It's unclear how the data's being collected, but a handful of analysts have started backing away from Palm this week on some information that the phone's webOS debut on Verizon has proven something less than bombastic at the sales counter. Of course, it's no secret that Verizon has poured less money, time, and energy into its marketing of the
Pre Plus and
Pixi Plus than Sprint has with the original versions, but Palm and the market analysts following its progress may have been banking on the unspoken "if only this were on Verizon" factor to counteract that a bit. The biggest concern seems to be that Palm's on the cusp of being washed into irrelevancy by a massive Android push, with a couple stock downgrades and price target cuts making their way into the hearts and minds of the market makers. Again, it's not clear exactly where the Verizon sales figures are coming from -- and we'd be remiss in thinking that analysts always (or even usually) know what they're talking about -- but this could be an early sign that the tide is turning. Come on, Palm: more carriers, more hardware, more features.
posted February 24th 2010 6:53PM
Bigger screens would be nice...
@therockr92
Little screens mean toddlers can use it.
@therockr92 some people, such as myself, prefer the smaller form. I wanted a portrait physical keyboard and a bigger screen than a BB so it worked out for me.
I actually think the smaller form factor could be a major selling point to a lot of people.
@Mr Lingo Well speculation time has passed as the Pre has been launched on two networks, and clearly these people who prefer smaller screens have not come.
@Mr Lingo
Its quite unfortunate, but this does not mean the end. WebOS is one great OS, its too bad the hardware (which has by now been thoroughly fixed on Palm's end through consistent improvement on the assembly line) gave it a bad rap from the start. I really wish they would have pulled out all the stop with the Pre, swallowed taking a loss, all to generate enough phone sales/buzz/momentum to really be viable in this smartphone market of the next decade. I don't believe its over, but that window of opportunity is shrinking.
I am still proudly sporting my own Palm Pre, and I really do love the device and OS.
@JONNNathannn
I truly doubt its the smaller screen (a lot of BB phones have similar, if not smaller screens than the Pre). I believe its the inital impressions of the quality of the hardware of the Pre, which people jumped to conclusions about saying it was a piece of crap. Admittedly the hardware could have been sturdier - especially with the slider on the launch-day Pre - but Palm did not do itself any favors by going ahead with it the way they did.
@LCDBox
Would you want your toddler to gnaw on it?
I would like to see Google by Palm, take the good parts of WebOS and put them in Android, and then kill the OS. Other parts of the company could be used to seriously beef up Google's customer service support, take their talented engineers, and the marketing dept for the Nexus One 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 going forward.
Palm is basically and Apple that has low sales, and a small market-share.
On the plus+ side I do like making fun of my friend with a Sprint Palm Pre since Verizon turned it into a mom phone.
@treats
you really don't know what kinds of software and systems development that go behind OS development, do you?
@therockr92 i have small hands
@therockr92
seriously, the phone is too small. it's so hard to read the letters on the phones. the font must be like 6 point.
and the keyboard is ridiculously small. there's no way a normal person can type on that thing.
@LCDBox
My observation is that a bigger screen supports the toddler
@therockr92
The death watch continues .....
Tthe Rube should brush up his resume and the dick-head at Elevation partners might need to take a calmative and explain to investors how they burned through hundreds of millions of their money.....
@a dumb cat Also contributing to that fact is the weird tendency to write off 'plastic' as 'crap.' I've seen countless times where I've seen comments that say that exact thing.
The Palm Pre Plus sounds like a great phone. But it's nearly a year old. A year old phone isn't going to sell like hotcakes with everything out these days.
If they can revamp it, I'd consider picking one up to replace my iPhone.
@EM1
So, you call more RAM, more storage space, and a (slightly) revamped exterior on the Pre Plus "A year old phone"? Not to mention the coinciding release of 3D games?
Was the iPhone 3G to 3GS any more of an upgrade? The 3GS is as old as the Sprint Pre, but it's still selling...
The Palm Pre Plus isn't a victim of old design. In my opinion, it has one of the best designs and user interfaces out there! I believe, however that it's a victim of poor advertising and lack of fruit logos.
@MastrCake
The Apple logo doesn't sell the phone. Quit with the BS.
I didn't hear anything a revamped exterior. Doubling storage space isn't much when wasn't much to begin with. But the RAM increase is HUGE! It'd be great though if the Pre had a better app catalogue, maybe a snapdragon, and a higher res screen.
I don't want to fight. I like the Pre. But it doesn't have the backing the iPhone does to rest on it hands.
It's a multimedia phone like the iPhone, the Droid, Nexus One, etc... Besides the interface, I don't see much for choosing it over any other phone. People seem to be voting and their answer agree that's not enough.
@EM1 Yeah I'll agree. As sweet as it is to be able to multitask on the Pre, I still get a lot of memory leaks that mean I'll eventually be restarting my phone so I can open a single app. And the app catalog sucks. And it is still laggy just using it for basic things (like the slight pauses when I open dialer and try to check missed calls, etc).
That being said I love webOS. And as far as the screen size/processor speed, I'm not a big fan of really increasing either. Every time I play with an iPhone I'm jealous of how big the screen is (even if we have the same resolution) but then I realize that I can fully browse with one hand on my Pre, whereas you end up doing a lot of up and down shuffling to use the iPhone one handed. Not a huge deal, but it is nice. And the phone doesn't take up my whole pocket like an iPhone does.
Personally, I think they should make the keyboard exactly like the keyboard on the Pixi, give it (at least) 32 GB of storage, and MAYBE increase the screen size just a hair. Now I'm the type that would be fine with a well executed slab (no hardware keyboard) but I doubt that's going to happen.
All in all, if Palm releases a new Pre in June on Sprint, I'll buy it. And if it sucks, I'll probably be getting a Windows Phone 7 Series device, because they look to be actually pretty sweet. And Xbox/Zune integration really gets me going.
@statelypenguin i own an iphone, but i LOVE webOS, i really dig the quality and style of the pixi, if palm released a pixi style device with a screen at least as big as the Pre's and a faster processor i'd honestly look at buying a palm.
@MastrCake User interfaces yes by far but design no it is horrible. WebOS is great and in my opinion one of the best out
yeah, the flood and push of Android definitely isn't helping, not to mention WebOS is relatively new and Palm isn't a hip term with the kiddos
How about having WebOS phones on ALL THE CARRIERS, Palm!
@Smart People Play Tuba Yea because adding it to AT&T is going to solve their problems.
Palm's TV adverts were the worst of all time. Sprints were weak and Verison's, up until the very last one I saw, were just as bad. The average person (read: does not even know of Engadget.com) isn't going to know about something until the TV lets them know about it.
Palm should have blown the wad on the launch and didn't.
@ryleyinstl Agreed. And Verizon really fumbled the marketing of this phone on their part. They're marketing it as the phone for moms... wtf were they thinking? Why target such a specific audience? It makes no sense at all, especially since these phones actually look and perform quite admirably.
This is not suprising at all. The Pre was great when it came out for Sprint, but at the pace new smart phones are coming out now, Palm should have had a new WebOS device ready to go for the Verizon launch.
I scoff at what analysts have to say. They're simply glorified guess'ers.
Palm should have a brand new device this summer on Sprint.
@Scape3d
What if Palm is the one making Sprint's 4G phone?! o_O
@KlassiK
Possibly but Palm won't be appearing as Sprint's first 4G device. I think the HTC Supersonic (HD2 running Android) will wear that crown.
@Scape3d
OR ON FRICKIN' AT&T FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
(Urge to kill . . . fading . . . fading . . . fading -- rising! Fading . . .)
Stick a fork in Palm. They're done. Picked up a Pre in an O2 shop...creaky plastic, put it down, said "next," hello Milestone (Droid).
Oh, Palm. Today on a Pre fan forum I saw a post about what to do before you return your Pre, and it involved 9 steps you can "fix" your Pre yourself, from wiggly slider mechanism to headphone jack problems to the newest, double character glitch when typing. It just speaks volumes.
Better hardware, actual quality control, and more carriers. Your OS is nice, your hardware is a COMPLETE DISASTER. On paper, a 3.1 inch screened phone as your flagship is pretty lame. In reality, your 3.1 inch screened phone that wants to twist like an Oreo and type the letter T three times when you've only hit it once is unacceptable, especially almost a year later. Figure this sh*t out or fall by the wayside. Consumers aren't hurting for OS options.
"Consumers aren't hurting for OS options"
Exactly. Palm has a nifty OS, but it's not mindblowing, and I don't think the user base has reached the critical mass needed for the ecosystem to stay competitive with the juggernauts out there.
Drop the price of the Pre, and I'll pick it up when my upgrade is up for Verizon.
It looks like an awesome phone, and I'd love to try out the webOS features.
Maybe if they actually came out with more models instead of just rehashing the same one from sprint and adding more ram.
And better commercials also.
Palm needs a high end WebOS device, but the question is, does Palm know how to do a high end device?
@EGOvoruhk
Sure they do, they just have to ask htc to make it for them like the palm treo pro
@EGOvoruhk
what about the Pre isn't high end?
@JeremyBenthem
The HVGA screen, and now the CPU
@JeremyBenthem
Everything except the internals.
This article needs updating with the Canaccord words.
Great, just wait until this hits Slashdot.
Netcraft confirms: PALM is dying. Another crippling bombshell hit the PALM community as ... :-)
As an employee of ant independent seller for verizon I can tell you that the first problem is that for some reason the pre costs us $50 more then the Droid so in order to make the same profit we would have to sell it for $50 more so.... you can have this large android phone for $199 or this tiny web os phone for $249.
Of course if they have seen the ad where it sells for $199 then it still benefits us to try to sell them the droid at the same price for a much higher profit.
just sayin'
palm have always ignored other carriers and letting one be their bitch.
Unless something really big changes in the next 6 months for palm I am likely going to get rid of my pre for a windows phone 7 device when they are available on sprint. It seems alot of people on the precentral forums are looking to abandon ship for wp7.
Whoever created their commercials should be placed in front of a firing squad. Seriously. The. Worst. Ever.
@PhineasJW
Seriously. Phones for moms? Only if they had ads showing how they were also good phones for Dads, sons, cousins, construction workers, etc.
@zangetsu2 agreed. who the hell wants to buy a phone being marketed as the momphone? way to make my pre seem less cool. fuckin' verizon, what a bunch of dumb asses.
@zangetsu2 Let's not forget Palm's original ad campaign, with the creepy, barefoot, translucent actress.
Their marketing campaign has been failing spectacularly for quite some time now.
dammit!!! I love my pre. Shocking to hear that so many people are spectical or blind n nt seeing how awsome it is. I dare anyone to let me knw of a phne that can multitask like mine. It runs hella smooth mst of the time n games.... Dam. Who needs a psp go now.