Sprint Pre Ad Beckons iPhone Crowd

http://www.palminfocenter.com/comments/9820/#152251

Multitasking - IMHO the most impressive feature of the Pre would have to be dismissing alarms / phone calls while remaining in an application - I'd call this multitasking. And now that I think of it: I can't believe it isn't a feature of all smart phones.

Pre hasn't yet reached our shores so I can't really comment on Gekko's mate's review. Useful comments, but looks very subjective and nothing listed looks like deal a breaker - I mean he's complaining he keeps touching the gesture area LOL! Only person on the planet complaining there's too much touch sensitive area!

SeldomVisitor wrote:
The Pre wins that contest hands down:

I guess there's a real advantage to not making a white device. It's harder to see the scorch marks on black plastic.

I had a Nokia battery go bad once during an overnight charging. I could barely pick the thing up in the morning and the cover was bulging way out. I think I could have boiled coffee on that one. Fortunately the phone survived.

Hey Palm! Where's my PDA with Wifi and phone capabilities?

I'd say based off these comments, many people are perfectly happy with their Pres.

Relying on Internet forums for evidence of hardware problems is specious at best.

I'm a slow learner, I guess ;)

The Sprint ad - like almost any ad - is full of half-truths and mis-statements.

The Pre does things the iPhone can't

Let's see:

1. Run multiple applications at the same time.

Depends, doesn't it.

On the iphone I can be in any app (including the web browser) and receive phone calls - can the Pre do that?

I can browse the web, listen to music, and receive email messages and notifications on the iphone - all at the same time. Isn't that multitasking?

Of course, third party apps on the iphone can't run in the background (except receive notifications).

Pre's third party app situation is abysmal right now - why flaunt it in an ad?

2. Save $1200 a year - woohoo!

I had Sprint for several years - never going back. AT&T may charge more for an equivalent plan, but they don't screw you over the way Sprint does.

Notice, the ad doesn't mention certain things in it's poor attempt to lure iphone users over:

1. The Pre's piss poor build quality. Loose slider, tiny keyboard, and cheap ass construction. No mention of the slow performance of webos either - see anandtech for numbers.

2. The tiny screen. I find the iphone's screen the smallest I would use - the Pre's has a slightly higher pixel density - but it's just way too small for my use.

3. half-assed itunes support. No support for drm'ed content.

Lastly, I think the timing of this ad is bad. This ad should have been released a few weeks ago.

Lots people who had a first gen iphone have already upgraded.

Definitely a lost opportunity for Sprint.

jca666us wrote:
No support for drm'ed content.

Hey, here's something to consider. If there was no support for drm'ed content anywhere, there wouldn't be any drm'ed content anywhere.

Oh, and incidentally, if that $1200 is meaningless to you, can you please send it to me?

Hey Palm! Where's my PDA with Wifi and phone capabilities?

That was my initial thought. The ad's headline states "Perfect Timing." Perfect timing indeed. They released this ad a week *after* the iPhone 3GS was released and many people had already lined up to buy one. They couldn't even get that right.

My next thought was along the lines of fake Steve Jobs' thoughts:
http://fakesteve.blogspot.com

There's much that I like about the pre, but like Gekko, I think they threw the baby out with the bathwater. Where's the zen of Palm that Hawkins injected and that the Treo possessed? There's no categories, a clumsy tiled icon view on the home page, and it wasn't *just* the keyboard that made the Treo so efficient to use. On the Treo, the keyboard was always-available and the D-Pad was an integral part of the user experience. The pre and webOS looks like an iPhone wannabe, designed by former Apple employees. There appears to be little of the old Palm in there.
http://Tapland.com
- Tapwave Zodiac News, Reviews, & Discussion -

1) I think the concept of running multiple apps is pretty straightforward to most. That is, it means running Pandora Radio, Sprint GPS, and taking a phone call (of of which is possible because I have all of those streamed over my Bluetooth to FM transmitter in my car) at the same time. Thus, the iPhone is unable to manage this and the Pre can. Easy enough.

2) As twrock stated, if the $1200 is meaningless to you, then please, feel free to send that our way. I will take being overcharged $50 bucks one month (which incidently has never happened) if that means I still save $1150. Rumors of Sprint's bad Customer Service are greatly overblown (mainly by iPhone fanboys and blowhards).

3) My iTunes syncs perfectly with both drm'ed and non-drm'ed contenct. Again, this sounds like someone going to www.ihatepreandneedtosayshitaboutpre.com websites and regurgitating crap.

FYI, I am not an apple hater. I own my 5 year old Apple Macbook and a 1 year old Macbook Air. In fact, I love Apple stuff. But the problem is that the iPhone has looked and acted the same for the last 3 years and quite honestly, I am smarter than a 5th grader so I dont need a phone that has no depth and limits me to one app at a time. Apple needs to take a page from the people who saw the future and build a phone that truly takes advantage of their unique platform while allowing multiple apps and redesign their interface so its not a bunch of stupid buttons staring at you.

I have innumerable friends who rushed to buy the 2nd gen iPhone but who are now pissed because they can't really get the 3rd gen for, at a minimum, three or four more months. People think Sprint's timing of their ad is poor, how about Apples poor timing of the release of an entirely new phone.

The Pre is back on the site in those lists now - with the caveat to go to a store.