New York Times: Palm Pre to launch in the first week of June
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted May 18th 2009 3:40PM
posted May 18th 2009 3:40PM
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
posted May 18th 2009 3:40PM
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@rturius: That strategy is not as insane as it sounds, think about it; All current and future products coming out (whether smartphone or featurephone) will inevitably/unfortunately be compared to the iPhone (fans and haters alike can back me up on that one). Now if you're Palm & Sprint, and your company needs a touchdown fast, might as well go for a Hail Mary pass. Many people are under a very misguided impression that the Pre HAS to kill the iPhone...the Pre has to do no such thing (it just needs to steal the crown). The only thing it needs to do in order to be a hit: Do what Palm claims WebOS will be able to do right out of the box. You combine that with all of the free press it'll get when it gets compared to the iPhone (whether the current 3G model or near future upgrade), and it'll be a sure fire hit. Plus, if Palm saved any tricks up its sleeves, we'll all be in for a nice treat (and the haters/iPhone sycophants can eat crow till Apple releases yet another upgrade).
Very compelling argument.
+9000 for you, sir
June will be the tech-craziest June in a long time...
I can't wait for this phone. I can't believe I fell for getting the Helio Ocean a couple years ago. Oh well, my contract is up as of May 1st and the Pre can't come soon enough. I have to restart that piece of shit Ocean once a day.
I kind of feel the same as you, in that I got myself a LG Rumor as a free upgrade...and since I really wanted to get my hands on an affordable qwerty phone, I got it. I wish I had gotten anything else but the Rumor. The damn thing has a tendency to turn off for absolutely no reason whatsoever...on an ever increasing basis. Plus I need me a smartphone that will give me some freedom. Plus, as much as I might like the iPhone (I have nothing against Apple or their products per se), I wouldn't dream of going with AT&T...my girlfriend has an AT&T 3G phone, and she gets dropped calls on a regular basis...something that has only happened to me on 3 occasions...and all of those were outside of NYC.
I'm interested to know how much testing they did. Seems like they are putting a lot into making sure this thing works as advertised. Interesting concept for sure :)
I think that part of the reason why it had not been released was to test it so that it would work right from day one. Think about it, both Palm & Sprint are putting their eggs on the Pre basket...the last thing either of them needs is to have the Pre fail on them because they released it too soon (and let's be real, who REALLY wants to wait for "patch" that will fix a problem they could have caught during initial testing).
Hopefully they tested it more than Verizon/RIM did for the Storm. I'm a Storm owner, but there is no reason why that phone should have been released when it was--good thing the leaked OS's have saved the Storm. Yea, its safe to say that Palm doesn't want to go through the Storm ordeal.
Nokia N97, Palm pre, Iphone 4G, Htc Pro 2, Nokia N97, Omnia Hd, Htc hero all this in June.... What a crazy month...
iPhone 4G?!?! LOL Not this year, not next, and not AT&T. Verizon has just about given up on LTE for anywhere in 2009.
Maybe your memory has been screwed up by Sprint's NOW network commercials and the "soon to become the first 4G network" slogan. Sprint is the Pre's carrier.
Will pre truly replace iPod touch??
Yes or no??????
Guru, it's pretty obvious that the Palm Pre SmartPHONE is not meant to actually replace or supplant the iPod touch, which btw is a PMP...not a phone.
Will the Pre be unlockable for other networks (AT&T, Verizon...)? Sprint just hasn't made the push for good coverage in my area...
Sprint is supposed to be the exclusive carrier for the Pre for some time (I don't think it has been officially announced how long this exclusivity will last). So at the time of the launch, Sprint will be the only carrier you get to play with (unless you can jailbreak it).
Cupertino start your copiers.
1 thing can destroy Palm sales - please Sprint do not make changes to the firmware so we have some half baked firmware. The first thing I do when I have bought a phone is debrand it - remove the operator firmware.
Please please please Sprint do not destroy that looks to be a fantastic phone.
after having been chained to the Treo for the past two years, there is no way I'm ever going back to Palm. I get the same feeling with the Pre as I did when I got the Treo... cool at first, but then gradually irritated with it's little quirks. I can see that swiping the app off the screen deal to get old pretty quick, and the handset almost looks dated already.
and that keyboard, I can't stand the Treo keyboard, why would they make the Pre almost the same... how about a little innovation.
and I really can't see the point of having to navigate to websites in portrait mode, then have to switch to landscape to view widescreen... seems like they didn't think that through.
okay, I feel better now.
The Pre will be a success, no matter what Apple does with the iPhone, of that there is no doubt. Thing is it depends on the level of success it achieves. Will it be successful enough to save Palm? Thats a whole different story.
"one of the most respected newspapers"----Ha! I find this comment totally laughable, the NY Times is nothing more than a tabloid that charges too much. Until i read it in the Wall Street Journal this is nothing but speculation
I got a chuckle out of that too. Respected by who? Besides Left Wing ideologues.
"Unless the Times is making stuff up. And let's be honest -- at this point, maybe they are"
Yes, like every day of the week. Have you read the corrections page for the NYT? It's pretty clear fact checkers are not abundant in the newsroom.
I really don't care.
Until it's in Australia :D
Like Aus, and the rest of the world, we in the UK are not invited to the PRE party.
We will I'm sure be invited to the N97, iPhone-3, HTC Magic and Omnia HD parties, so good news there.
Lets see a GSM Pre, on a good carrier over here before long, because if not, you have just a US centric phone, that will seriously miss the boat over here.
I'm not sure that the USA market will be big enough to make the Pre a success, which is a shame, but Palm only have themselfs to blame for being short sighted.
I hope the Pre is good, and lives up to the Engadget sponsored hype, I hope that it rules, and makes billions of dollars. Then maybe people will have something new to snipe at instead of poor WinMob and iPhone (Fanboys).
Here is the cool equation.
Pre first month of launch = if you have one, you are COOL, and everyone REALLY want to know you.
2nd - 4th Month of launch = if you have one, you are cool, and some people are interested.
5th month of launch onwards = you are a sheep, people will say you are just jumping on a bandwagon, and essentialy you are uncool for not standing out in the crowd.
So get all the Halo glory in the first three months I think.
I've got a friend who says he'll be first in line to get one, and that makes him automatically cool to me even if one never actually gets released down here.
Also, in my opinion Half Life >> Halo.
it comes out june 7th. this is sprints last ditch effort to save itself from bankruptcy, so yeah, the phone itself is awesome, but again, it's sprint, so it's gonna suck
come on then...
I just cant wait for it!
This phone got everything function I want. Touch screen+Smooth System+Keyboard. Much much better than the iPhone!!!!!
why must engadget hate on so many things... come on guys-- the nytimes now?
your posts can be witty without making such childish remarks
Lulz, NY Times is a tabloid, dumbass
Really? I wasn't aware that the New York Times was respected.
Hmm. Learn something new every day.
Ahh... Why do People always forget that ATT was bleeding customers because of horrible service before the iphone was released....They needed the Iphone and agreed to apple's demands for how things should be done... while the Iphone is a good device the att service is still bleh...
How do I win one of these badboys? I'm jobless sleeping on my brothers couch. Help me out engadget!!
does any have sprint right now and is in chicago. i want this phone but i have no idea of how good sprint's reception is here
You're partly right Fernando...the Pre will need well written/useful apps to succeed in the market...but that's the other half of what it needs. It needs to live up to the promises that Palm has made to its investors as well as us, the potential customers.
Apple's App Store didn't have a grand abundance of apps in the start...why would anyone be delusional to think that Palm should be able to provide as many apps compared to a company with a 2 year head start? Any company coming up with a smart phone or feature phone with lots of options will have to come up with a solution comparable to Apple's...if the Palm Pre even remotely lives up to its promise, the rest of the developer community will create programs for it.
I know a lot of iPhone lovers (and other people who prefer other products) seem to hate the idea of competition, but this can only benefit everyone...as more competition might mean better products and better programs to work on them.
Sprint hops onto Verizon's network when you're out of Sprint range. At least that's how it works in NY state.
I've actually been very impressed with Sprint's network.
ok...the new pre looks cool...EXCEPT: why the hideous green on the interface? they couldn't have come up with a prettier color for the shot that was to advertise the coming of a new "jesus phone'? Seriously, all the colors on this phone look like they were designed by a man, for a man. Apple's head interface designer is a woman, and it shows in the beautiful, humanistic design of their interface, icons, buttons, etc. I don't own an apple product aside from an ipod classic, but after using my wife's ipod touch, i can see what all the fuss is about.
I mean, seriously, Palm?...Forest Green?....Dear Lord. It looks like the power tool of cell phones, and it's not supposed to. I do however have Sprint, so I'll try it when it surfaces.
So this is official!
Palm Pre(TM)
So close, you can almost feel it.
The new Palm(R) Pre(TM) phone will be here June 6, starting at $199.99
on the Sprint network (after rebate and service agreement).[1]
See what's new with Pre.
http://News.palmnewsletters.com/cgi-bin13/DM/y/e5gJ0POnwF0Kil0Nwp0Gw
Register with Sprint to get your hands on the new Pre.
http://News.palmnewsletters.com/cgi-bin13/DM/y/e5gJ0POnwF0Kil0wAO0GC
No biggie. IPhone still kicks it to the curb! BahhaaWaw!!!
RT
www.privacy-center.de.tc