Pre smartphone consumers said they want new product from the company though number of consumers of Palm Pre is much smaller than those that crowded around Apple stores for its first hugely popular iPhone two years ago.
Research in Motion said the Pre smartphone is Palm’s best chance to scrape back market share from the Apple iPhone and the BlackBerry. It has been greeted by rave reviews, and analysts are closely watching how the phone helps both Palm and Sprint Nextel.
Sprint, the number three mobile carrier, relies on Pre to help stem defections and win back subscribers from rivals, including AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Pre is hitting the shelves just before Apple is widely expected to announce a new iPhone on June 8.
The Pre costs US$199.99, after a UD$100 rebate, for customers who sign a two-year service contract. It is priced in line with the US$199 smaller-capacity iPhone. Pre’s monthly service fees start at US$69.99, including unlimited text-messaging, lower than the cost of iPhone service plans with similar features.
Palm investors have been waiting for the new mobile platform since June 2007, when Elevation Partners took a $325 million, 25 percent stake in Palm.
Sprint hopes to attract corporate clients, but the Pre could have a difficult time making inroads with often conservative corporate technology departments.
Now, can we tell whether the Pre is more, less, or similarly defective as any other blockbuster product in recent memory? As you might expect, there are plenty of issues being sporadically reported in the first weekend of availability and it will be interesting to see how Palm spins and handles them. Here Engadget noticed some of them:
- A good number of early adopters are reporting “splotchy,” distorted, or discolored displays (we’ve seen reports of dead pixels, too, though we’d actually be more weirded out if there weren’t). See examples here and here.
- We’ve also heard reports of unexpected system shutdowns (like those reported in the LAPTOP piece above) that require a battery pull to resolve. We’re hearing that you can also patch this up by holding down the power button and toggling the ringer switch three times, but your mileage may vary. If we had to guess, this’ll be fixed up with a firmware update at some point, which really drives home the value of OTA capability.
- Text fields in the web browser don’t seem to support symbols that aren’t on the keyboard (that is, symbols you need to hold down “Sym” to access). We’ve independently verified this one, and it’s nasty — it’ll be particularly bad once the phone launches internationally, so we’d also expect this to be patched sooner rather than later.
For you all gadget lovers, Palm and Sprint are both motivated to make this launch a smooth one, and something tells us their ears are firmly planted to the ground right now, but you can judge it to determine your choice.
Read also
[...] Palm Pre Consumers Want New Product [...]