The Pre2 Has Arrived
October 19th, 2010, 7:55pm by KelvinTo copy a post I saw elsewhere:
Via Engadget
and PreCentral:
1 Ghz, 5 Megapixel camera, glass screen, webOS 2.0. Should be arriving soon.
My comment:
In the pantheon of Palm hardware refreshes, where does this stand? I think it’s a bigger deal than the Claudia Schiffer version of the Palm V, but it’s not as dramatic as when Palm lopped off the antenna for the Treo 680. Seriously, not adding focusing/spot metering in the camera is a big disappointment, the extra 2 MP notwithstanding. I can forgive the lack of a compass and the lack of screen resolution bump, but would have wanted to see it thinner. Oh well. Pretty much what we’ve come to expect from Palm.
October 19th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
The Pre 2 is definitely not the big news. webOS 2.0 looks solid, Engadget gave it a stellar review… and noted that if HP/Palm bring the Pre 2 knife to the Android/ iPhone gunfight.
October 19th, 2010 at 11:19 pm
I understand that some choices with the new Pre may have been difficult to make for various reasons, but some seem pretty arbitrary. I didn’t realize that there was no spot focusing on the camera — how much would that have added to the cost? Same with 802.11n. I’m nit dying for these particular features, but it sort of seems like HP didn’t really try to make an awesome phone. Even if webOS is great, it’s a huge risk to launch it on outdated hardware.
People are saying it’s what the Pre Plus should have been, but I think it may even be behind the state of the art of that time. Why isn’t Palm either (a) rocking this by releasing something great, or (b) waiting until they have something truly awesome to launch? The Pre, while not exactly earth shattering spec-wise, was at least unique in its form factor. It’s not like time is really of the essence with this launch — people who were in a hurry to get a great phone left long ago, it’s just the webOS diehards who are still around. And this is how their loyalty is rewarded?
October 19th, 2010 at 11:41 pm
This is a placeholder device… Palm didn’t even have a press conference, no big launch. Seems like a nice alternative to doing nothing.
As noted earlier, webOS really does rock, and 2.0 looks like a substantial step forward. The hardware is holding it back. My take is that the Pre still has its fans, and this is a refinement of that model… but it’s not the flagship. As I said to Kelvin on the phone, I think it’s the best mid-range smartphone on the market– it stacks up nicely vs. the iPhone 3G S and the less heralded Android devices.
Palm needs a hero phone, and this isn’t it. It better get here in January. I might even consider an upgrade, but I really want the 4G for reasons that probably don’t even exist. A focusing camera would be nice. I’d prefer a bigger screen, but it’s OK. Thinner would be better. Screen resolution is fine for a 3.1″ device. I’ll twiddle my thumbs until January. Interesting to note that Palm prompted a massive (by Palm standards) show of support on the Sprint page for a next-gen webOS device. Hard to believe Sprint is still selling the Pre, 21 months after its much heralded introduction, as their best webOS handset.
http://www.facebook.com/sprint
October 19th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
Well, Palm didn’t have a press conference to debut the OS either, meaning they don’t think that’s such a big deal either then, right? I would agree with them. It’s not a particularly huge forward on the software side either. Probably the biggest addition is Flash :).
October 20th, 2010 at 12:28 am
They had a pretty big event when they introduced webOS 2.0 developer edition, as far as those things go.
October 20th, 2010 at 1:42 am
I don’t remember Palm even issuing a press release when they made the 2.0 SDK available. They did a preview in April of some of the 2.0 features for a dev conference, is that what you are talking about? The last time Palm had a real public unveiling-type event was CES, when they announced Flash for webOS :). Maybe this is the way HP wants to do business now, but it’s pretty low-key compared to the dog-and-pony show we get from Google and Apple whenever they have major OS updates.