Comments on: Palm Pre launch date rumors abound

The latest rumors say the Palm Pre will launch some time in mid-March, while a CNET reader says Sprint told him mid-February.

[iBuzz]

Ooh Boy! A smartphone! Will it make calls, do email, browse the web, keep my appointments, give me driving directions? I can't wait! This will change the world!

Seriously... after years of very capable smartphones being on the market, why is anyone excited about this? Is it because it's shiny? Is it because it's on Sprint? :-/

And funny how every article about the Palm Pre mentions the iPhone. Why not just get an iPhone? Or is the meaning behind the name "Palm Pre" short for "Palm Pretend", as in, pretend you have an iPhone?

[Rod Roddy]

No dude, it's because the iphone has raised the bar on these devices. Their goal is to match if not exceed the iphone. Let the consumers decide...if they build it, we will buy.

[StennG]

If it matches the latest iPhone's 16 GB memory or better yet have removable storage, that would be matching or rasining the bar.

The other one, the Pro looks fairly sleek and has powerhouse specs for a windows mobile. At our outfit we can choose between Windows Mobile, Rim or iPhone (we gotr approval for iphone from IT about four months ago). I had hear about all klnds of problems with the other Palm WM, the 800 from our Sprint guy. Do this Pro fix the battery, sound quailty and GPS issues the old one had?

That Pe looks good but I would like toe see head to head comparisions against the iPhone, especially memory and developer support. I always liked Palm but I don't know if I would invest in learing a new operating systerm unitl it has been out for a while. They have a lot of catching up to do.

[ncr1]

Well Rod, how can consumers decide if anytime any carrier comes out with a smartphone, apple threatens lawsuit. The multitouch, the phone gui all is patented by Apple. That is why we will never see another multitouch smarthphone and the likes of it. Personally speaking i love the iphone. Too bad we wont see anything close to it for years to come.

[Dominick_7]

Its because every other pocket pc falls short, especially of many of the things people want and seem to like in the iPhone. I for one can't stand a horizontal two handed qwerty keyboard, and only like the one handed tactile qwerty. I don't care for a touch screen only. I have a Samsung i730 and love it, but have been very dissapointed with any of the "upgrade" options as they just lack the design sophistication of the i730 and its given me no reason to switch..3G isnt THAT much faster download wise than regular EVDO..this just seems to have the best of all the of the best features of the different phones out there...vertical one handed tactile qwerty, nice screen, beautiful and sophisticated GUI, the option to do touchscreen or use stylus, its thin, has most if not all the features of other phones..the one thing I'm wondering is how easy it will be to get it working on Verizon and what the detailed specs will have..ie memory capacity and possibly expansion card (micro sd).

[C433Z]

I thought everyone was excited about it because of the OS; the fact that it can do REAL multitasking, and puts all your information together more cohesively. Oh, and don't forget the qwerty keyboard and the 3mp camera.

The iphone was groundbreaking, and I still love it, it's just that the palm pre has some features that I always wanted to see in the iphone. Hopefully it's a step up from it.

[hameiri]

1) In America we like competition. So, everyone just getting an iPhone is not a solution. I, for one, would like to avoid Apple products when I can.

2) Just because we all know what an iPhone is, and that may be the best way to compare, doesn't mean the iPhone is better

3) I actually still have a Palm Tungsten T3 that I carry with me every day. If I could easily convert my information to a Pre, I would be very happy!

[Greywethr]

Palm Pre... just another smartphone... NOT. Here's why. Imagine you have a meeting at noon, 1.5 hours away driving. You leave 1 hour before the meeting, making you a half-hour late. Your meeting is listed in your Pre's agenda, along with the other meeting members. The Pre will know it's location via GPS, calculate the driving time, understand that you'll be a half-hour late, and automatically notify the other meeting attendees. All this must be set up beforehand so it knows it's okay to do this, but it can be a global setting so it always does this, or on a case by case basis, just like you can or cannot set an alarm for something when you create the appointment/event. It also multi-tasks so you don't have to reload apps every time you switch to something. The Pre makes the iPhone look like a Fisher Price toy. Okay, the iPhone is awesome, but all the imitators fall short, and the Pre will be the only one to surpass it's greatness. I love anything non-MicroShit, have 2 Apple computers, and a Treo. Yes, my opinion is bias, but not what I wrote about what it can do. Now if I can only find that article about it... It may be a video. *shrugs*

[brownpw]

I think this is totally bunk, because I know for a fact that a chat session with Sprint will always identify the user by name. Furthermore, they will never as a policy be able to acknowledge anything that is not public info; they would get fired for it!!

[tcr071]

So when I initiate a chat with a Sprint rep I can't contend that my name is Someone? That is entirely plausible. Also just because it is a policy doesn't mean the policy can't be violated by an employee. There are leaked documents from companies all over the internet because someone was doing something they weren't supposed to be doing.

Having said that this whole chat thing seems entirely ridiculous because an employee would have to be really really stupid to put something like this in writing. I could see leaking information over the phone but in a chat session? I'm not buying it.

[Boardactor87]

Last I heard the Pro was coming out the 15th.. and it is blowing the socks off the 800w.. some sprint guys in my area have them and have been gushing about the performance and battery life. Hopefully the Pre matches up!

[cs2368]

Me and my wife like the iphone, but we are not about to pay 220 plus a month with AT&T for two lines. We pay about 140 dollars a month( not including dicount) for two lines(family unlimited plan) with Sprint and satisfied. We will wait for the Pre.

[iBuzz]

My wife and I have two iPhones and with the family plan, we're paying $180 a month for 700 minutes with rollover + unlimited data + unlimited texting. The unlimited texting costs $30, so if we didn't text so much, that would bring our monthly bill down to $150 for two phones. How do you figure $220+?

[jakgumbo]

Quick question, anyone have any idea if the Pre will launch with activesync or similiar?

[Weudel]

So, I read this yesterday... Then today I noticed that Verizon has the Treo 700wx listed as "While Supplies Last" on their website... Is this slated to be replaced by another WM device or are there any plans of a WebOS device coming to Verizon?... Just a dream, I know, but that's all I have for now...

[postthis09]

Palm should not have shown the pre if it wasn't closer to coming to market. The one Kent German tested looked pretty polished so the wait might not be that long. I own the centro which is decent but im really anticipating the release of the pre. This is a pretty bad tease. I feel like a kid getting the wishbook in august for xmas.

[utexas294]

i'm just not seeing what the hype is all about. the touch pro is better than this thing. palm hasn't put anything of value out since the 650 and i don't believe this is their next big thing. i think people just have a palm crush. it's also too expensive for what your getting.

[StennG]

Touch Pro is a full fledged business smart-phone. Pre will be a less expensive device for entry level users. The Centro is getting long in the tooth and Pre is the replacement.

[sram1224]

I've seen many reviews about this and seen the CES Event Promo in Vegas on YouTube. I really like this phone and do think that this has raised the bar on not just only Smartphones but Touch Screens as well. I'm really happy to hear that this is going to be on the Sprint Network as I am a long time Sprint customer myself. The only negative feedback I have is that Sprint needs to be a bit more competitive on pricing for existing customers. It's not fair that I have been with Sprint for over 8 years and still can't receive a better deal than a new customer ( I know, I know, it's a marketing dilemma) but still.

[kszush]

I hate these mystery release dates. It's complete nonsense. My current phone is almost 3 years old and its fading fast.... I have sprint and my contract is up... if it doesn't come out by mid March I'm switching to the iphone... unfortunately, I just can't wait until June to upgrade.

[prelude619]

I don't mind waiting, What I do mind is NOT KNOWING the date of release AND the price. I mean if they say "fisrt half of 2009" and they must absolutly wait till the last day of June, then say so! This just tells me that they do not have confidence that it will be ready by that day and that they say "first half of 2009" so that if they need to delay, they never gave us a solid day which in turn is bad press for palm and sprint because many people and potential customers are flocking to the iphone. SPRINT ARE YOU READING THIS??? I hope you have a team working 24 hours to get this thing out as fast as humanly possible because for every 1 customer that goes elsewhere, that is 2 yrs that they WILL NOT be at Sprint! I can't belive (IF that is what they are doing) you are willing to sacrifice people to buid up buzz and if so, you are doing this the WRONG way!

[Austinite007]

I bought a Palm Centro about a year ago, not knowing much about Palm, Inc. and the capabilities of their devices. I really liked having the full physical qwerty keyboard on the Centro but after 3 weeks of putting up with their heavily outdated Garnet Operating system and horrible Blazer browser that constantly crashed the phone I decided to very reluctantly return it. I searched the web over and over desperately looking for operating system updates and/or updates to the blazer browser without any success. The only thing I found out at the time was that Palm was concentrating all or most of their resources on a new Linux based device and many Palm users had been waiting for it to materialize for years. I did not expect to actually see it appear this soon. Darn, I wish I had bought several shares of Palm at the time.

[ShariqueQ]

Palm Pre to arrive on Sprint on June 6
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).

Source: http://blog.palm.com/palm/2009/05/palm-pre-availability.html