’t seem to find anything that fits in with what I want. At the moment I have the O2 Xda Orbit II which at the beginning I saw as a great upgrade from the original Obit but it’s just starting to annoy me now. I’m getting sick of touch screen keyboards, my thumbs are not made for those and the number of txt messages I send has decreased because of it (not a bad thing). Then there’s just small issues like no headphone jack, I have to remember to take the adapter with me whenever I’m travelling but more often than not it gets left behind. The other problem is the screen itself because there’s some sort of shiny reflective coating on the screen it means it’s next to impossible to use out doors and you have to constantly wipe it.
Now for the good points, the screen size is great for watching movies whenever I do remeber to bring the headphone adapter. The micro SD card goes into a slot on the side where as before you had to take the battery out and finally it runs pretty quick on windows mobile 6 making media players and sat sav programs real easy to use.
Now as I said at the start I want to change to a new phone but just can’t find anything that will tempt me away and no I don’t want an iPhone. Now don’t get me wrong I like the Macs and the iPods but I just can’t bring myself to like the iPhone. I see it has a huge waste by a company that had a chance to make something great. Just a quick point if you’re going to bring out a product that’s suppose to be the best and most state of the art of it’s kind then you’d want that product to do all and have all the basic features that your competitors have and do, most people should know what I’m talking about here.
Anyway the things I want in my new phone would be:
Some sort of QWERTY keyboard
3G
GPS
Some form of large internal memory and if not, a memory card slot
Headphone socket on the phone, no need for external adapters
WiFi
Windows Mobile, so that I can install my own programs
Now looking at those points you’d think that souldn’t be to hard to find but as of yet I’ve come up short. I’ve looked around and the cloest I could find was the HTC Touch range. The Touch pro looks perfect until you look at the two models up from it and I’m left thinking if only the Touch HD had the keyboard from the pro and I’d be running out to buy one.
Another one I found was the MWg Zinc II again looks really good but I think I’d still have trouble with it’s keyboard.
I was about to give up until I saw a piece in yesterday’s Irish Times In Gear magazine about gadgets for 2009 and they mentioned the new Palm pre coming out later this year. Now this looks like a real interesting phone apart from the fact it will use the palm OS it could be well worth looking at and is being tipped as the iPhone killer. There’s a few videos of it on YouTube but this one gives a good quick overview
So I’m left with the choice, if anyone wants to leave a comment swaying me one way or another or even better if any of the companies want to send me a phone to test that would be great.
