In case you missed it: Palm introduces the Pixi
By Paul Miller 
posted September 9th 2009 4:50PM
posted September 9th 2009 4:50PM
posted September 9th 2009 4:50PM
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I agree. If they charge $99 for it, it goes right up against the iPhone 3G, and I do not think it stacks up well to that. $49 and this may get traction. Though if some analysts are to be believed the Pre has not come close to meeting expectations. Perhaps better hardware and a larger carrier are the way to go right now, not low end hardware and a small carrier.
I don't agree that a $99 Pixi wouldn't stack up against the 8GB 3G for $99.
While the iPhone does have the brand which admittedly is hard to compete with, the younger demographic that it appears they're going towards has moved on from iPhones to Blackberries as the next 'cool thing' these days. It's the $50 Curve that will be the toughest competition. That being said, I think it stacks up pretty competitively against either. It all just depends on the features that one needs.
The Pixi has webOS' multitasking and Synergy features, plus decent if a little slow email. It's just far behind on applications right now. The 3G has all those applications, but isn't doing so well with the younger generations lately. The Curve has great email, but more importantly has Blackberry Messenger, which (unfortunately, it's a ridiculously unnecessary protocol) seems to be all the rage for that 16-25 age group... but it has a crappy operating system.
@Joe
Care to share any source or link to back up the younger crowd moving on from iPhones to Blackberries? And what younger crowd are you talking about (age group)?
Fact is the Pixie is a glorified messaging phone. Seeing complaints of sluggishness while multitasking on the Pre makes me wonder if the Pixie's lesser hardware will really have decent multitasking. If it is $99 on Sprint, with no WiFi, a very small screen, no app store, no music store makes this a very hard sell against the iPhone 3G. At $49, it is an easier sell because it goes against messaging phones in that price range and is clearly better. Palm really needs to one up the Pre, i.e. dump the cheap plastic, make the hardware reliable, put in a bigger glass screen, landscape keyboard, etc., and sell it for $149. Until they do that, their marketshare will remain irrelevant compared to the iPhone.
No source other than actually seeing that my younger brother and sister and pretty much everyone they're friends with has a Blackberry, not an iPhone, and that they all are are mentioning things like "new PIN: " all the time on Facebook. This would be college-aged groups now, though my sister was in highschool at the time when people were all apparently switching so she had to have it.
I realize it's highly anecdotal evidence, but in my experience, I've seen that high-school and college-aged people are mostly using Blackberry recently, and that young professionals (25-40) are the ones with the iPhone 3G/S.
Regardless, that high-school to college market is clearly what they're going after with this phone - just watch the intro video on the Palm site.
And also, your bias is clearly showing. I could easily say "the 3G is a glorified mediaphone". By your logic, the Pre, and therefore Pixi as well, have much better PIM support than the 3G so that must mean it's really a dumbphone with media capabilities.
Meanwhile, you clearly haven't used webOS, otherwise you'd know that it does have a music store built in- Amazon, that the reports of lag opening applications on the Pre tend to be exaggerated (though who knows with this CPU on the Pixi), and that webOS already dynamically scales things, so screen size doesn't matter.
Anyway, as I said, tough competition no matter the price but I still think it stacks up well against the $99 3G depending on ones' needs.
Who cares..
Well engadget of course! Gotta make good ole Jonny happy lest he try to cancel his appearance!
This will be fun to watch a year or two from now if Palm goes under or gets bought by another company.
does it come with Pixy sticks?
Sprint CEO: "Hey Engadget... I thought we slipped you some cash, now our story is buried amongst all this apple news! What gives?"
Engadget: "Ummm eeerrr... ok, we'll post another story for you"
oh don't worry engadget, that post about itunes 9 breaking the pre sync reminded us all how lame palm has become.
What exactly is lame about wanting your customers to be able to use any sync software that they already use, including iTunes?
i had a dream the other night that i was trying to dial 911 but the god damn phone had no number buttons on it - i think it must have been this phone... what is it again? V - E - E...
Does anyone else think that Palm could have easily made the screen a little bigger by shrinking the empty space near the earpiece and moving the keyboard down another millimeter or two?
that area is the gesture area which is a necessity with webOS
No. That's not the area I was talking about. "near the earpiece" and below the keyboard are the two areas where precious screen could have gone.
Well, screen wouldn't go below the keyboard, but it could have shifred down just a tad to make room for more screen above the gesture area if it shifted with the keyboard.
I see what you mean, I think if you look at the device sitting there it looks like there is alot of play but we are really talking about making the screen fractions bigger. I personally think they should have blacked out the screen like on Pre when its turned off so it looks solid black as opposed to this, which you can clearly see the LCD outline.
Apple is whimsically resting on their laurels and Palm just can't seem to hit any home runs.
I'm not capable of remembering a device that doesn't have WiFi. Once they start selling down here, it's Pre for me.
who needs to get fired to change that world's worst keyboards that Palm started to put in their phones now
A question: what is the intended demographic of this phone? Isn't it LESS powerful than the hardware powering the Pre?
Is there a market for this phone?
Well this phone would be the next step past the Centro which has sold millions of units and most comparable to the Curve which we all know if a very popular device. Not everyone needs absolute top of the line.
The 'Pixi' looks to be a nice addition to the line.
Too bad they decided to significantly reduce it's appeal to guys with that name. But hey, guys aren't really the target audience for new tech hardware anyway— Right Palm?
"Whatcha got there Bill?"
"It's my Pixi . . ."
"Oooo— cute."
(I'm shaking my head btw)
The huge gap between the screen and the keyboard is so ugly.