Sprint has done me good. Got a Sero plan on top of a corporate discount. Allowed me to add some extra SERO lines, and one with Blackberry service. Gave me a free phone swap/upgrade when I complained about problems. I didn't lie or threaten to quit...just persistent. Customer service is the most flexible and willing out of the big 4....also the most time intensive if only because they don't shoot you down outright (or know what they're doing). Productivity is tied to battery life. I don't think the limited resources (ram) problem is that big anymore, but with new phones doing so much, you can easily drain it out in less than 4 hours by doing all the stuff you mention on top of Bluetooth and/or wifi. I'll believe a long battery life out of this phone when I see it. ...Quad core iPhoney? lol, that's nice....
Since this phone is CDMA, I assume Verizon will be next to have it. Any idea when that will be? I'm a T-Mobile guy but am curious.
Yes. Multitasking doesn't mean everything is on the screen at the same time. Other tasks run in the background while you focus on the current task on the screen. You can flip through tasks like cards smoothly without interrupting anything. That's the real significance ... you don't have to abandon what you're doing because you have to attend to something else. Don't have to abandon the game you were playing because a phone call came in, don't need to quit the web browser because you want to switch to a different song. Notifications will not interrupt your current task, they simply appear in a small bar at the bottom of the screen (e.g. while you were surfing the web you got a new message or phone call). You really should watch the hands on video. <object width="437" height="288" id="viddler"><param name="movie" value="http://www.viddler.com/player/c1d8bb69/" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent"/><embed src="http://www.viddler.com/player/c1d8bb69/" width="437" height="288" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowScriptAccess="always" allowFullScreen="true" wmode="transparent" name="viddler" ></embed></object> Indications are that there will be flash, but this has not been confirmed as far as I know.
Since it's currently on Sprint it's isn't GSM or EDGE but it is 3G. Sprint arguably has one of the best data networks and was 3G way before the others. When it goes GSM I'm sure it'll be 3G. (It better) This phone looks great! The more competition the better I say. One downside is that the phone isn't a great platform for games right now. All apps are currently created with HTML, CSS and Javascript, though Palm is planing to push out a more robust framework in the future. Also, it can't take video right now I don't think. Regardless, this phone and OS looks like a hit. From what Ive seen, the OS is well thought out and very intuitive. Can't wait to play with it in person.
There is no flash, they confirmed it on a gizmodo video. AS for multi-tasking Android does that. You can listen to music while, viewing a notification, playing a game a game, browsing the web, etc... As for flash Adobe confirmed it's coming to G1/Android soon, but they can't get Apple to agree to bring it to iphone. If Palm allows it and the Pre becomes successful, I think Adobe might release to palm, too.
Good to see Palm come out with a phone with full internet browsing. Not a big fan of the sliding the phone open but I might have to get this phone.
to all the people asking about muilti-tasking, windows mobile has been able to do this for years, some of the newer devices are way better looking and way more powerful than the iphone or the pre. The only problem with windows mobile is the stigma that its clunky and unintuitive but its not the case with newer devices with better UIs.
Skyfire is as close to full internet browsing on a mobile device. Flash...Javascript... you name it. Eats away a phone's battery though.
So far all I've heard is first half of 2009. I'm going to guess it'll be hitting stores around April. It's not so much that the OS can multitask -- Windows Mobile and OS X can natively do multitasking. The problem has always been giving allowing the *user* to multitask effectively. Even the legacy Palm OS despite not having true native multitasking ability can still play music and check email in the background while you do other stuff ... I do it with my 755p all the time. You can do more stuff here, like say download a track from the music store in the background while chatting with someone, and thanks to the OMAP CPU you can do more than any other smartphone can currently do (they claim 20 simultaneous tasks running quite comfortably). But what's really different about this platform is that it is task-centric rather than app-centric, so it really focuses on letting you do what you want to do instead of just jumping from app to app all the time. An incoming phone call will appear in a small bar at the bottom of the screen without covering the current task you're working on. You can have a chat task card that automatically handles your conversation stream with a person be it through SMS, IM, Facebook etc. and keeps all of them in the same window. So say you were chatting with them through AOL messenger and they went offline, you could just carry on the conversation with SMS. You're no longer concerned about whether you need to open the Facebook app, the SMS app, the Email app, or the IM app to communicate with someone. You just communicate with that person, and the various applications work in the background where they belong.
AOL messenger not a good example...cuz AOL messenger allows for sending and receiving SMS through IM. I've been using windows mobile and AOL messenger for mobile will run in the background (it's excellent for free unlimited SMS thru wifi, btw) .... the only thing that prevents my windows mobile phone (it's a Tmobile Dash) from doing more multitasking is weak CPU and Memory.
Again, this isn't about individual app capabilities -- it's not about "the AIM application has an SMS feature". This is about a task-centric platform that allows different applications to work together so that the user focuses on the task being performed rather than the app they're using. The "synergy" means that a single chat window will handle the Facebook, SMS, AIM, Yahoo, Jabber or any other protocol available transparently. The "apps" (really more like system services) are running in the background, all you see is "chat". Another example is the handling of contacts -- it will automatically integrate your Outlook, Google and Facebook contacts, and it doesn't do it independently or keep separate copies, it just pulls that info dynamically and automatically integrates it for you, so when you look up someone, you will see their Facebook profile pic next to it, and when they change their profile pic, it is automatically updated on your phone. The point is that you have a contact -- it's not about whether it's an "Outlook contact" or a "Gmail contact" or a "Facebook Friend", it's a contact ... and all those sources work in the background to provide you the necessary info. Also the point about the weak CPU is valid -- as far as traditional multitasking goes, as I pointed out previously this phone is able to do "more" because it does have a much more powerful CPU than any of its competitors.
Doh, I get it. You're saying it's designed to handle more multitasking and managing the many different tasks in a more user friendly way. Yeh... Windows mobile not very user friendly with that ... I have to use HTC's task manager to manually shut down tasks ... pain in the butt.
It looks very nice, but I think I'll stick with my Mogul for now. I like the relative freedom of functions, windows mobile, plus the fact that older HTC devices can be used as hi-speed modems with Sprint at no charge (I work in Sprint's tech support dept. I swear to god, either the company doesn't know about this, or they just don't give a damn). It's like having a free data card. I'm actually using one with my laptop right now to post this and download a couple of torrents.
