Is the European Pre Ready for Launch? 27
It looks like Palm was right to underplay their presence at the Playbite 2009 conference in the UK yesterday, eschewing a proper announcement of a release date in favor of just showing some demo units of the device. The Mirror was there and wasn't impressed:
[...] what should’ve been an eye-popping debut turned into a damp squib, as Palm’s iPhone-battling smartphone appeared plagued by software problems, hardware stuck in prototype limbo and uncertainty over a firm UK release date
We're as confused as The Mirror, as when we had some eyes-on time with the GSM version of the Palm Pre way back in February at Mobile World Congress, things seemed to be progressing quite well. On the other hand, Steve O'Hear of last100 found himself impressed.
In other news, we're still waiting to find out whether or not the GSM Pre will be offered unlocked ("SIM -fee"), despite the exclusive granted to O2 / Telefonica. We've heard reports that the GSM Pre will not be locked down to a particular carrier, but haven't fully confirmed that yet. The latest in this hunt are reports that a few sites are offering pre-orders of SIM Free Palm Pre phones, but eWeek spoke to a Palm Rep who recommended people shy away from such things, as they're going to work hard to only allow official outlets to sell the Pre. Given that we've seen sites trying to offer pre-orders as early as April, for the time being we have to agree that a grain-of-salt approach to these third party pre-orders is the right now. eWeek also implies that the Pre will be offered SIM-free, which is heartening.
In any case, all rumors are still pointing towards an October launch for the device, but given how quickly that month is coming upon us without an official announcement of a release date, we're not so sure it'll happen. When do you think the Pre will land in Europe?
Thanks to Reppy for the tips!
27 Comments
The perfect launch window here in Spain (and can figure in the rest of Europe) is October 30th. Christmas campaings starts in November, and obviously the phone must be available for these campaigns. Following week can be affordable.
Other date later than those will hurt Pre sales.
if they don't hurry up an get their act together soon, I for one will lose interest and go for a 3Gs or an Andriod phone.
same with me. and I have to add, that I will only buy a pre, if they stop spying on their customers.
Spying is a bit strong a word to use here. They are not spying on their customers. They collect data on what apps you have installed so they can use it to flag in the app catalog which apps have been updated since you last installed them. That is an extremely useful feature.
The location info is used for their Family Locator service (I subscribe to that) as well as Google Maps and Sprint Navigation. You can turn off GPS location services and give permission on an app-by-app basis.
The next version of WebOS is reported to allow more user control over how your location data is used.
So what's the concern?
The mirror: What's up with you? All you can say about software problems is "GMaps does funny things"???
Tell us anything serious... GMaps is a Google's app, not a Palm's app...
I was at the 'launch' and it was a curiously understated affair. There was no leaflets, promos, or even a flyer for journos, and Palm's booth was a depressingly small affair.
Here's a detailed report: http://www.wirefresh.com/?p=80
@PreCentral
O2 Germany has made clear in their official announcement that the Pre will be sim-lock free! That's for sure.. I don't know about the UK or any other European country though. I guess it will be the same, but can't say that for sure.
When Palm releases GSM versions of their Pre and Pixi, that's when sales will truly take off.
I hardly care at this point: given the missing features of the device and the OS, and the [apparent] delay here in Europe, I have lost almost all interest in this phone. Had it come out soon after it was launched in the US I would have bought one right away, so maybe I should be grateful to Palm for the delay, as I would have had to discover the limited features of the phone myself?
It amazes me that even though people are desperate spend hard earned cash on a device some companies don't seem to be in rush to meet that demand. Is Palm really in a position to where it can afford to delay a European launch, given the new OSs/phones that will be released soon: WM 6.5, Android 1.6 (and soon 2.0), Nokia N900, HTC Leo, Samsung Omnia II, etc...
hduty... I'll tell you my story.
I've been travelling between different brands, and always have returned to Palm. All the rest have carences in an intensive phone use. I'm talking about beautiful interfaces, but useless compared with Palm's implementation. They do things with logical sense most times, something that HTC, Samsung or others don't do (ask them the reason). Sure, they are improving their devices, but I cannot buy another phon without checking myself what Palm proposes us with webOS. and can wait. I have my Treo Pro in my hands right now, and a few HTC's dropped in a drawer...
I just don't get this stuff about missing features. This phone has all the features I have come to expect in a smart phone except for video recording which I assume is on the way.
I've used WM 6.5 extensively and it is just WM with a few tweaks. Not bad but nothing great. Android is great but so far hardware and multitasking is nowhere near as good as WebOS and there aren't a whole lot of Android phones with a proper keyboard.
This phone (like any of them) has it's strengths and weaknesses but I would hardly put it far below any of the other offerings after using it since launch. In addition, the linux base has provided plenty of nice hacks like you find with Android and Palm has been pretty good about frequent updates as well.
What missing features you ask?
- No video recording.
- No front-facing camera for video calls.
- No user defined snooze time for alarms.
- No text message forwarding.
- Limited BT functionality.
- No expandable memory.
- There is no "homescreen" for widgets that you can configure to your liking. Currently it's just used to display the deck of open apps.
- If e.g. I have 8 apps open (though some people say the Pre chokes after 5-6 apps, which in itself would be another limitation) I might need to swipe the screen 7 times to get the first/last of the open apps, which gets tedious really quick. Instead they should at least give the option to display the running apps in a 2x2 or 2x3 grid, that way a running app is always only one swipe away.
- Limited sound setting options for various alert types.
Have look at
http://www.precentral.net/dear-palm-what-we-need-next-updates
for a complete list, *including* all the comments.
The following are some things mentioned in the comments:
- "When you get a calendar reminder while you are on a phone call and the sound should not blasts in your ear."
- "Web - memory/garbage collection seems atrocious. I rapidly run out of memory with only the web browser open."
- .....
The only reason why I'm still calm is that my contract is still running, and also keep in mind: Palm is a small company compared to Apple!
I'm sure they wanted to launch this baby earlier, but it's a complex process really, it takes a lot of resources! They simply don't have those resources at the moment, so give them some time. Yes they absolutely can't afford to wait any longer, but what can they do..
I agree totally with deCorvett and have the same experience.
"After just a few minutes with the Pre, our Android phone began to feel like something out of the Stone Age...." -www.wirefresh.com-
;-)
The info-video on the german Pre-page is showing a german UI - that means they are pretty far along in the localization-process, i guess...
Nope, the localization was already present on the emulator way back in May. Not as good and not completem but already there.
Yes, and there's also some apps localized into Polish what is quite weird since the Pre was only announced for the western Europe. Maybe is Palm something hiding from us :)
CDMA Pre (hacktivated) on my desk and desperately waiting for the GSM version. Yup, I live in the Europe.
Come on Palm, your europeans funs need something more than a few words like "in time for holidays...". We have millions of Iphones around us, and they are saying "buy me...buy me...i'm the best smartphone ever...". This is like a nightmare.
We need the Pre soon or at list some official news now.
British press always has had a "special treatment" for spanish companys, spanish sportsman, etc.
That's nothing new and I'm not disappointed.
The o2 workers here in Germany said it will be released on 16th October.
O2 germany also said the pre will be available in the 'my handy'-program that means it can be bought without any O2-contract and so (beeing sim/netlock-free) is a very good deal for users on other carriers. But english users should be aware that the german version will have a QWERTZ-layout instead of QWERTY. BTW my O2 dealer also estimates middle of october as launch date.
Thanks for the keyboard education. I was totally unaware of the existence of another standard keyboard layout other than the dvorak layout.
QWERTZ:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTZ
DVORAK:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard
Man, hope the French wouldn't be AZERTY :-)
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