Palm Pre - iPhone killer announced at CES 2009
tags:
Stumble ThisRelatively unknown but veteran company Palm has shocked the electronics world by unveiling their new phone "Pre" - so much so that it's stock has already skyrocketed by more than 35% since the presentation.
Gizmodo call it "maybe the most important handset to be announced in two years" (http://i.gizmodo.com/5126702/palm-pre-preview-simply-amazing)
Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/08/the-palm-pre/
Gizmodo call it "maybe the most important handset to be announced in two years" (http://i.gizmodo.com/5126702/palm-pre-preview-simply-amazing)
Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/08/the-palm-pre/
Part 1- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeU1h0Nh6Hw
Part 2- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jtzvtfgeGQ
The thing that is most telling about the video is that she not only has to do something twice to get it to work properly, but the actual procedure by which she calls up the stuff is not exactly intuitive. Love or hate the iPhone, the one thing about it is that you can just hand to to an average user and they can pretty much figure out most of it. This whole "gesture area" crap looks really kloogey.
Edit: upvoting because bad technology is fun to look at!
I'd say it's as much of an iPhone killer as the Zune was the iPod killer.
I like the qwerty keyboard the slides out. Screw "typing" on a touch screen.
It appears locked in to Sprint only at the moment. I'll have to ask around and see how good the Sprint service (read: reception) is in my area before I could even consider it as a purchase choice though. Nothing worse than going to a new provider only to find you have no reception inside your house.
Now, when I use the "-killer" phrase, I am of course being a little scandalous, but the idea is that it might steal a substantial market share from Apple. A ~50% boost in company shares is kinda a big deal.
And how thick exactly does one have to be to think a smartphone wouldn't support video playback, volumptuous?
Anybody that hasn't realized iPhone's success is only a matter of branding and thinks iPhone is technologically superior than any other average smartphone in the market needs their brain examined.
Allot of things about the iphone suck - including obnoxious marketing and intentional handicaps BUT until very recently it is definitely not like any other average smartphone.
The big difference is high resolution screen and touchscreen. Without those things you don't have a real full fledged usable web browser, the ability to intelligently zoom in on areas of interest or usable google maps. The average smartphone has a resolution of 320x240 with a very very crude web browser and not enough resolution to make navigation very practical IME.
Beyond that yeah it's the same old stuff and in many cases not done as well as the average smart phone - but a usable web browser and navigation are really important to most people.
I hope future android phones or the palm don't cripple things like disallowing stereo bluetooth and allowing alternate media players etc like the iphone and apparently the g1 do.