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It would be dealbreaker for me, but I don't want to pay for a expensive contract that has a 3G data flatrate.

At the moment I pay 5 Euro even have a landline number on my phone that people can call for cheap. That is all I really need.

BTW I have a HTC Diamond and WinMo itselfs sucks bigtime, but this week they got Android running really well. I guess I will switch to Android before the end of the year. Much nicer and the lack of multitouch is good for my phone

I can't speak for your country, but in the UK 3G flat rates are very very cheap (mine is a meager £5 "bolt on")


If you're planning to switch to Android, then you may find yourself wanting 3G to take advantage of Androids features properly (unless you're lucky enough to live and work in an area where there are an abundance of free wifi hotspots?)

Edited 2009-09-09 11:00 UTC

Wow. Nice. $30.00 for Data service here. I opted to not have it on my phone, I just use a phone to call people. My wife on the other hand needs it for her iPhone.

Well, seeing as its only available ( for now) in a country where the data plan is very expensive, and not available in countries where its cheap, I'd say the lack of wifi is a major flaw.

I agree. A few months ago, I would have called this a deal-breaker too. My wife recently got the T-Mobile MyTouch. I have noticed that she generally leaves the wifi off (despite a simple button on the main screen for switching it on and off). 3G is fast enough for her needs and we get good coverage at home (no problems with overloading yet).

I don't care that much about WiFi.

In Europe 3G is more widespread than WiFi, and if you have a nice data contract with your operator, 3G will be more than enough.

My home country (Portugal), is a very good example, almost every university student is now having 3G cards on their laptops.

In Europe 3G is more widespread than WiFi, and if you have a nice data contract with your operator, 3G will be more than enough.

Here in Finland you need to really work hard to find an area where 3G isn't available. It covers like 90% of the whole country. And the 3G plans are pretty good; you can upload and download as much as you want, with no restrictions, at 256kb/s for only 10 euros a month. That's not bad.

Of course Wifi is faster, but that doesn't cover even 1/3rd of the area that 3G does. As such, atleast here in Finland, it doesn't really change much that they left Wifi out from Pixi.

Oh man. I'd say maybe 20% of our state is covered in anything at all. Of course I live in a desert.

Yes but the phone wouldn't actually work in Finland, unless you guys use cdma over there. Being a Sprint(cdma) specific phone most smartphone users in the US expect their phone to have wifi access because 3G (especially sprints) service is still spotty at best unless you're Verizon which has better coverage for the most part. ATT's coverage has actually gotten better (at least in NYC) and has been getting better slowly. Now when 4G hits they will probably go back to suck status.

While the same thing is true in Sweden, the real problem is insane roaming charges. I also spend time in Not Sweden, and while 3G is ubiquitous there as well it is stupidly expensive to use. If someone offered an unlimited data plan the covered most of Europe, I'd be happy with no wifi, but until then WiFi is rather handy, and I'm loath to buy a phone without it.

Personally, I need WiFi. I prefer to use my network rather than rely on towers that might get overloaded

Well, that must come from someone unhappy she's be using a phone on a poor network. I've been using the Pre on Sprint for a while now, and load is *never* a problem.

At home with wifi available, I don't see any benefit to using wifi. There is no performance benefit, and I don't have to go through the pain of switching.

On the road, I don't have wifi, and honestly, I have yet to miss it. 90% of the time, when I don't have 3G access, I don't have wifi anyways.

Please, don't let your experience with AT&T cloud your judgment. Sprint is not AT&T and overloaded towers are not a problem.

BTW, my Pre blows away my G1 speed-wise. Surfing the internet with my G1 is unbearably slow (wifi or not, must be HW and/or SW). With my Pre, on Sprint, the www is finally usable on the go.

Edited 2009-09-09 15:26 UTC

I still think most people on here are forgetting who this phone is targeted at:

As I stated earlier, this phone isn't really aimed at people like us (ie geeks who have fancy home networks and teh lark).
Most non-nerdy smartphone customers buy their products because it looks cool, they can play silly games, check their e-mails and surf social networking sites on the move. Wifi isn't really needed for any of those and, at worst, it's just an added level of complexity for users and battery life.

So for the non-geek users described above, the Palm Pixi is ideal.
For the more technical customer base (like us), there's still the Palm Pre.

Remember, this isn't a replacement to the Pre, it's an additional product to compliment Palm's smartphone product range.

Fancy home networks?? Wifi networks are not the exception, they are the rule in upper lower class homes in the united states. Wifi not strictly the domain of geeks, as it was back in 2000.

I didn't say "wifi" specifically, I said "networks" - and that was in responce to the comment regarding network service (ie services attached to wifi that have been set up by the user and NOT the wifi itself)

Most home users would have a couple of computers (excluding router) hooked up to wifi at the most. Maybe two laptops, maybe a laptop and a desktop. But either way, you could usually garentee that neither machine is a NAS drive, intranet webserver, wifi printer, boxes that can/need be SSHed into etc....

So what does teh average person use their home wifi for?
answer: Connecting to the internet - something that can be done on their smartphone anyway without having to enable a battery-sucking wifi radio.

So my point still stands re the average home users not having the kind of wifi network set up that would make them miss wifi on their phone.

Edited 2009-09-10 07:29 UTC

Oh, ok. I didn't understand all of what you were implying. But still, You've already payed once for your own wireless infrastructure. Why pay again to use it through your cell phone?

Because you can't take your wireless infrastructure on the train/bus/in the car with you.
You can't use your home wifi connection at work, nor in the pub or any other location away from home.

3G has better coverage than free wifi hotspots (at least here in the UK it does) and it's dirt cheap (again here in the UK).
I appretiate some countries have crappy 3G coverage - and for them wifi makes total sense. But for here it's less of an issue.

Well, then when they release it for the UK, that will be a good point. As it is, as I've said, its the wrong feature for the wrong market.

Button? Web-based?

The webOS is touch-driven, and not web-based. Especially the latter seems something a lo t of people are spreading FUD about. The Mojo SDK might use web languages, but is still fully capable - except for 3D (at this point, they're working on it). The SDK gives full access to the hardware, and the Pre apps have absolutely zero in common with the web apps as used on the iPhone pre-SDK.

The webOS was designed with different resolutions in mind from the get-go. There's no need to take them into account.

It's in the article.

There are always incompatibilities, no matter how well a UI engine was designed to accommodate different res.

As for the "3G is just $5 here in Portugal" that someone said, it's not the same in the US. I don't need a full contract, since I do 0 to 5 calls per month with my cellphone, but I DO NEED a data service. And in the US:
1. You can't get a data service without having a full contract, at least not with Verizon/ATT.
2. And even if you get it, it will cost you at least $30.

So yeah, WiFi is needed, no matter what you peeps say.

Edited 2009-09-09 19:35 UTC

... Then the phone isn't for you? Wow, hard concept. Buy the Pre, it has WiFi.

I love people bitching about lack of features on a phone that they DON'T HAVE TO BUY and has ALTERNATIVES.

The WebOS was designed?

I am talking about what has not been designed yet, man. The apps! Is it not clear by now that the iPhone is all about apps? No matter how good the built-in apps are designed, without developer support it is little more than what an old traditional mobile used to be, even if well designed.

I can think of so many best-seller (and pretty) iPhone apps with an UI that does not accomodate for multiple screen aspect ratios.

No need to take resolutions into account… That is just like saying: the web was designed with multiple resolutions into account. No need to take them into account. There, hear all web designers laughing at your face.

Edited 2009-09-10 00:33 UTC