Palm Pre gets caught taking a walk in the park
If you’re looking for rhyme or reason, unfortunately we can’t offer either for the time being. All we know is this: It looks like Sprint and Palm may be loosening the reins a bit when it comes to allowing the Palm Pre out into the wild. The image above was supposedly taken at something called “the annual Bring Your Own Big Wheel race”. It shows two people, whose identities are unknown, rocking Palm Pres. An eagle eyed attendee spotted them and managed to chat the pair up before snapping a few pics. The stealth photog tells us that the Pre-toting pair claim to have been using the handsets for several weeks now. In fact, they supposedly weren’t all that blown away by the device at first, but recent updates to the handsets have converted them into satisfied users. When asked about a public release, the duo’s only response was that we “probably won’t have to wait too much longer”. Could the recent rumors of a May release be on point? Were these naive Sprint or Palm employees who managed to get their hands on the device a bit early? Your guess is as good as ours. In the meantime, hit the jump for some more pics.
Thanks, banachunks!
The day approaches!
Wow that’s nice I wish I also had to get the Pre before the official release.
Sent via BlackBerry.
Looks like maybe San Francisco was the location.
Truth be told, I don’t know what all the excitement is about. The reactions of those people seem to be how I would react as well. It seems to be a very solid and smooth device for business and personal use that focuses on the reliability and ease of use (much like the iPhone did at launch). The hardware isn’t anything spectacular anymore since high end imports like the OmniaHD and possibly the N97 will be using the same processor (with graphic accelerators to boot) but they also have plenty of other much higher end features than the Pre. I’m really not trying to rag on it at all because I do like it (and would give it a shot if it wasn’t going to Sprint initially), but really, am I missing something that makes this phone so appealing? Or is it popular because it’s being touted as an iPhone competitor?
OMG I was there! I totally live across the street from this place… Vermont Street, which is actually MORE crooked then Lombard St. Anyway, there were so many people with phones and camera phones I never seen, many imports for GSM however, unfortunately Palm Pre was not one of the ones I saw. Pretty cool my hometown has it running already. NICE!!!
jonnybruha there are plenty of differences. For one thing, it’s new. Yeah great, OmniaHD and N97 are new devices, but S60 is the same old crap. Plus the Pre is going to be $200 while the N97 will run $700+ in the US and who knows what the oHD will cost.
The Pre is compact, appears to be well built and elegant, has what looks like a fresh OS and it’s a glimmer of hope in an otherwise dead industry. That’s what the excitement is all about.
Those 2 look like staged geeks out of Lord of The Rings. There are -no- coincidences.
@jonnybruha: Most of the Pre-spasms are from those with an economic interest in Palm’s success, ie Accessory sales, blog advertisements, etc. Not rocket-science to understand some dishonorable undisclosed intentions. The phone, itself, doesn’t break any new ground, has no secure backbone, and is reliant upon software subscriptions [VS licenses] to make it truly operable. New market approach which is untested and likely a couple years late to market, but worth entertaining if not intended for Enterprise use.
I also saw this lady readin the new york times on the train today on the back of the section she was reading had a palm pre advertisement
Is it just me, or does anyone find it odd that 15 year old kids are running around with Pre’s? Why? If there parents are field testers, why would they lend their device, shouldn’t they be doing network tests or whatever? And how would these kids know anything about it, there’s no way they’re employed by Sprint or Palm. Or maybe they’re older than they look, who knows.
Like it was mention before, it looks like you can use the space bar for camera.
Hope its coming soon!
@backbeat, I completely understand what you mean, though I doubt every consumer (or techblog for that matter for the same reasons) is covering it so heavily for its economic impact.
@El Bastardo, I also understand the interest in the UI. It looks like it works very well and mostly unlike anything we’ve seen so far. But if it’s just UI, then why not get an iPhone? Has the promises of 3.0 not been enough for iPhone users or is the Pre supposed to appeal to those who specifically DON’T like the iPhone?
Waiting…
@jonnybruha: The webOS software has been the big attention getter for the Pre, IMO: it’s a new platform on a new device, rather than (as El Bastardo mentions) beautiful new hardware running the same-old, same-old. And furthermore, webOS is unique in its cloud integration — love it or hate it, but don’t say it’s not something new.
Add that to the fact that Palm had a foot in the grave before announcing the Pre, as well as the widely-held (AFAIK) opinion that nothing has yet really touched the iPhone’s sales figures or popularity in the pro-sumer space … and you get a recipe for a lot of buzz.
Plus, you know, getting all the features of an iPhone3G (which I dearly loved and miss) and more for $70/mo. instead of $100/mo. has got to be looking attractive to a lot of folks in this day and age.
Oh and yes, the OmniaHD and N97 will be much more expensive, but they also won’t come with a contract, give you plenty more features for the money, have a matured (or maturing) operating system, and you can use them on a better network than Sprint for less monthly. Hell, you can sell the free phone T-Mobile or AT&T give you with a new contract and use that as your subsidy towards one if you’d like.
aint that a female dog……….
it would nice if they put them out to the masses before the end of april though.
@VCI_Cell, I don’t think I understand the webOS platform either. Everything I’ve read about it has said that it is extremely limited as compared to a full SDK and it’s a lot like the same deal as the web apps we saw when the iPhone was first launched, and we all know how successful that was. The only favorable addition is Java, which, again, can be used on almost anything already, most of which also has its own SDK.
I’m not seeing it as “getting all the features of an iPhone 3G and more”. Granted, I’m not a fan of the iPhone, the software and SDK on the iPhone seems to give it a huge leg up over development for the Pre and who knows what better hardware we’ll really see on the third iPhone in a couple months. I understand the price difference, but using Sprint seems to be the sacrifice for that $30.
@jonnybruha
“… and you can use them on a better network than Sprint for less monthly …”
You really need to be conscious of the size of this country and the vast disparity in wireless experiences of the people who live in the different parts of it.
Here in New England, for the 9 months I had it, I found AT&T service to be severely lacking both for data and for voice. Dropped calls (which I hadn’t experienced in literally years on Sprint) became the norm. Even now, I have a friend living in Brooklyn who talks to me on his AT&T phone — dropped calls from his end are quite common.
By contrast, Sprint has been nothing but stellar in this market. So it really depends on where you live. As for coverage when traveling, well, that’s what free roaming on VZW/Alltel/USCellular is for.
… and I’ll be the first to admit I’m no software engineer or developer, so your concerns about the SDK and so forth may well be valid; I’ll leave that to others to address.
^Your “stellar” service is due to roaming on VZW in New England.
who cares
iPhone is the best
Oh believe me, I’m not satisfied with AT&T in the least, and they’re supposed to be fantastic where I am.
Even leaving AT&T out of the equation, you could get the G1 on T-Mobile as well and it works just as well for what I’m talking about. Android has its own issues, but even it as a platform seems to be more capable and much further along than the the Pre. It just sounds to me that an extra $30/month (or less with T-Mobile’s G1) would be worth it to sign up with a company for a more capable and developed device and a network isn’t closer to dying than surviving in these tough economic times.
@jonnybruha u r right! AT&T in NE suck ass.. I have att for a year now in boston area and I never had as much dropped call with t-mobile than with AT&T i’m sick of it and AT&Ts 3g suck ass
Hmm… I do wish that Palm chose me as a tester for the phone… Either way I’ll be getting this phone ASAP when it comes out and I find the money for buying it.
P.S. Anyone else hoping this will come out as a WorldWide Edition phone? I know I am so I could buy it unsubsidized and then plug in a T-Mobile or AT&T SIM card and run for it.
BlackBerry BIS is down if anybody cares.
Forgot to mention that the SDK is only limited right now since that is the way that Palm released it. Palm could easily open up root access later on just as Apple can easily add more APIs to the SDK. Or you could just wait till someone “jailbreaks” it and allow you to put Android on it.