Palm "Pro" shows up in March Best Buy Mobile ad for $249
By Nilay Patel 
posted Feb 22nd 2009 5:33PM
posted Feb 22nd 2009 5:33PM
[Thanks, Mike]
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EW. I'm tired with Windows Mobile. I mean 6.1? What is that? Same for Windows. Windows 7? FAIL!!
You're a dumbass. At least WinMo can do something called "multitasking" that a mobile OS made by Apple is incapable of.
@Lando Calrissian
You are a fucking idiot.. Mobile OSX multi-tasking is solely limited by Apple's desire to keep the majority of customers from complaining about battery life and responsiveness issues. With 128MB of ram running an operating system originally intended for a desktop computer, this is probably a good idea. The real problem is that the notification framework is running behind and doesn't solve all of the problems associated with no 3rd party background processes. Hopefully, Apple is working on a new mechanism that solves some of the issues.
Lets be realistic here.. Mobile OSX (and the iPhone SDK) is one of the most advanced pieces of mobile software ever made, and is FAR superior to that piece of shit WinCE. WinMo 7.0 will (hopefully) vastly improve things, but so far Microsoft's work is pathetic. Even the unreleased Windows Mobile 6.5 is still the same old PocketPC/SmartPhone 2003//Windows mobile 5./5.5/6/6.1 POS in a new skin. WinMo is still years behind Android, Mobile OSX, WebOS, LiMo, etc.
@loosely_coupled
What's the difference if it's just being limited by Apple? Either way it's a function that's not accessible to the user - which means for all intents and purposes it might as well not be there.
@loosely_coupled
*Only* 128MB of RAM? I hope you realize that the original iMac desktop machine had a quarter of that and multitasked just fine.
@ Loosely Coupled
Really??? iPhones OS is more advanced than WinMo? Are you on drugs. If you had said more "user friendly" or "prettier". Then yeah...but advanced, get out here. Thats why its used by businesses all over....oh...wait, it's not. Oops.
Just because its not pretty or the "simplistic" OS you want, it by no means indicate inferiority. Thats like saying because the Wii is pretty and simple, its more advanced than a PS3...
Hey, did you know, my Samsung M520 that I got for $20 from Sprint has multitasking with J2ME apps? Pretty cool, eh?
@loosely_coupled- The customer is always right. Apple should not limit its device because it does not trust its consumers. That just makes them look bad as a company. Trust the people who buy your device and let them use it (or abuse it) to its full capabilities. If multi-tasking takes a toll on the battery, don't do it. If you're willing to make that sacrifice, though, then why do they not allow you to make it? Is copy-paste disabled because they are afraid you will plagiarize? At what point do you suddenly find yourself locked up and owned by the company you support? Your defense of Apple has only shed them in a worse light, methinks.
Hey listen guys, I am no overzealous Apple fanboy. I'm the first to disagree with many of their idiotic decisions and policies, including their walled-garden iPhone approach, the ridiculous update frequency of Macs, limited choice of configuration, poor GPUs, high prices, etc. I've also had a handful of WinMo, PalmOS, and even S60 phones, and currently use a Blackberry 8300.
That said, much as the Apple fanboys can drive me nuts, I am sick of all the anti-apple zealouts on engadget that take every possible opportunity to bitch about Apple or the iPhone.
@KAIKAI
The battery life is actually very good compared to most other large-screen 3G devices of it's size. However, I agree that it does need work.
@Eric
The difference is that the OP was suggesting that the OS isn't capable multi-tasking as if it is too simplistic and primitive akin to PalmOS Garnet. That is obviously incorrect as the Iphone OS itself runs dozens of processes in the background, and can run multiple 1st party applications at the same time, such as listening to music while using the Web or browsing through photos, etc.
@Aaron
The original iMac G3 also didn't run OSX. Even though later models did with 64MB or 128MB of RAM, It's difficult to directly compare to the iPhone considering the whole hardware architecture is different.
@iDavey
1) The idea that you measure the complexity and advanced functionality of an operating system by it's corporate marketshare is absurd. It's not surprising Windows Mobile has most of the enterprise marketshare considering it's been around for a decade and has been primarily targeted at that demographic. The iPhone is not even two years old and has predominantly been marketed as a consumer machine. That said, it'll continue to make inroads in the corporate market.
2) As many seem to do, you are confusing ease-of-use and intuitiveness with "simplicity". There is nothing simple or elementary about a Phone that has a full BSD subsystem, ObjC/Cocoa SDK and runtime, Full OpenGL support, can run Apache or an FTP server, Python/Ruby/Perl/Mono, RDP/OpenVNC, etc etc.
@DeoWulf
"Trust the people who buy your device and let them use it (or abuse it) to its full capabilities"
I may agree with you from a technical standpoint, but I understand Apple's decision. The VAST majority of their customers are NOT GEEKS, they are average people who want things simple and easy to use. I can only imagine if Apple just opened the floodgates to any apps downloaded from anywhere and no restrictions on them. There would be an overwhelming outcry of "My iPhone is soooo slow, My iPhone keeps crashing, My iPhone has a virus".. It would be a media sensation. They are held to a different standard than Microsoft and windows mobile, predominatly because they cater to different demographics of users.
@iDavey
Just some more information for you about why the "ultra- advanced" Windows Mobile SuperOS 6.x is still ridiculously sluggish and graphically unresponsive compared to others... (information from a recent Engadget comment)
=============================================
# MS does NOT have a compiler that can target higher than ARMv5 in the final assembly code. The CortexA8 TI OMAP3 is ARMv7. The MS compiler is quite behind the times, and there's no other "almost-free" alternative.
# the OS builds released only targets ARMv4 making it portable all the way back to the Wizard, and therefore proving it lacks many of the needed code optimizations.
# the C/C++ compiler natively generates only ARMv4 code without some forced ARMv5 DSP intrinsics, and even that is very clunky code to write.
# the OS (including CE6 in WM 7) was NOT written to automatically support a native FPU. It has to be hacked into the OAL layer by the OEM to enable the ARM fpu, fpu exceptions handler, etc, and we know what a great job OEMs do. A lot of sub-decimal math IS used everywhere in the OS since WM derived from an x86 OS that always had a FPU at that point.
# the whole GDI graphics/UI layer in WinMo is an antiquated design predating modern OpenGL OSs so does not support delegate-based coding (except in slow slow slow .NET) and hardware acceleration (not that it doesn't have some minimal support for HWA), and other UI design enhancements. Even Qt is more advanced than the Windows Mobile framework at this point.
# We've seen TI OMAP2 on the Motorola Q's and they've topped graphics benchmarks, so we know it's not the cpu.
# So it's definitely is a lot of work for anybody to smack WM6.5 into something usable for a modern phone cpu, and I rather have the TI experts do it than HTC, or Qualcomm..
I guess WinMo should limit me to one app at a time as well and give me no copy and paste so the people would stop complaining about battery and responsiveness. Innovation at its worst.
@loosely_coupled- I suppose that makes sense. Still, that means I won't be buying from Apple... I like to use (or at least know I have the ability to use) the potential of my device.
KAIKAI: You moron, if you knew anything about the iPhone actually you would know the real limiting factor is a bloated OS running on a piddly 128MB RAM. Jailbreak it and see how apps have to shut themselves down due to lack of RAM. Contrast that with S60 or WinMo where you can literally run 20 apps at the same time. That means bitorrenting in the background while watching a video and getting turn by turn navigation voice commands and sending the audio out through Bluetooth or Radio RF.
Or Downloading 4 simultaneous files from the internet through the browser, running bitorrent, Gnutella, running GPS navigation, geotagging photos, and browsing the internet while playing music all AT THE SAME TIME. Your stupid iPhone can't do shit at the same time.
It's a toy. Understand that. You have a toy. Know your position in the grander scheme of things. BTW, I have one myself and I have to admit it's a nice toy that does several things well especially the UI and touch interface, but it does not really do anything we've been doing already for years. For you all this "smartphone" stuff might be new, but to many of us it's stuff we've been doing for years.
Just give us the Palm Pre already. :)
+1
PRE pri PRO prum..
I smell the blood of geekdom
Be the hype 'live, or be it dead,
Engadget'll grind it fine to make sense in my head.
No it has never been up in the air. Palm had both the Pre and the Treo Pro handsets in the cogs long before they were ever announced publically. The CDMA version of it was probably built when Sprint agreed to carry it last year. Im sure around the same time the Pre negotiations with Sprint were starting up to carry it exclusively. The big wigs at both these companies knew what was up. What you are seeing is an appearance of 'on again, off again' through a consumer's perspective of how things are, but the timing of the problems is nothing more than coincidental.
Its like RIM cancelling the Bold because they made the Storm. Stupid.
Coming soon: The Palm Preo Tro!
LOL Palm Preo
And the next model will be Palm Pre Pro...
Now if only I could get this on VZW for less than $699!
"You're a dumbass. At least WinMo can do something called "multitasking" that a mobile OS made by Apple is incapable of."
It can also copy-paste.
Indeed, copy and paste is sorely lacking from the iPhone. Despite that, mobile OSX --- and Android certainly --- is far superior to that POS Windows Mobile.
--- On another note, who in their right mind would buy a Palm "Pro" ??? Especially for $250 on contract?!?
@ loosely coupled
on another not
who in their right mind would spend $199 for a glorified free phone w/ a touch screen ?
How did you expect them to add copy-paste in a screen where you can't use a stylus? Ah, yesh, select with finger!
Capacitive is just so much better than resistive! It doesn't allow precise use without a specialized tool, but its just so much better!
down ranking me only makes me stronger!
> ...It can also copy-paste...
Text only.
Poorly (have you WATCHED those demo givers attempts at copy-n-paste? Painful...and contrived - ask them to do the same single-line copy when MULTIPLE lines are surrounding their target source line - fingertips are kinda large...).
Oh boy.
really...enough with all the cell phone b.s. please keep it to your mobile site where it belongs. i don't come here to read about the newest XXX brand wanna-be iphone. please. i beg you.
enGADGET. A phone is a gadget.
You lost all the credibility left from your shit typing when you said "wanna-be iphone"
I was just at BestBuy last night and they had the Palm Treo Pro, but it was listed as the "Palm Palm Treo Pro" and the information card had the Nokia logo.
It's like someone is deliberately trying to confuse people here... "The at&t Nokia Palm Treo Palm Pro Pre by HTC, only from Sprint!"
i like palms logo
and when does anything cool come to tmobile
we never get anything
no pre
no iphone
no good htc stuff (other than touch)
one sold out android phone
cmon tmo!!!!
iluvya, but come on
I just picked up the GSM version of the Treo Pro and it's a hell of a phone. Nice responsive touchscreen, great RF reception, GPS, WiFi, etc. The Sprint version will have the latest version of IE mobile, which had some memory issues and allegedly was part of the reason the phone was delayed by Sprint. Don't knock the phone until you've tried it - it's a very nice device (especially with a carrier subsidy).
"That's certainly better than the off-contract $699 price Big Blue posted last month, but what's up with calling it the Palm Pro?"
Big Blue? Since when does IBM sell cell phone plans?
And HTC did design and build the Treo Pro for Palm. The Treo Pro even has the HTC Comm Manager and homescreen Task Manager apps. I had an HTC Touch Pro for a few weeks and returned it - the Treo Pro is a far better device IMO.
So, the phone is designed and built by HTC, and runs an OS made by Microsoft. WTF does Palm have to do with this phone? Why isn't it the HTC Pro?
Palm contracted and paid for the design, and it's based off of the classic post-Treo 600 form factor designed by Palm.
It's true that it's not as much of a Palm (as in Palm Inc., not Palm OS) device as say, a Treo 800w or a Centro (or a Pre!), but it's more of a Palm device than say, the HTC-branded Touch Pro is.
While skimming this, I thought it was about the Pre as well.
RENAME IT.
Looking at your name, I thought you had a weird name. RENAME YOURSELF!
at this point and time. i really don't see a need for buying a wm 6.1 when 6.5 is just around the corner. i'm due for a phone but i can wait. and i can wait even longer if people keep cooking the new roms for old phones. i started with 5 in my treo, went to 6 then 6.1. i like the extra skins instead of the old boring crap. but 6.1 seems to have a very minor glitch compared to 6 that worked perfectly in my originally equipped wm5 phone.
I think the thing that is missed is this......
$249??? if they want $249 for that, how much will they want for the Pre?
I've been with sprint and have a sero plan, but word is that t'mobile (never had them, although did have voicestream back in 1999) march 1st or march 14th they will offer a 49 buck unlimited or 89 buck family unlimited with each addl 39 bucks more.
If that's the case, I might move everyone over to them and get the next gen google phone or use an unlocked iphone.
The Pre has to sell for less. It is not aimed at the power business user. Probably $50 less for the Pre
Sorry if this upsets anyone, and apparently being positive on this device does upset some people for some reason, but our company will be picking up 40.
You get everything you get on a top BB but with all the added features of Windows Mobile. If I read one more slam on windows mobile by people who don't work with it and know its power I will laugh my socks off. Keep your iPhone, its slow performance, its inability to tether, its less capable GPS, its monthly costs 60% double my unlimited everything, and the simple basic objective fact that a good windows mobile like this can do everything an iPhone can do, better, faster and cheaper, and it can do many things the iPhone simply cannot.
I have tried the GSM version and it is a tight, feature rich device. One of our coworkers brought it to an out of the way meeting at a place with no wifi, and guess what, we all hooked out four laptops up via his single Treo Pro. Can the iPhone do that? Sorry. We know it can't do it even with one laptop. I can go on.
I agree completely. The Treo Pro is a great phone. I'm as shocked as anyobdy - I forgot Palm released the GSM version as an unlocked, unbranded device until I did a search at Phonescoop and saw the great user reviews. If you like the QWERTY bar form factor this device will surprise you...in a good way.
You aren't seriously calling suggesting the iPhone has "slow performance" versus a ***** Treo? You Windows mobile geeks must be seriously deluded...
I don't have an iPhone, but my iPod touch is fast and smooth. I had a Treo 700wx for about 6 months, and it was absolutely painful to use. It was slower than hell, couldn't even run Opera MINI, and froze up and crashed probably three to four times a day requiring a battery removal. It was the biggest piece of shit I've ever used in a smartphone, and Windows mobile was most certainly the primary cause, but it didn't help it had a slow ass processor and no hardware video acceleration.
@loosley coupled:
So your point is to compare a 700wx...a Two-Year-Old phone to give us your impression of the Pro? And then calling people "deluded."
Your posts on this page make no sense. They add no facts.
The Pro has great reviews. It has powerful features your BB and iPhone do not. It is lightening fast.
The market, like the world is made up of segments. I get that you are disappointed that despite your irrational views on Windows mobile, the 50 million people who bought smartphones with windows mobile are somehow not getting your very important message.I feel your disappointment at not reaching us with your very important message that you tried a TWO YEAR OLD Widows mobile device and it made you unhappy. No one listened to chicken little either -- to our great regret.
Good luck with your Blackberry or iPhone. I would go to a Blackberry or iPhone post here and do what you are doing, except I am a bit busy to be a TROL.
I gave my comments. They serious reviews and reflect the real world. If you want to say they are "delusional" you are just not a serious person.
I ran WM 6.1 on a Moto Q9h and now the GSM Treo Pro with no issues. Maybe the fact that you're running it on a WM5 device has something to do with it.
damn, i thought it was the palm pre for a second. way to shatter my hopes :(
I can't decide between the Pre or Pro
Which one is right for me?
The release date is March 15th for the Pro. It's been in Sprint's device launch calendar for the past week.