Schmancy. The New Palm Pre
January 9, 2009
Palm, the world’s shittiest smartphone company, apparently isn’t bankrupt yet. This may come to a shock to anyone who heard their idea for the Foleo.
Their newest device actually looks to be a fantastic amalgam between popular sliding keyboard phones like the HTC Tytn I and Tytn II, the newer preimum phones like the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 and HTC Touch Pro, the already ubiquitious Blackberry Bold, and the touchscreen-only phones like the iPhone (or my own unubiquitious E-ten Glofiish X600, check out GSMArena for descriptions of any of those other phones as well). Check out a brief tech summary of the device at Engadget, or a longer entirely non-technical report on the device and the importance of the Pre to Palm’s future success at the New York Times (sidenote: The NYT does technology and sports reporting so poorly I wish they would just give up and save the trees and webmaster’s time).
A better example of technological reporting for real smartphone nerds can be found at GSMArena (despite that the Pre will be available only as a CDMA device initially, with a GSM variant coming later).
The hotness comes from it’s fair size and weight (a bit clunky in shape, since there seems to be a fair bit of plastic real estate around the screen). It’s a bit thick at 16.95mm but that is understandable for any sliding keyboard phone. At 135 grams, it is a middleweight for a PDA phone, but once again, very respectable for one equipped with the sliding keyboard.
The excellent screen size (3.1″) and resolution (320×480) are good to see as well, and keeps the device competitive with more multimedia-oriented devices.
It has the full slate of demanded specifications as well, such as A2DP stereo bluetooth capability (as opposed to the neutered iPhones) for music and movie lovers that can live with the reduced quality for the increased range of movement and freedom (I’m a Plantronics Voyager 855 user myself), built-in GPS (we’ll see every phone with one soon enough), wifi-G, microUSB (hopefully to be used for optional USB charging, syncing/tethering with devices to use the wireless data stream, as well as for file transfers from USB devices), and amazingly, a 3.5mm headphone connector for the real audiophiles (let’s hope wired headsets can be used with an adapter as well).
The faux hotness comes from the gesture-ready lower touchpad so you can use gestures to perform some functions. Anyone who uses a smartphone like I do (reading webpages one-handed while at the gym, on public transportation, or in any sort of lineup) will recognize that as a fairly useless function meant to impress people around you who haven’t seen an iPhone before or like the ‘toy’ factor. I really don’t trust making gestures with a finger on the phone over tapping a tiny button when I’m on the bus or subway… It seems like a pretty precarious position for those of us who would prefer to not drop our phones unnecessarily.
And the superhotness: Wireless charging! Rather than ruin your precious phone by constantly plugging and unplugging the device on a nightly basis (I’ve busted the headet connector on a $720 Eten M600 back in the day from daily connects and disconnects, which forced me to make the unregretted move to A2DP audio), you can buy a (probably) superexpensive lux Touchstone charging station and magnetic backplate for the Pre so that it can be charged by resting the Pre on the Touchstone. Like magic, it is. Let’s hope it’s efficient as well and not a energy sieve.
The phone does have some major shortcomings, however. First, it will be a CDMA-only (ugh) and Sprint-only device initially, meaning you will likely only be able to get it at a decent price if you indenture yourself with some outrageous $60/m data + voice contract. As a non-data user (that’s what wifi is for!), I’m personally offended by the extra $360/yr charge the wireless providers demand for largely unneeded data plans for these devices. Second, it will have builtin memory at a sufficent but non-expandable size of 8 gigs. With microSD as cheap and widespread as it is right now, I’d much prefer to rely entirely on the external flash memory given the option. Oh, and I bet this thing is going to be ass expensive. Like, almost Xperia X1-ass expensive.
And the best news of all for the phone nerd who always felt that these smartphones always fell short of being able to perform ‘everything’ (from the GSMArena article):
“And finally, the Palm Pre flaunts a built-in 3-megapixel snapper”
FINALLY! At long last, the perfect phone!
[Edit: Ignore the last comment as 'snapper' apparently does not mean what I thought it meant]
… and the cow goes moo
