Comments on: Welcome back, Palm

After struggling to keep up with the competition, it looks like Palm is back in the smartphone game.

[stigmattaman]

Whoa, ad market must be tough - Never thought I'd see CNET with condom ads. I'm not a prude at all, just a little surprised.

[bimmin]

Trojan just has been buying a lot of ads lately. I see them everywhere.

[pbarenas]

oh. I thought that was a rubber sleave for the new Pre.

[myDrpC]

Kudos, Bonnie Chat.

We look forward to your follow up with the numbers of battery life, enhancements which
I'm sure to come and updates on the PRE. Myself included, to be fair - will for the first time ever -
possibly stand in line even up to 5 hrs, and I'm told 2 hrs to activate the phone (have no idea why),

Only to be able to share with others, a new sherrif is in town and he's called the PRE.

Also, on a personal note: Thank you for taking the time to do these reviews and following up with
comments to your followers. It does make a difference to keeping CNET
in the forefront.

Until we meet again (got to get some sleep before sun rise tomorrow :),
Thanks for everything you do for us!!!

[myDrpC]

Sorry for the typo. Can seem to figure out how to edit on this forum like others.
Please forgive me!

[cardfan1212]

If only Bonnie was halfway consistent when reviewing phones :) It was a pathetic review...but at least that is consistent.

[palmstraith]

Just wanted to say, from the LONG forum topic of how many ppl are switching for Pre at the EverythingPre.com forum, a lot of people from Verizon Wireless is making the switch simply because they are tired of their network, and even a few iPhone people as well. So, it seems Sprint might do well with the Pre, if this is any indicator.

[bsorli]

Yes you are correct...Sprint will get a spike from Verizon customers not satisfied with their phone offerings. My wife and I waited in line yesterday and grabbed two new Palm Pre's and our new Sprint service to replace Verizon.

Being Verizon customers, we expect great service...so we're still up in the air if we can live with what Sprint has to offer. What our initial test traveling around North Florida yesterday (Gainesville, Keystone, Alachua and then finally home to Newberry), service was relatively good and equal to what we get with Verizon. Actually, it almost exactly the same.

Our only problem really relates to the poor service we got during our afternoon rain at home in Newberry, FL. Service isn't great in our small town on a dry day and prior to Sprint our Verizon service usually hung-out around 2 or 3 bars as normal.

I also happened to speak with Sprint having other technical issue with my wife's Pre and Sprint was very helpful going through multiple steps to clear an issue with Sprint TV (probably one of the coolest things I've seen in a Long Time).

On side not...Sprint mentioned adding new towers in our area scheduled for Feb 2010 and Oct 2010...so at least their making motions in this direction, but that doesn't fix our problems and lacking service in the mean time. We plan to test our units out more in the coming weeks and thankfully have 30 days...to try things out and get our money back if we're not happy.

Also note, if service is inadequate in your home or office and need to enhance things inside to bring 1 or 2 bars to 4 and 5 bars...you can purchase the Sprint Airave as reviewed previously on Cnet - http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phone-and-smart/sprint-airave/4505-6448_7-33226984.html to tap into your High Speed internet connection. Sprint and T-Mobile have both had this for a while and from what I've read work real well.

Wish ATT had something like this, since half of my ATT iPhone 3G customers can't use their phones in their office or homes (they literally get no service)...why anyone would have a phone that didn't get at least 1 or 2 bars inside is beyond me.

[ace10134]

Dude the Sprint store was filled with customers today, Saturday. There were about 5 representatives showing off the Pre, 2 display models to use, (I had to config the device myself, so it's on my account now, even though it's a store model!) and more Sprint workers willing to help. There were probably 7-10 customers there at the time that I visited, and they even had the lines set up for where people were probably waiting in the morning to get in!

I recommend going to your closest Sprint store (which I found using my Windows phone) and test out the Pre for yourself, it was awesomee!!!