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!
no, those are palm employees most likely. i’ve seen the kind of people that work at apple, palm, and the like.
As a current Sprint user and am anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Palm Pre. Through the years I have remained a Sprint customer primarily for their competitive service plans and the coverage has always satisfied my needs.
Last year, I eagerly anticipated the arrival of the Instinct and was pleased that I could at least experience an some features like web surfing and texting within a touchscreen environment. I use my iPod touch daily but when my kid wants to use it as a game machine I have been able to somewhat satisfy my needs on the Instinct.
I am hoping that the Palm Pre will allow me to put the iPod touch away and lessen the load that I carry in my pockets everyday.
I have one main concern with the Palm Pre that I am hoping one of the intelligent posters to this website might be able to address. The slide down keyboard is fine but I truly enjoy the touchscreen keyboard that I enjoy with both the iPod touch and the Instinct. I especially appreciate the opportunity to type messages in landscape mode, I need the extra room for my big fingers.
Does any think that Palm will also provide a touchscreen keyboard that will allow for landscape touchscreen input? It seems that this should be easy enough to implement into the software either right out of the gate or sometime in the near future. I spend so much time typing on my iPod touch that a touchscreen landscaped keyboard would be greatly appreciated ok the Palm Pre. I am currently ready to give up the Instinct and move forward, but the only thing that the Instinct does have that the Palm Pre doesn’t is the landscape keyboard.
Palm has said they are not going to make a virtual keyboard for the Pre, but 3rd party developers are free to do so. I would expect one would be available shortly after the release of the phone.
“I really didnt even consider the pre until i saw what it could do. it works the way i think.”
I will be getting the phone as soon as it is available. Am I a fanboy? no. What I am however, is a Sprint user that is sick of their phones. I too hate sprint, but I also hate EVERY cell provider. We all need to understand they ALL suck & try to get as much $ as possible.
If it is no where near to what I imagined it to be, Sprint will take care of me. I need a new phone period -why not try this? If it’s that bad, I will make Sprint bend over backwards to redeem my experience with them – aka I will get a few perks out of it & the next best phone they have available = I win.
How short minded some of you iPhone users are. The next generation iPhone is supposedly capable of ‘cut & paste’. This is a DIRECT response to palm’s Pre. Be thankful it is coming out, because in the end it will make YOUR iphones better. Any buttons Palm Pre pushes for iPhone, they will improve and compete harder. In the end, we all win with better working devices… right?
Yes I did. I wrote it above.
hmmm y is everyone looking one way and these two are looking the other way….seems staged and suspect lol
well said LJ…
and now i’m impatiently waiting!
Maybe I’m the ignorant one here but sprint offers more services for less than At&t not to mention way better network and coverage than tmobile. Yes main difference is that AT&T is GSM so it has the worldwide capabilities but truth is most users are not traveling worldwide and cdma service tends to withstand more here in the us and Puerto Rico. It also depends on the device you have and its capabilities.. I HATE it when ppl compare networks but don’t take into account the phone they had. With my sprint service I went to a town with an older phone and couldn’t get any signal at all. New phone go up there and wam works like a charm no dropped service at all. There’s going to be a huge turn around with sprint and that’s just a matter of time.
ALSO, I WORK for sprint and I can pretty much get that phone to anybody on here whether it’d be shipping it to them when it comes out or coming to the store to see me.. =) (single mother and struggling I need help here!) I honestly haven’t had any training on the Pre as the article states but I’ve been getting some info on my own and haven’t heard anything on a release date but May sounds VERY realistic to me. From what I hear since palm just came out with another phone (the pro) they wanted to give it some time before the next release with the Pre. Hopefully I win whatever contest our store has so I can be the advocate for the pre… =)
I don’t think that’ll be too much of an issue honestly.. It’s going to be easier and more practical to use that keyboard and the instinct vs the pre is a total different universe. You won’t look back!
@Maritza who said: “I HATE it when ppl compare networks but don’t take into account the phone they had. With my sprint service I went to a town with an older phone and couldn’t get any signal at all. New phone go up there and wam works like a charm no dropped service at all. There’s going to be a huge turn around with sprint and that’s just a matter of time”
As do I, in that *every* carrier is challenged with handset-integration prior to its release. However, it is up the infinitely lazy and/or poorly-informed phone-owner to insure the phone maintains pace with network updates. The same issue applies to every carrier equally.
Ok it is official!!! The Pre is Out MAY!!!!!!!!!! I went to the sprint store to get a new touch pro..so let me spill the beans I had the touch pro since it came out and then I heard the Per was coming out in may so somebody gave me tip on how to get a new phone(Touch Pro) from sprint with out using your insurance HOLD ON TO YOUR SEATS! he said put it in the microwave for 3 sec
well it worked got me a brand new one in the box and already sold it for what ever the Pre will possible cost!! Well my point is i have a sero account and only the managers can access my account so as he was setting up my phone i said ” SO Pre March 17?” he laughed because he didn’t expect me to say that and said ya they told us may but no exact date!!!!!
^Thank you for representing Sprint users everywhere. Your honesty is refreshing.
I don’t know who puts their treo through more paces everyday for the last ten years (starting with Palm Pilots) than I. I been waiting and need this Pre, yo.
Walk around Sunnyvale and you can see a lot of Palm employees with their Pres.
are you serious? sprint is the cheapest service provider.. the iphone plan is something like $140. sprints unlimited everythin is $99 which includes phone as a modem, gps, and other things u dont get with at&t or tmobile.. Tmobile is unlimited text and talk for $99 but that doesnt include internet. I know i sell Sprint and Tmobile.
In my opinion Sprint has the best plans. You can get an everything data plan for around $70 and that’s unlimited everything except anytime minutes but your unlimited night minutes start at 7pm. I researched every other company and they suck. Their plans are super expensive for garbage services. For att the least expensive will run you about $75-80 for 5000 minutes and that’s including weekend minutes then you have to pay extra if you get an iphone for the data and extra for text messaging. And let’s not talk about T-mobile garbage plans. Sprint has the best plans to date. Compare them for yourself.