Comments on: Palm Pre Launch Lunch June 5

By: ShariqueQ

ShariqueQ — Wed, 20 May 2009 05:05:48 +0000

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

By: SC

SC — Wed, 20 May 2009 01:02:08 +0000

I just got an Sprint invitation for a Sprint PRE Launch party at 6pm on June 5th at a local sprint store. States that I will be able to buy the PRE for $199 after $100MIR.

By: GG

GG — Sat, 09 May 2009 20:23:12 +0000

Palm (PALM) has been at death’s door for some time. It prospects have improved recently and the company has one last chance to become viable when it launches its new “Pre” product. Recent research shows that almost no one who owns an Apple (AAPL) iPhone or RIM (RIMM) Blackberry will switch to the new smartphone, so Palm will have to essentially expand the market to get share for its new device during a recession. The “Pre” will also be sold exclusively though Sprint (S), the No.3 cellular carrier in the US which has been losing subscribers consistently for more than two years. The launch of the “Pre” is a disaster in the making. Palm’s results for the quarter that ended on February 27th were awful, failing to meet Wall St’s modest expectations. Palm sold only 482,000 handsets for the period, down 42% from the same quarter the year before. Revenue dropped from $312 million to $91 million, and Palm lost $95 million. Palm brought in just over $100 million with the help of its largest shareholder, Elevation Partners, in a recent financing. The bottom line is that Palm has no chance of getting an even modest part of the smartphone market in a severe economic downturn since it competes with two of the premier technology companies in the world—Apple and RIM. Palm won’t be in business in a year

By: Shahpur Azizpour

Shahpur Azizpour — Fri, 08 May 2009 12:58:53 +0000

Well first of all palm is the first company who can really compete with the UI apple provides on the iphone. Of course there are many today screen plugins for WinMo devices like TouchFLO3d, but none of them work systemwide. Palm introduced some innovative things like synergy, which has already been copied by htc on their new devices like the htc touch diamond 2.

I’m running an WinMo Blog, so i’m not bashing windows mobile here. Right now i think windows mobile is the best choice overall. But palm is still an option.

I want to see the real multitasking live before i believe that it will really make a big difference to WinMo though. But generally palm really did a good job this time, and deserves some spotlight.

My main concern is the 3rd party support, i’m afraid that this will be the point were palm can’t get the boost they need to be up to par with iphone and winmo devices. I don’t care about old emulated palm os software, i want new palm pre apps…

By: Luscious

Luscious — Fri, 08 May 2009 07:30:01 +0000

Thanks for that info. It’s too bad they don’t have an Everything Plus 350 plan for under $60.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 08 May 2009 03:22:14 +0000

We already know what the plans are going to be on the Pre. You need an Everything Data plan, whether that’s the Everything Data 450, the Everything Data 900, the Everything Data Family plans, or the Simply Everything plan:

Everything Data 450: $69.99
Everything Data 900: $89.99
Simply Everything: $99.99

Or if you know a Sprint Employee you can get the Everything Plus Referral Plans.

Everything Plus 500: $59.99
Everything Plus 1000: $79.99

But there are Sprint company discounts that you might want to look into (not off the Everything Plus or Simply Everything plans though), depending where you work at. Or if you use a credit union, you can get a 10% discount from Sprint for that.

For the full matrix of plans that the Pre will work with:

http://insidesprintnow.wordpress.com/2009/05/06/palm-pre-nvp-discounted-plan-choices/

By: Luscious

Luscious — Fri, 08 May 2009 02:59:55 +0000

Sprint will earn my business if they can roll this out with a voice+data plan at $50, especially if I can tether it too.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 08 May 2009 01:47:16 +0000

And I probably should’ve said this in the last comment, but honestly, it’s my opinion that no phone since the original Treo has done PIM any better than Palm has. To pretty much every other smartphone maker, that sort of thing is an afterthought. To me, that’s one of the key metrics of a smartphone, the ability to help keep track of my life, and it’s sad to see it’s been pretty much ignored for so long.

And then there’s the pitch about it being the phone for your whole life. I can’t say that necessarily works for everyone, but I sort of agree with it.

I mean, Blackberries do great email, yes. iPhone is a great media player and has some great games now. Windows Mobile multitasks decently enough. Android has a good notification system. The Pre seems to combine all of these things into one device. (The games might be an issue at first, but I think that’ll improve eventually.)

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 08 May 2009 01:40:48 +0000

Have you watched any of the videos of it? The CES presentation, while long, shows everything that has people excited. But to summarize the main points:

True multitasking done in a very intuitive and simple manner (iPhone doesn’t really have the former, WinMob doesn’t have the latter.)

Threaded MMS/SMS/IM all in one chat window, so the conversation can continue through whichever method you need.

Synergy for contacts and calendar…. aka no matter where your information is stored*, it pulls that information in and it’s always accessible.

*Okay, right now it seems that it’s only Google Calendar, Exchange Activesync, Gmail/Google Contacts, and Facebook, but that covers everything I personally need, and I’d bet that they’ll get more services after launch.

Fastest CPU in any smartphone yet.

Universal search… when you want to do something, start typing and you can do it, whether it’s a contact, a program on the phone, or information on the internet.

Unobtrusive but powerful notification system that can be utilized by any applications.

And yes, some of us are just excited to see Palm making a comeback as well.

By: cirrob

cirrob — Fri, 08 May 2009 01:00:59 +0000

Could someone please explain to me why all the hype about the pre? Dont get me wrong, I am not an Iphone Fan either. I think that thing is a worthless toy. But I don’t understand the exitement about this device either.
I mean I would take this over an Iphone if those were my only two options as this is obviously more of a useful tool than it . However the windows mobile platform still seems more useful by for than the pre (webos).