Sprint Pre 3, HP promo video, & the competition - From the Forums 41
Thousands are waiting with bated breath to hear if Sprint is getting a webOS device in the near future, and many are frustrated with the idea that they may never get a Pre 2 for their favorite service provider. One user, astraith, makes a good point on why it's a good thing that Sprint never got a Pre 2... but it's only good if it's true.
We know that the Pre 3, Veer and TouchPad will all be coming out over the next four months (hopefully), but how will they stack up against the competition when they finally do arrive? User milominderbinder breaks it down with a chart and gets into the nitty-gritty details on how upcoming webOS devices compare with the Atrix, EVO 3D, Thunderbolt and others.
It may not have any webOS devices in it, but a new promotional video from HP has a bit of excitement from it as it puts emphasis on passion and story. Akitayo shares the video and gives his own thought on the quality - which is to say this it is way better than our original Palm Pre videos of 2009. Which brings us to another thread where you can vote on which spokeswoman for a smartphone is the scariest - the Palm Girl or Sony's Kristen?
Can the Veer compare to the Pre 3 when it comes out in a few months? Or are they even meant to be competing for the same markets? tsubasa92 starts up a discussion about the next two webOS smartphones with a simple question: "Is the only difference between the two devices the size?" We think not... but your voice can still be added to the thread.
There's plenty more talk in our webOS forums - so join up and join in!
41 Comments
my pre minus keeps failing. I just want the pre 3 already. If sprint doesn't get it I'll be pissed because i am eligible for a 1 year upgrade now, but Sprint is taking that away come April 1st.
The HTC Evo 3D looks amazing. By the time the pre 3 comes out i'm sure that HTC evo 3D will be out and many more will jump to android again.
If you're already eligible, you don't lose that eligibility. But when you do upgrade, the following upgrade will be in 2 years, not in 1 like before.
I was waiting but...
Maybe next time.
Does it bother anyone else that there hasn't been one carrier announced yet? Treo Pro anyone?!
I've got a feeling that Web OS is going to go down the same path Betamax and HD DVD has.
How many times has Palm been in the desert over the last few years! It's not easy being a webOS fan :)
Here's my prescription for success (sorry if some of it sounds like a broken record):
1) Get 2.1 (and, if possible, version 3, or a variant of it) on older devices. We need to be able to develop on existing devices. (Or hand out free phones!)
2) Get Enyo out as soon as possible. Do it right (this time), but do it super-quick.
3) Put a standardized bottom connector on every device (on tablets, both bottom and side) and develop a fold-out keyboard that will dock ANY mobile HP device. A dockable stereo speaker set would be a good add-on, too, etc. Bluetooth isn't good enough. It sucks battery life, so until HP figures out how to fix that problem, a hard connector is better.
4) The "expanding" virtual keyboard shown in February should be incorporated into EVERY mobile HP device, including those with horizontal, sliding keyboards (as history has painfully reminded us, physical keyboards sometimes go bad). We need a back-up.
5) If HP isn't working on getting the top 10 most-used apps in the world working on webOS (hello, NetFlix streaming?), throw in the towel. Apps are everything.
6) Bump up back-camera resolution to 8MP and front resolution to 5MP. 1.3MP doesn't cut it. The 8/5MP ratio should be considered minimal specs from here on out. Add built-in image/video resolution degradation into webOS so it can accommodate slower connections. (This is preferable to dropped frames.)
7) Since HP is finally going all-out on object-orientation, they should develop a drop-in framework for their Javascript and rendering engines (if they haven't already done so), and then plug in whatever open-source engines are fastest at build time (yay! Jaegermonkey and Firefox!).
8) Two types of commercials work: a) In-your-face show-em-how-it-works ads (yes, Apple got it right there), and b) Attack ads. HP needs to show how users are often stymied by Apple's draconian app-store restrictions (their recent rejection of a pro-Christian app really burns me), and by their hardware designs (no standardized connectors, etc). I know some things are hard to sell, but they need to find a way to do it (and NOT in print - most "yutes" don't read anymore). HP really needs to put out a 2 minute commercial showing the real power of mobile multitasking (e.g., showing a checkbook, bill-tracking, calculator and calendar app all running simultaneously and being brought up easily and quickly - be creative!). (Addendum: The new Veer commercial is a good start, but it tries to cram too much in. Limit what you're demonstrating and really show it off!) And, in that vein...
9) I'm not sure why HP got rid of the gesture area (probably because it was misinterpreted too often), but if they're getting rid of the optional "advanced gestures" feature (e.g., complete right-to-left swipe to activate the next app), that's a huge mistake. That's the COOLEST thing about webOS multitasking.
10) I would have webOS automatically add the icons for the last 5 activated apps below the standard 5 icons in the task-bar/start menu (name?), so you can just do an up-swipe and quickly hit the icon for the app you want (which may or may not still be running). Obviously, if the app already has an icon in the top (standard) row, it can be omitted from the bottom row.
11) HP needs to incorporate exhibition features into webOS outside of Touchstone mode. I would like to see an agenda view on my back-drop while I'm holding the phone in my hand! Off the Touchstone, this view would only be active for a given app if the app didn't already have focus.
12) HP needs to hire me (but don't expect me to move to California - they're nuts to live there!)
I may add more to this list later. Stay tuned... ;)
how bout getting some new hardware to market b4 i buy an android phone cuz my pre is falling to pieces? ;)
A 5MP front camera? Why? A 1920x1080 screen is only 2MP, and a 1.3MP camera is 1280x1024. Why would you want the extra pixels, which would only take more processing and use more battery?
I really want to know why people keep calling for outlandishly high resolutions on the front-facing camera.
It is almost impossible to compare these phones. Specs alone don't tell the story. Honestly having been on the EVO for several months now, I don't think there is any comparison. The EVO 3D will blow the Pre3 out of the water.
The ONLY things I miss from my Pre is the intuitive multitasking of the cards metaphor and the Touch Stone. Beyond that it is no comparison in my mind.
Sure tap to share is cool, but it requires you to purchase two rather expensive devices.
Beyond that -- these are just one person's impression. It will be very interesting to revisit this discussion in December after all the devices are out in the wild and see what the adoption rate of each are.
The Pre3 hardware is going to be outdated when it gets released. That's just the sad truth. They announced it at their special event...now what....so sad that this blog post is another attempt at posting something "from the forums" when there is no new news! Can't wait for some relevant info, precentral is not at fault there is no good info released...
"Thousands" . . . . . :(
I broke down and picked up an EVO off craigslist. I'm sorry but I don't think I will be able to go back to a hard keyboard and I understand why everyone was whining about not getting a slate device.
I hear ya on that. I had hoped that if Sprint got a slate version of the Pre3. I'd be getting one ASAP. Since we haven't seen that yet and the fact that Sprint took away the yearly upgrade. I'll sit it out with my Evo waiting for next year. By then hopefully HPalm will have fully gotten their act together. As opposed to my Pre- that was already falling apart by this time last year. The Evo has been very solid.
HEY HPalm GET IT TOGETHER NOW!!!
Maybe by the time they release the pre 3 they will have the pre 4 with virtual keyboard instead of physical.
I'm with you, i'd rather have a virtual keyboard so i can type in landscape or portrait mode.
Also, by removing the physical keyboard they can make the phone thinner!
Even if Sprint did release the pre 3, it won't get many sales because people are still most likely to buy evos or shifts or the 3D. *Cue the thumbs downs*.
The title to this Article is very misleading. Even thought it's "from the forums". I don't see a value in this at all. I read the forums, nothing new here.
NO news is, well, no news......
now we can wait around and criticize HP for their ads , even the ones that dont mention webOS..... weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
well, since Sprint can't replace my webOS phone with an equivalent webOS phone, I'm saving even more money not paying the $7/month insurance!
Whoever said you don't lose your Sprint upgrade on April 1st doesn't understand. Yes, if you are due a 2 year upgrade then it is unaffected, but you will lose the 1 year premier upgrade on Apr 1, of you do not use it (some people are sure both). Sprint is really good at wording press releases so that it looks like a smaller deal than it really is. For example, when you read their documentation on the new data charges they make it sound like its only 1 charge per account, but its actually per line. Always assume the most restrictive untill you get something different in writing from Sprint. Don't believe me still? Call Sprint and ask!
I have a pre minus and I'm starting to feel like a passenger on a sinking ship.i love an underdog but look what's in front of us all these android phones(thunderbolt, evo3d ect) and the iphone 5. I read on BGR last week that larger phone 4inch and above sale went up over 20% last year and smaller phone 2%. So I'm asking the question why is HP making the veer when their is no market for that form factor who is going to get this phone? I really don't understand someone in the marketing department didn't do their job. Their are rumors that the iphone is going to be 4in. Before the Feb 9 event HP was telling us to think beyond and they want a cool factor. Is this the best they can do. A message to HP PLEASE, PLEASE look at what's going on in the phone market the trends what peolpe really think is cool PLEASE THINK BEYOND.
Nice to see the "From the Forums" feature again.
sooooo... 'Sprint' pre3 still does not exist.. Got hopes up and back to reality really quick :(
Aye... Very bad wording in the title.
They honestly probably will launch the Pre3 on Sprint, because I don't think Verizon wants to carry their phones anymore. The Pre and pixi didn't sale, neither did the Pre2, so now they're going to carry a palm pre 3? I doubt it, especially since it didn't really make a splash. I just have to hope verizon gets a decent Windows Phone 7 device because the HTC Trophy is already dated feeling.
If you're grasping at straws for news again, why not try a review of the Verizon Pre 2?
Also, those frustrated that Sprint doesn't have Pre 2 aren't trying hard enough to get a Pre 2 on Sprint.
I am disappointed in thinking that Sprint will not be carrying any new HP phones any time soon,
BUT
do you guys think anything can be taken from the fact that the engadget event plus interview friday is sponsored by sprint?
Maybe something Sprint/HP will be announced.
The question I have is at this point what does this platform really have to offer the smartphone market without at least an equivalent app catalog? By the time my contract is up this year, the Pre3 will probably be out, but so eclipsed already by the iPhone and new Android phones that there will be no reason to stay.
Don't get me started on the worthless keyboard they insisted on incorporating into the new phones.
Holy **** You need to change the title of this article. I got really excited about Sprint getting a PRE3 but was quickly kicked down to earth again. I need a drink
if sprint was to carry these phones, why haven't they announce it yet? Wtf?
the announcement on these products was a over a month ago and this topic already seems tired and old....just like my Pre minus.
Launch day Pre minus. I used actually get offended by that term. Now, I'm thinking a mercy killing, which the market will do, on WebOS is the best thing for all. The good will be donor transplanted into devices and companies that know how to put out good phones.
You do realize much of what is being said by HP about phones and tablets is the same bravado and b.s. they were saying about their digital cameras. They may have been right in some areas, but in the end they were not camera manufacturers.
Looks promising. I'll buy the new products on whatever carrier has them.
Here is an idea.. How about HP buys Sprint?? Thoughts?
whats with all the bleeping spam ads being allowed here now? hello?!?! admins?!?! anyone out there lol. on topic i went back to carrying two devices: pre plus and ipod touch 4th gen 8 gig. got ipod from amazon joined then audibles thing for $14.95 a month for a year ( one audio book a month club thing ) they gave me an instant $100 off the ipod and a free trial prime membership ( free 2 day shipping or $3.99 over night shipping ) and got the ipod literally the next day ( ordered it early in the day and came from closer by illionois i think ) for a whopping $108 shipping tax and all . to the ipod touch you add skyfire browser app for $2.99 and you get most flash content subtract the games etc ( skyfire takes flash video and transforms it to h264 or html5 and sends it back to you) ie there are options out there to tether a device to your pre minus pre plus on the cheap while and if you want to wait for pre 3 ,ipod touch is similar to having an iphone 4 front rear cameras. then when pre 3 comes out you can give it to your wife or husband or kids to play with.
This is what I like to see, some sensible people posting good ideas and not being good little WebOS sheep.
What I don't like is HP ignoring all those good ideas and thinking it has its finger on the pulse of the base Pre user and the phone market in general.
Future you say? HP wake up! ya won't have a future on WebOS unless there is someone there to use the dam system! Listen to what people are saying before its too late...
red
When my Moto phone died and my Tungsten + TX screens started acting up, I decided to try a SmartPhone again (bad Treo experience).
I got a Pre+ for 2 reasons, Classic and the keyboard.
A physical keyboard is SOO much easier for me (I have MS), so I hate everyone who are supporting some of the worst "keyboards" I've ever seen. My TX has a virtual board that is better than any smartphone I've touched.
I do love WebOS but I am also jelous of my husband's Android App Marketplace.
I hate that most of my favorite Palm devs have abandoned us. If WebOS couldn't keep devs who ran through more than 5 PalmOS versions, what hope is there?
I still have quite awhile till upgrade time, so all I can do is watch how everyone develops and decide when the time comes.
I'm giggling at the guy who thinks there should be a 8/5 mp ratio on the rear and front facing cameras...
what do those extra pixels even mean? Have you ever compared a pic taken by an evo (8mp) and an epic (5mp)?? I kinda feel bad for people like him cuz they do think they know what they're talking about....
better picture quality. They both look alot better than my pre- pics..... Anymore stupid questions followed by a stupid statement?
@mtv757 ya...except im talking specifically about the front facing camera; the fact that he suggested there needs to be a certain ratio between the front/rear camera megapixels...maybe you should read the entire conversation before looking like total moron :0
but specifically for you: the reason the epic and evo pics look better has a lot more to do with the quality of the lens than the actual number of megapixels. when i mentioned comparing evo to epic, i meant the epic blows evo pictures out of the water even though it has less megapixels....meaning a high quality lens can take high quality images despite having a lower Mp rating...hopefully that clears things up for the people that still don't know what they're talking about
This phone I will likely purchase if it comes out for sprint. Not having the pre 2 makes me want to jump carriers. As it is a completely different size. The Pre 3 seems less...unique and while it has more features looks very bulky for what kind of personifies the pre. Its a capability in a compact design. As i have mentioned before, a 3.3 inch screen using a near edge to edge LCD would have been what we were looking for. HP has to remember refinement here with palm products as well as additions, but don't kill the culture of the phone. We need all companies working together not dismantling and disassembling the remains of Palm. It was disappointing to see you fully remove the palm name so quickly. It was unnecessary and phone contour even kind of speaks the palm brand. Would have been nice to see HP/Palm.
I know for a fact you at HP didn't feel good about doing that completely. It doesn't even really look right, still we like to see the product improve.
I'm feeling very frustrated like most of you. I have a launch day Sprint Palm Pre- though it's been replaced several times due to hardware issues. I do love the OS. I love the way it does notifications and multitasking and I love the synergy and I love the email client. I can't stand holding out for crumbs from HP when everyone else is feasting on lots of Android (and iOS) goodness. They won't even give us release dates. I mean come on.
But there's probably a limit to my love for HP/Palm/WebOS...my wife has the Android 2.2 Samsung Epic 4G and I'm sorry, but it's pretty freakin' awesome. There are some areas where the Android experience isn't as good as the webOS experience (synergy, email client) but there are many areas where it offers more functionality than webOS (voice command, widgets, etc). The sad reality is that all the exciting news these days is about the latest and greatest Android devices. I see now that Sprint is getting the HTC EVO 3D, the Samsung Google Nexus S, the Kyocera Echo, and the Motorola Atrix 4G CDMA. I'd say that specs-wise, pretty much all those phones are better equipped than the Pre3 and we don't even know for sure that Sprint is going to get that!
HP is trying to get people excited about webOS and saying that they're going to put it on every PC they sell before the end of the year but nobody knows how they're going to do that and if anybody will even want it or if the experience will be compelling. I'm guessing that a webOS on PC experience isn't nearly as functional as it is on a touchscreen phone or tablet/pad/slate. I suppose the mouse touchpad will have to take over the function of the touchscreen. Ideally I think they'd need to have the OS loaded into flash on the hardware so it'd be super fast and people wouldn't just see it as bloatware on top of Windows that they should get rid of. If they did that, I can imagine that it could provide an instant-on experience with access to all cloud services on the powerful HP hardware. People could choose to use their hardware with the webOS experience instead of booting up to Windows and if it was fast enough and worked well enough they might make that choice more often. I'm assuming it would have to be webOS 3.0, but supposing they could convince people to develop for that OS, would those apps even be portable for use back on the smartphones as well? For what it's worth, if they did a really good job with webOS running on all HP laptops, it could become a major reason people would choose to buy HP laptops over competitors that only run Windows, for example. And it could really drive the development of apps that would work on webOS-only devices like the TouchPad.
I am interested in a pad/tablet/slate computer. The TouchPad may be interesting but I'm getting the feeling that it's going to be too little, too late and considering the superior hardware and software choices on some Android and iOS tablets, it would be hard to consider buying the TouchPad unless they make them really inexpensive. Touch-to-Share just isn't all that important.
I feel very much that I am in need of a new smartphone. I feel like I'm getting left behind by sticking with webOS, even if I am able to get the Pre3 on Sprint. I can accept the physical keyboard and screen size of the Pre3 but I feel like they need to do a major spec bump before launch. I also think they NEED to add/license the Swype virtual keyboard and have that as an option in addition to the physical keyboard. In addition to the 16GB internal storage, they need to add microSD expansion for people who need/want to carry more. Also, regardless of megapixels, the camera and camcorder need to be capable of producing images and videos of the same quality as decent point-and-shoot digital cameras. I'd prefer 8MP or 10MP and 1080p video options for the main camera. The front-facing camera should be upgraded to 1.2MP or maybe 3MP. I wish the screen were 540x960 resolution. Also, the battery life better be awesome because I'm sick of how fast my Pre- dies. They should bump the RAM to 1GB or more. We need native visual voicemail, probably integrated with Google Voice.
Come on, HP! Don't make us regret sticking around!