After a whole boatload of rumours, Twitter posts, and what not, we finally have an official release date for Palm’s Pre, the phone and platform that is supposed to save Palm from a fairly certain doom. Sprint, Palm’s partner announced the release date, pricing information, and plans today, with Palm’s official blog following soon after.
The Palm Pre will be made available nationwide (nation as in, the United States, so us Europeans are left out in the rain for now) on June 6, in Sprint stores across the US, but also at Best Buy, Radio Shack, and select Wal-Mart stores. The Palm Pre will sell for 199 USD, accompanied by a contract and after a 100 USD rebate. This price is based on an Everything plan with data for two years.
PhoneNews.com already has a short review of the Palm Pre, and they are quite satisfied with the device and its applications, but reserve a lot of ire for Sprint for requiring an “Everything” plan, which is supposedly quite expensive (wouldn’t know, I’m not versed in American mobile phone contract pricing).
The release date is an interesting choice, as it is the day before… Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off, when Apple is supposed to talk about the iPhone quite a lot. It will be interesting to see if Palm’s Pre can maintain media dominance during Apple’s iPhone whirlwind, and of course also if the first reviews and customer reports, most likely coming out during WWDC, will paint a rosy picture of the device.
From Wired.com
“The headlines, including the big splash page at Palm’s own Pre site, shout $200 as the price. Reading a little further shows that this price is based on a $100 mail-in rebate, which means you could (and probably will) be waiting months to get the cheque. So we think it’s wiser to consider the price to be $300, and then be pleasantly surprised if and when the rebate check actually shows up.”
Totally agree.
Also might be interesting to add:
“Whichever price you choose to embrace, it is based on a two-year contract with Sprint. The Sprint Press release says that you’ll need to sign up for either the ‘Everything Data plan’ ($70 or $90, depending on which it is) or the ‘Business Essentials with Messaging and Data plan’ ($70 and up, depending on minutes).”
Edited 2009-05-19 17:57 UTC
Do note that what you are saying is part of the item I wrote.
I do. Just found important to reemphasize.
I hope it doesn’t take too long for it to pop up in SE Asia.
Early adopters: do report the joys and travails of syncing a webOS-based Pre with Mac OS X.
It is only operable on the EVDO network at the moment. It will take some time to see a GSM/UMTS/HSDPA model for non-US markets.
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Releasing before iPhoneOS3 is clever because a lot of news sites will compare the Pre to the iPhone and it will mean free coverage.
Development on it seems aweful.
You have to write a native app by using javascript / ajax and all the trickery that web developers use to make web apps seem native.
Why not just have native apps? The overhead of these apps must be crazy.
I would rather learn the Android API (already know Java) or Objective-C / iPhone API than deal with tricks and magic.
The apps ARE native. They just use web languages instead of more established local languages. And of course, this comes with a performance penalty, but the demos seen so far of the Pre don’t seem to be slow in any way.
Pre apps are not compiled, and just run using the webkit browser.
Palm’s Web OS is built on Linux, but the apps cannot access any of part of that.
So basically Web OS is a browser with tabs. A great implementation of one, but it does mean that app developers have a lot of limitations. Apps on Palm’s Pre are going to run slower than most apps on the iPhone despite the fact that the Pre has a faster processor. In addition, most of the games & large apps that are popular on the iPhone would be impossible on the Pre, at least in this version.
The apps ARE native. Just like ARM processors have Jazelle technology to run Java bytecode as native, this new ARM processor powering the Pre does the same for Javascript IMO – it’s impossible to be this fast and do multi-tasking without it. It’s a clever move, and ahead of it’s time. Besides, it’s Javascript! Everyone and their dogs will be able to code for it, there are millions of coders out there well versed in JS and CSS and that do not want to learn Obj-C and get a Mac to code for the iPhone, which is getting saturated already, and can not do multi-tasking or have access to something as powerful as Synergy looks like in paper.
Open your mind – this is the future of software development on smartphones. Cross-vendor web frameworks are already sprouting up for iPhone, Symbian and Android. This is going to be all that, well done.
Palm has proven it can take a broken Apple design (Newton) and improve on it (the Pilot) once. I believe they can succeed now as well.
We’ll have to see how well the sandbox is implemented. Most security concious folk are looking for ways to drop javascript and similar local side execution languages.
Palm better be putting attention into the sandbox otherwise every program becomes a chance to break in.. well, that and every website viewed.
On the up side, someone will figure out how to get an ssh connection into the phone and open up that yummy OS underneath the browser interface.
It’s Linux
good luck with tampering with that one. I hear it’s pretty hard.
Seriously now, Google also screwed up with root shell echoes and so on… I’m sure there will be a period of adaptation, and after all it’s a 1.0 .But being Linux based grants it a lot of credibility – for me, at least.
When finally finding a replacement that could be considered an upgrade from the Palm T5, being Linux based was pretty high on the wishlist. First it was replacing the features in the T5 followed by additional features and what base OS platform was used.
Maemo Linux has it’s healthy developer community and a growing library in the repositories. If something isn’t there, it’s a close fork of Debian so cross-compiling packages is impossible and frequently done by third party repositories. OpenSSH is available so it talks natively to the rest of my machines and, through the WinSCP translator, even with Windows to some degree.
I could also run Android, Debian or Ubuntu after a bit of weekend project time. It’s currently a tripple boot for three seporate Maemo installs (minimal internal, maemo 2007, maemo 2008).
PIM is not as nice as Palm’s included apps and I don’t have my trusty Bluejacker app like on the Palm (no more “your bluetooth is showing” messages on public transit.. oh well). I also gave up the IR port. These are not big losses given the device advantages.
I’m not sure what Google’s announced plans for Android openness are. If it’s managed as an open distribution then it could really open up for third party software and getting in behind the pretty gui. I should drop it on a partitions SD and try it on the N810 actually. Based on that, I just assumed it was as open to modification (not breach but user adjustment).
It seems the Pre OS is intended more as a graphic layer only. It may have the kernel in the back end but it’s as flexible as any other Linux based mobile phone for going beyond the GUI menu. Being limited to web-popular JIT scripting languages seems to support that.
You mean use one of half a dozen well supported, well documented, easy to use frameworks?
Just learned that the Everything plan costs 70 USD per month, which is 10 USD more than the cheapest iPhone plan.
Jesus, you Americans are being ripped off. We Dutch pay a fraction of those prices.
NOTE: it seems the pricing for the Palm Pre’s Everything plan isn’t nearly as expensive (compared to the iPhone) as it seemed at first sight:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/05/palm-pre-arrives-june-6…
Edited 2009-05-19 18:44 UTC
Yeah. Tell me about it. This is why I don’t care/want a phone with wireless data (except wifi). Every where I go there’s wifi.
If you take an unlocked android phone with wifi and a decent headphone plug. I’ll take that. Haven’t found one yet, but phones seem to be getting closer to what I really want. Until then, my Razr and I’ll just make do.
Same here, my N810 becomes a mobile phone thanks to skype and the closest open wifi signal. I could also tunnel it out to a trusted proxy on open wifi. Android should be able to do the same soon if not already based on the rumored developer community interested in it.
mobile plans here are absolute madness.. “what the market will bare” has proven that the general population has more money than brains. It’s actually hard to find a mobile phone that just does voice, text and minimal non-phone functions for under a $100. We instead pay $100 and up for a smartphone plus $30 to $120 a month subscription fees.
When the iPhone turned up in the US, it was six months to a year before it arrived in Canada and then only through one provider at the absurd “everything in” monthly contract. $400 for the device plus $100 a month and killer overage fees of you go past your data or minute limits. My “thinking differently” like the cool kids at the coffee shop isn’t important enough for that foolishness.
We’re also pretty backwards with internet wile I’m on the rant. High cost for low speeds and limited transfers per month. Compared to Japan, we’re barely off modems. The providers also show no interest in improving there networks unless it means increasing monthly rates; yeah, hardware costs.. so what happened to that last decade of ISP fees I’ve been paying?
What can you do. The phone companies will do the shareholder’s proud as long as the customers don’t realized how hosed we get.
Android phone with 3.5mm jack and OLED screen launched:
http://phandroid.com/2009/05/18/samsung-galaxy-the-i7500-in-france/
World’s first smartphone with HD recording and playback launched:
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/9502_Samsung_i8910_Omnia_H…
Anyone here has info on whether the i7500 has 3D HW acceleration?
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The answer to my prayers?
http://www.mobilecityonline.com/wireless/store/productdetail.asp?pr…
Well for $650 US, I think I’ll wait for the price to drop, but that pretty much is my ideal phone.
EDIT: Well, it seems it lacks a physical slide out keyboard. So, its not what I want. Even at 650. D’oh
Edited 2009-05-19 20:52 UTC
If you want to use the web or youtube you don’t want that anyway, it uses European 3G standards which means you’ll be stuck at slow dial-up speeds on North American GSM networks.
Good point. However, I actually don’t want to use 3g at all. Its expensive as heck here. Just wifi.
The problem with Android is that, unlike the Pre or the iPhone, *everything* is stored in the cloud; which makes it impossible to use most of it’s features unless you have connectivity. Even contacts and the address book requires an internet connection with Google for Android.
Um, no, not at all. It will sync your contacts to your Google account if have a network connection (and you have the Google contacts sync software installed on your device, which is actually not part of the base platform at all), but other than that it is just a local contacts database that doesn’t require any network access at all.
OK, I was wrong about that then. Sorry, for some reason I thought *everything* on Android was cloud-based.
I want the i7500 really bad. That is a sweet looking phone.
screw palm. they can’t support existing products and they probably won’t support this one either a year from now
-yes I’m cynical and I fully admit that.
Edited 2009-05-19 19:11 UTC
My God. Buying a Pre has to be the worst possible decision you could make for a “smartphone”. Let me count the ways.
1.) Palm is in trouble. It’s hemorrhaging money, it’s loosing market share, it’s betting the farm on (yet another) unproven in the marketplace OS.
2.) Sprint sucks. Their wireless service is the worst in the states. Their coverage sucks, their customer support is inept. Even in areas they claim coverage, often you cannot get a signal unless you are outside, in the clear, no trees / buildings. They’re hemorrhaging money, users, market share, and it’s for a reason. They have no compelling services. Even their plans which have consistently undercut competitors (verizon, at&t) voice / data prices have not been able to stem the tide of people from their service. It’s not about the devices, either. It really is about the service.
So you have an unproven device, with a new OS, from a company with a piddly market share (so what? Apple pulled it off) who has paired up with the worst wireless carrier in the county (apple didn’t make that mistake) to offer their device.
What part of this seems like a good idea?
I can buy a device that probably won’t be supported in a year because the device manufacturer is going bust, that runs on a network that has shit coverage, run by a company that’s been steadily running full-bore towards the toilet.
The one thing I can say is that Palm & Sprint are a good pair. They’re both sub-par at what they claim to do. Frankly, I won’t be pissing my money away on this thing while two companies are Pre(ing) that they can find some new revenue.
It’s a bad investment, no matter how you slice it.
Sprint is only bad in certain areas, here in the Northeast they have great coverage, and here in NYC I get great reception *everywhere*. Also, they have free roaming on Verizon’s CDMA network on the Simply Everything plan, and Verizon’s network is the best in many markets.
Carrier performance is nearly a function of geographical region in the United States, with many carriers having areas of both strong and weak coverage. AT&T’s coverage (iPhone) is quite poor in many areas, and T-Mobile (Android) as well, it all depends on one’s location. Sprint given some money from early adopters of the Pre might make improvements in the areas where they’re weak, much as AT&T did after the iPhone’s success. AT&T was widely considered to be the worst carrier when they released the iPhone, now they’re considered in the middle of the pack. (Verizon is probably the best overall.)
Where have you been using Sprint service? I’ve had zero problems using my EVDO-capable phone from east to west coasts, up the east coast, and through the midwest. Even towns with populations not more than 7000 people have 3G data access. Try getting that with AT&T.
Trying to keep a call or make a call seems to be typical with AT&T and we’ve all likely seen how iPhone users overwhelmed AT&T’s network.
I’ll be interested to see how the Pre does, but it’s only a 6 month exclusive with Sprint anyway.
I hope Verizon gets this phone. Even with Palm’s questionable future, this looks better than anything in Verizon’s smartphone lineup right now.
Of course, if they can’t cripple it in an effort to squeeze more money out of you, then it won’t happen
BTW, $70 for a 450-minute everything plan isn’t too bad as major-carrier US prices go. Verizon’s 900-minute plus 5GB/month data (no texting) was $99 last time I signed up.
The Palm Pre will be made available nationwide (nation as in, the United States, so us Europeans are left out in the rain for now) on June 6
Damn it where down here, look Down Under, Australians exist too.
🙂
I am sorry, but your text appeared upside down, could you repeat it in standard format?
😉
The pre actually looks nice, but hype is hype.
You can do all that same stuff on a Nokia e71 and it’s unlocked.
We will just have to wait and see how it shapes up once real users have it.