Pre

Palm Pre Plus, Pixi Plus head to U.K.

The Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus are heading to the United Kingdom.

On Wednesday, Palm announced that U.K.-based O2 will offer the WebOS smartphones starting May 28. O2 already offers the original Palm Pre, so it's no surprise that the carrier would offer the upgraded version as well as the new version of the Pixi.

Each phone is available from O2 on an 18- or 24-month contract.

Palm has been milking its Pre and Pixi platforms for over a year now. The company introduced the original Palm Pre on Sprint Nextel's network in June 2009. … Read more

AT&T Palm Pre Plus available May 16 for $150

Announced back at CTIA Spring 2010, AT&T finally revealed via its Facebook page that the Palm Pre Plus will be available starting May 16 for $149.99 with a two-year contract and after a mail-in rebate.

In addition, the carrier said that for a limited time it will throw in a Touchstone charging dock for free for any customers who purchases the smartphone in one of its retail stores. No word, however, on the pricing or availability of the Palm Pixi Plus.

The 404 570: Where we buy Palm for five bucks and a coke (podcast)

In a sneak-attack move that left everyone (including CNET's own Bonnie Cha) surprised, HP, not HTC, announced that it will buy Palm for $1.2 billion. Many industry pundits consider the partnership out of left field; few remember HP's early foray in the world of PDAs starting with the Jornada handhelds that even found their way into the capable hands of Denise Richards in the James Bond film "The World is Not Enough."

We're anxious to see what HP does with branding and WebOS, which some argue is the only thing from Palm worth saving. And although Wilson and I are optimistic to see how HP handles the buyout, Jeff is ready to jump ship and land on the HTC Evo 4G coming this summer.

Congratulations to Comcast for winning the Golden Poo in The Consumerist's Worst Company in America Awards for 2010. We're also not surprised to see that Ticketmaster follows closely in the runner-up position, although we're not sure what's worse--standing in line to give back a Comcast cable box or paying Ticketmaster's "service fees" that sometimes cost more than the tickets!

Before we finish today's episode, we have to spend time with our favorite movie series "Back to the Future" and a list of six innovations from the movie that we're still waiting for two decades later.

Although we hesitate at the dangers of flying cars like the DeLorean, we still have use for clever inventions like the Black & Decker Hydrator and self-drying clothing. And what Christmas would be complete without your own 404 Podcast-sponsored hoverboard? Don't forget that they don't work on water...UNLESS YOU HAVE POWER.

P.S. Jeff and I have a gentleman's bet on whether Griff's lackey says "Bozo" or "Bojo" in this famous quote. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments!

EPISODE 570 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

The 404 566: Where Jeff gets number 9 (podcast)

The subject of Jeff's bad cell phone luck has come up several times on The 404 Podcast already, but we're coming back to it once again because he just received his NINTH Palm Pre from the good folks at Sprint, who are now offering a "trade nine, get one free frozen yogurt" stamp card in his honor.

We'd love to promise that this will be his last, but judging from the laundry list of parts that broke on the other eight units, it's not looking good. The best we can hope for is that number nine won't spontaneously combust before Jeff can cash in for a HTC Evo 4G...that is, unless Lenovo announces a ThinkPalm phone first.

Big thanks to Cheryl, aka The Official 404 Grandmother, for recommending this inspiring story about a 99-year-old woman in Oregon who's rediscovered the joys of reading and writing poetry thanks to the zoom feature on her brand new Apple iPad. We've been vocalizing our frustration at the technological ineptitude of our elders for the past two weeks now, so it's about time someone sets it straight!

Virginia Campbell was born in 1910 and a tough fight with glaucoma recently left her struggling to read fine print until her family bought her an iPad. As a result, pinch-to-zoom is her new best friend, even inspiring her to write a short poem that we're proud to read over the air. Campbell had this to say to a reporter: "You're never too old to take advantage of something that will help you." +3!

We've also got a semi-SFW story about a kind-hearted film star that saved a man from a 20-year prison sentence in Puerto Rico, but you'll have to download today's episode to get the full story, because we want to address complaints about the iTunes feed.

We do our best to put the show on iTunes as soon as possible, but if you can't wait to hear an episode, you can always visit this blog and click the "play" button down below to hear the audio podcast. Or, if you're especially Web savvy, you can right click on "download," copy the URL and edit the numbers to the current date. Thanks for being patient with us, and have a great weekend everyone!

EPISODE 566 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Are cell phone chargers juicing you?

Recently, AT&T announced an eco-friendly cell phone charger called the AT&T Zero Charger.

The allure of this device is it automatically shuts down when not in use, offering what AT&T claims is "zero vampire draw" from the wall outlet. Vampire draw is a term for the power that devices draw out of outlets they are plugged into while they are turned off. AT&T's charger will be USB-compatible, making it practical for many of the phones on the market today.

Sure, a zero-draw charger sounds helpful. With that said, we … Read more

Comparing smartphone operating systems

Apple's announcement of iOS 4 and the iPhone 4 in just the last three months shows that the smartphone wars aren't cooling yet. Just consider everything that has happened in the space of the last year. Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 is a top-to-bottom overhaul of the Windows Mobile OS, and Google continues to aggressively roll out updates to Android. Palm hasn't been quite as active in the news recently, but we're not discounting its WebOS quite yet.

The following chart compares popular features from the smartphone operating system that have been most active this year. … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1198: Tong tied? Frayed not (podcast)

With Molly out covering the iPad launch for your local CBS stations, we're free to make wanton puns about knot theory. And we do. Plus Brian Tong gets his brain in knots trying to explain how it applies to tangled headphones. We also have the explanation for why iPad apps are ridiculously expensive. And we compare the JooJoo which is actually here, and explain why it's getting trumped by Apple.

Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) Subscribe with RSS (video) EPISODE 1198

How Long Will It Take iPad App Prices To Drop? … Read more

Verizon drops Palm Pre Plus, Pixi Plus price; Mobile Hotspot now free

Just to be clear, this is not an April Fools' joke, though we wouldn't blame you for thinking so because this deal is a bit ridonkulous.

Verizon Wireless announced on Thursday that customers who buy or upgrade to the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus will get the carrier's Mobile Hotspot feature for free, while current owners of the smartphone will find a big fat $0.00 for the service on their next bill.

Mobile Hotspot lets you turn the devices into a mobile Wi-Fi router that can provide a mobile broadband connection using Verizon's EV-DO … Read more

Battle Royale: Five smartphone screens face off

With the recent release of DisplayMate Multimedia Edition for Mobile Displays, a battery of tests to measure the quality of portable screens--and apparently because I'm a glutton for punishment--I thought now would be the perfect time to bring five popular smartphones back to CNET Labs for a down-and-dirty comparison of their screen performance.

The five phones I chose to put through the ringer (ahem) are the Samsung Behold II, the Motorola Droid, the Apple iPhone 3GS, the HTC Nexus One by Google, and the Palm Pre Plus. These five were chosen because of their relative popularity and similar feature sets.

We used three different types of tests to evaluate each phone:

Scientific measurements: We used the Konica Minolta CS-200 ChromaMeter to test the maximum brightness, black level, and contrast ratio of each phone and reported numbers for each of these three tests.

Test pattern screens: We used several DisplayMate Mobile test patterns to test for color-tracking errors, 24-bit color, and font legibility, among others.

Real-world: Finally, we conducted real-world anecdotal testing using 3D games, photos, and a little tool I like to call "the Sun" to test the diffuse reflectance of each display.

All test screens were viewed within each phone's native gallery application. Some phones may handle pictures differently--and even improve them to some extent--outside the application. That said, we believe that testing within the respective gallery applications is still a viable test as this is where most users will view pictures on their phones.

In order to diminish potential repetition, I'll dive right into the details of how each phone performed; if you'd like to know more about our tests, you can binge off nerdy details in our "How we tested" section at the bottom of this article. Please note that this is an evaluation of each phone's screen performance and nothing else. Check out the full reviews of these phones to determine which is right for you. Also, DisplayMate recently conducted a more technically focused evaluation of the iPhone 3GS' and the Nexus One's screens that I recommend you take a look at.

The bottom line… Read more

Palm Pre Plus, Pixi Plus headed to AT&T

LAS VEGAS--At CES 2010, AT&T revealed that it would add two Palm WebOS smartphones to its lineup. On Monday, we learned the identities and prices of the upcoming devices.

The Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus will be available from AT&T in the coming months (no specific release dates were given) for $149.99 and $49.99, respectively, with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate.

There are not a lot of surprises in the announcement, since the hardware and software on both phones are largely similar to their Verizon Wireless counterparts. However, both … Read more