Palm: Back from the dead?

Cleve Nettles
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January 08, 2009
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Left for dead?  Not so fast!  Palm's pre looks...pretty, pretty....pretty good.  The Web OS, seems like it is going in the right direction. A2DP Bluetooth. Removable battery. TI's latest OMAP CPU (Cortex? - this is the thing Archos is putting in its media players) 

Sprint?  Well.  They are the "launch partner".

Some choice photos ganked from Engadget liveblog follow:

 

 

Comments (28)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 12:21pm

so is it supposed to be called the "pray"?

synthetic (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 9:27pm

Hah!

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 09, 2009 - 5:04pm

no. its pronounced 'prey'

Peruchito (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 12:33pm

right on time for last year. looks great.

Stefan Dietzel (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 12:43pm

Jon Rubinstein man and he loves a replaceable battery in his digital devices :))

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 1:16pm

Nice phone, but it's not shipping until June and it's only on Sprint. WTF.

I doubt that Apple, Google and Microsoft are sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Let's see what they come up with by then.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 1:26pm

nice as it looks its not an os its a browser, dont expect any performance or power or games.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 1:33pm

I actually really like the looks of this. I'd like to play around with it at the very least.
http://www.woopid.com/

Jensonb (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 1:36pm

Blegh, I'm not fond of the hardware. Ugly as heck.

Thataboy (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 1:54pm

A few things of note:

The Pre plays h.264 and AAC - so all your brand new iTunes Plus tracks will work. It has MMS, a 3MP camera with LED flash, and apparently real multitasking. So all that is great, and I hope Apple responds with a little competitive spirit.

However, the Pre is ugly as HELL and is only on Sprint. So I'm not sure this is going very far. Moreover, I think it is awfully telling that there is no word about price, and no mention of battery life that I can see. This looks like a strong CPU with multitasking, notifications, GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, EVDO.... I'm going to guess it has a battery life of, say, 13 minutes.

If I were forced to be on Sprint, I'd get it. Each carrier has its premiere exclusive now.... iPhone, G1, Storm, Pre. Good for them. Personally, I don't know one soul with a G1 OR on T-Mobile, I know a few people who switched from iPhone to Storm and then quickly switched right back. The Pre might fare better, but I have the feeling it will bleed numbers from the G1, Storm, Instinct, WinMo users, and not iPhone people.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 2:25pm

Apple's cash machine will R&D this thing out of the water by the time June rolls around. But it has some cool features. The nimble-fingered will like the keyboard. Mainly 20-something girls. by what I can tell on the streets. The rest of us plod along on our iphone keypads.

@Thataboy (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 2:50pm

@Thataboy

you can't make statements about battery life cause it's not out yet, hopefully it's better than the iPhone 3G.

i kinda like it, it has a real keyboard that I miss on my iphone atleast REAL bluetooth not that crippled shit on the iPhone and multitasking. I hope this blows up big so that Apple has to make some changes to some of the stupid crippled options they offer now on the iPhone.

SaudiMac (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 3:14pm

The device lacks GSM and Palm (according to engadget) are planning on a GSM Pre ... "soon"...

I would rather they release the specs for both a CDMA and a GSM phone

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 3:16pm

I hope that Palm will have success. I like Palm a lot more than Google, Microsoft or Nokia. So to have an alternative to the iphone would be nice.
Advantages:
- Multitasking
- Copy & Paste
- probably more free, in sense of using Software

But will arrive in Summer in the USA. But when will it arrive in Europe?
Why do they make an exclusive parnership with Sprint? They are late on the market!!!

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 4:18pm

it looks better than the iphone

Luis Alejandro Masanti (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 4:24pm

quote:
"so is it supposed to be called the "pray"?"

You say in the sense of "Pray God this phone will save our ass?"

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 5:14pm

Ah, the Fanboys and their exposed fear. Palm may be the "Resident Evil" of the smartphone. Fear them, they'll consume you. "Oh, but Stevie will save us!"

Apple's too busy trying to figure out ways to fatten the wallets of a few individuals. Face it, all your rage is based on the fact that you know you've been duped again by the wizened old charlatan. There's your "Reality Distortion Field". The conjurings of a sick, ego maniac.

CES outshines Macworld - way to go Apple!

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 09, 2009 - 12:42am

I dont own an iphone(though i know it very well) but today everyone will have to acknowledge that the iphone is one of the best smartphones out there. Which is funny because the hardware just plainly sucks (in terms of processing power, camera, bluetooth...).
But the concept is a first-of-a-kind success and the thing that lifts the iphone over every other phone out there is the OS.
What use is the powerful hardware of a nokia n96 if the Symbian OS is SO F***IN SLOOOOW!

If apple would introduce top of the line hardware to the iphone there would be no more arguing... ever...

Juanlu (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 5:40pm

the palm pré looks absolutely wonderful and has implemented great stuff upon iphone´s basic scheme. i do particularly love the way you get rid of open apps throwin ´em out of the screen. genius (i feel there are tons of creative things you can do by figuring out an extension of the UI beyond the screen real estate and even the phone itself).
the processor seems to be a beast btw.
the way it merges your cal, contacts and IM accounts is a thing of wonder as well as is the notification system.
I feel Apple (AAPL) has delayed its own notification system for iPhone to come up with something better than that badge thing they showed back in WWDC08.

as ever: pardon my horrid English

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 7:18pm

the world was palm's to lose, and they lost it: this is at least 5 years too late. i bet it has the standard crap 90-day palm warranty, too. also, i really miss graffiti. i can't really forgive that betrayal.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 7:31pm

This is impressive, but its a prototype. No release date and estimates in June. Cost will be over $200 based on the quote from Gizmodo by Peter Kafka. So the reality is that you will have to wait 5-6 months, to then switch over to Sprint and right around the same time, the next iPhone will get released, and you can lament switching carriers when you could have just stayed where you are

Cory Schulz | January 08, 2009 - 10:04pm

 This actually looks pretty decent. I'm impressed. This could actually rival the iPhone depending on if they release an SDK and what type of features it includes. The UI is better than anything Microsoft is releasing. It will be interesting to see what becomes of this. Also, I greatly enjoyed the Arrested Development references!

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 09, 2009 - 3:19am

No, actually it is dead, and that sad attempt to create a new piece of shit phone is proof. Palm missed the boat and fucked nearly five years of customers to ensure their place in hell.

I'm reserving window seats to see their flesh pulled off their bones for eternity.

Z'lag (not verified) | January 09, 2009 - 3:56am

Actually Pre is more impressive that I expected, but there is one big catch; applications are developed using a web-model (JavaScript, HTML, CSS), this really sucks and when one think about the bad press Apple got before they released their native SDK I keep wonder why nobody from the press is raising this question.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 09, 2009 - 4:34am

Because deep down nobody really cares. Everybody is on the "This is great!" and "Palm has a home run with this phone!" bandwagon but the reality is the phone isn't worth giving up an iPhone for.

nooby nooby noob (not verified) | January 09, 2009 - 4:46am

looks promising since i'm stuck with sprint. I'll be looking for battery life and more info as it becomes available.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 09, 2009 - 7:35am

This thing looks nice, but I will not be impressed unless there is some real Mac compatibility. Having a Palm in the past it was PITA to sync, or get media on there without buying other software or jumping through 50 hoops. Unless they have some decent mac software to go along with it, I won't be looking at it at all.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 10, 2009 - 4:29pm

Man...the Arrested Development references were great! Blue Man Group, Michael Bluthe. I'm totally digging it!