Motley Fool Asks: Is the Pre Dead on Arrival?

Well count me as one user who is planning on switching to Sprint for the Pre. Will not port my number day one, but if there's no issues I will cancel VZW.

Why do all the Appleheads seem worried that the Pre might actually succeed? And who is defining success anyway? Is success beating the iPhone? I think not.

Remember that the competition posed by the Pre is benefiting iPhone users already!! I highly doubt everything now included in the soon to be released iPhone OS 3.0 was originally planned, they are making a concious effort to be more competitive obviously, so stop complaining about another iPhone challenger when you are reaping the rewards. I haven't heard, or seen anything from Palm that even sets it on the same stage as the iPhone (except McNamee, see further down -FYI- he doesn't work for Palm, he is an investor!)

If the Pre is able to prove that WebOS is a good platform, the other phones they currently have in their pipeline will prosper with better features and a more finely tuned piece of hardware. Some smaller, others without physical keyboards and added other features. This is something the iPhone doesn't offer-- flexibility and variety(it's the spice of life!) in the hardware.

Wouldn't it be neat if there was a smaller iPhone? or one with a slide-out keyboard? How about one that had tactile buttons for more of a gaming phone?

Has anyone tried using the Nintendo emulator on their iPhone? It's awesome! but it would be wayyyy more awesome if there were a directional pad (maybe slide out?) and a couple buttons on the opposite side with some other buttons on the edge of the phone similar to the 'L' and 'R' buttons on the super nintendo controller.

What I am trying to say here is that why not give more options instead of simply what the screen and OS have to offer--the shell in which all of that lives can offer more appeal for certain uses maybe one is more of gaming style case where the other is like a camera with shutter buttons built in-- maybe one is really compact and it operates more like a flip phone where the screen folds in half on hinges..... its like Audi and Volkswagen- they take pretty much all of the same powertrains and put them in different cars to do different things.

The one thing Palm is great at, is making phones. The hardware on their previous phones are quite great but obviously using an old OS that is in dire need of a new polish. Management has had a wake up call and I think we will be seeing the next era in smartphones/computers in the very near feature from all of these companies including Palm(even Garmin!). This competition is healthy why do so many people on here hate on everything but Apple? It's scary! Communist even!

If you think about it, aside from being able to write programs efficiently and run super intense graphic editing and animation/multimedia software-- these smart phones can pretty much do anything you or I would typically do on a computer and probably accounts for what 99% of what the average person does on a computer. To have that power in your hands is truly amazing.

After Adobe flash implements the mobile versions adapted for the new OSes (iPhone, Android, WebOS, etc.) there won't be much more to add when it comes to a browsing experience. That is pretty much all I do unless I am running Photoshop! (heck maybe even the new Photoshop express website could be accessed on the phone after the flash adaptation is done)
I wouldn't be surprised if MS Silverlight is adapted as well.

So anyway, back to my original point. If the Pre sells a good number to existing Sprint users (like myself) who have been waiting for a phone that can actually do this stuff easily (better than WinMos and Palms OS and standard Ghettoberries) and also attract some people away from T-Mobile and Verizon (please... the Storm? that phone is sad) they will be in good shape. Roger McRetard spouting nonsense about every iPhone user leaving their phone is just that... nonsense, I'm glad he doesn't work for Palm and is only an Investor.... That said, there will be a number of 1st gen iPhone users that will realize they can get a new phone for a lot less a month after being stuck in a 2 year contract with an outdated iPhone and go with the Pre, many will upgrade to an iPhone3G or whatever the new one will be.

For example, my wife and I have an Unlimited Data, Text, GPS, Video, and Picture plan through Sprint with 1600 shared minutes (we never get close to going over), mobile to mobile (obviously!), free nights after 7pm (isn't everywhere else like 9pm?! geez I do most of my talking after 7pm but before 9pm) and free weekends. What do we pay? 110 per month total... not each, but total. After taxes it's like 115-- my buddy and his wife have iPhones and their bill is pretty hefty. The plan I have is indeed compatible with the Pre.

These numbers don't add up at all.

1) At launch (and right now, for that matter), the iPhone suffers from the same kind of problems the Pre does, vis a vis the carrier issue. And last time I checked (someone correct me if I'm wrong, of course...) the only way you could get an iPhone that was GSM was to jailbreak it. As far as "affordable plans" go, since when did the iPhone have an inexpensive plan? That's been one of the complaints about the iPhone since Day 1.

I'm not about to predict that all Pres will be sold out in a week. There are certainly going to be a lot of iPhone users who won't switch, simply because they bought their phones too recently, and don't want to incur the penalties of breaking their contracts. But that 4% number seems very low to me, on its face. To believe that, you'd have to believe that most of the people reporting on and talking about the Pre are just lying about their interest.

And the other thing about the survey that you'll notice is that it was released in March. What would the survey - even given the methodology - look like now that the Classic emulator has been announced? I would expect the numbers to look much better, if only because the lack of an emulator was holding a lot of Palm users back.

I think the article raises some valid points. I know I was excited when the Pre was announced, but then shortly thereafter my excitement dissipated to certain extent. I have two primary concerns, the first being lack of storage. 8 GB sounds like a lot, but I'm used to 16 GB on either my iPhone or my WM device? The fact Palm has limited this to 8GB and not allowed for storage cards is a huge issue. For me 16 GB is the minimum on a "Smart Phone". The cloud is still far too unreliable for my liking.

My other concern is that we really haven't heard a lot about available applications at launch. My personal preference is to have lot's of applications and games available on my phone and we still don't know what kind of options we'll have at launch.

I think Web OS has a lot of potential, but much like Android before it, I'm concerned it's not going to meet enough of my needs at launch to persuade me to change.

I hate to say it but Palm seems to be starting down the old familiar path of holding back on memory and/or features so they can release a 2nd model and get everyone to buy twice. I think this is a huge mistake when they need to make a splash, not only meeting the competition, but leapfrogging it. At this point, if they don't sell the first model, it's likely there won't be a 2nd.

Generally, I like The Motley Fool and have learned quite a bit from the website and its online community. But I can't help suspecting that a little "payback" might be at work here. I used to have a subscription to TMF's investing newsletter and will never forget the rosy, even euphoric, predictions of Palm's future several years ago. The newsletter pushed Palm hard as great stock buy. Well, we all remember how that turned out. Having been burned badly before, I'm not surprised at these remarks from TMF. Take 'em with a big boulder of salt and consider the possibility of a bias against Palm.

TMF surveyed "smart-phone users", I don't know how many but I would guess that not only are a lot of them fanboys of their partcular phone, Palm Pre isn't about 4000 people that TMF surveyed.

First time smartphone buyers in a market that is exploding (hense first time buyers). I guess we just have to wait and see...

The Pre may be better than any iPhone released or any Blackberry invented, and that'll carry them for a few months, but ironically, the hardware just opens a door (which Palm has NEVER walked through before).

Palm's initial success was because they built a better PDA. They relied on early adopters to push the platform, but their marketing ALWAYS SUCKED!! They never understood how to get past just pleasing the early adopters, and having them push the product. Ultimately Palm lost their way and stopped being the innovative leader and tried to compete with platforms and products that were following their initial lead into the space. And they never learned to market like a leader!

Apple's initial failure (the Newton) in the PDA space was because they built a product with lots of cool features, but it wasn't nearly as clever, simple, compatible, and obviously usable as the early adopters could see that the Palm was.

Palm set the stage for the huge and growing PDA market and then they (arguably with RIM in a big role) set the pace in the smartphone handset market. In the earliest days, with a quality smartphone product (ironically they had to buy their spinoff company Handspring to get the Treo lifeline) they again set the pace and marketing once again got a pass, while the mobile carriers did the legwork for Palm's marketing team.

There is a window of opportunity for the Pre because the Blackberry (to a degree) and the iPhone to a much larger degree, both have shortcomings that Palm understands and can capitalize on. I am convinced that the Palm Pre will be an amazing device and that many of the early adopter types will jump on board. BUT...

When Palm is finally enjoying their brief Pre success, will they take full advantage of the newfound geek love and convert it to mainstream love?

Palm finally tapped Apple talent to develop this last, best hope for resurgence on the hardware side. Will Palm see that ALL past marketing efforts have been worthless and that they need to follow Apple's marketing lead as well?

The Pre doesn't just need to be better hardware with better implementation. The Pre needs to capture the hearts and minds of THE MAINSTREAM and not just a few geeks who read spec sheets and care about which processor or OS is on board. Palm needs "cool" waaaay more than just a better device, and that comes from marketing!

I was planning the jump, but if I can't use my SERO plan, I am not so sure.

I think I will hold on to my 755p, for a little bit before I run out and grab the pre. My primary concern is the bugs it will have on the launch date. I don't think a non Verizon device will hurt at all, once the Vzw customers jump ship they will find a far better network along with better customer service with Sprint.