Comments on: HP Reaffirms webOS Smartphone Intentions

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1. Is the backlight bleed-thru as bad as some reviews have said?

2. Any issues with the capacative touch buttons (home, search, menu, back) below the screen being overly sensitive? The ones on my Droid are very easily triggered.

3. Initial thoughts on the PIMs compared to Garnet? Did any of your contact fields or categories get corrupted in the Palm Desktop to Outlook to Gmail transition? Any issues yet with something started in Sense not migrating over to the Gmail cloud? Did all of your carefully calculated plans of PIM data migration + FTP access work the way you planned?

4. Any issues with the phone app dialing extra digital (for example, let's say I have 5 phone numbers listed for Person X: home 1, home 2, mobile, work 1, and work 2. With Garnet I could add a note in the phone number field such as "Home: 111-555-2222 (beach house) or something. But Android attempts to dial the 111-555-2222 number plus the numeric equivalents for b-e-a-c-h-h-o-u-s-e. Very annoying.

5. Does the protruding camera lens look as if it could be easily scratched? That's my one worry. The boss' HD2 has already got some scuffs on the lens after <2 months' of use.

6. Does the kickstand seem like a nice inclusion or a silly novelty? I think I'd rather have seen the space used for a larger capacity battery.

7. Is the camera fairly usable? I've seen sample stills & videos online and they range from very good to fairly lame.
8. I think I recall you saying you played with the HD2 in a T-Mob store a while back. Does the Evo feel just as well-built as the HD2?

9. Does the lack of a d-pad or trackball bother you at all so far? Does the touchscreen seem dead-on accurate? My Droid started to "drift" after about 6-8 weeks and there's no way to calibrate it. Sometimes it's wildly inaccurate, something it's overly sensitive and other times it's just fine. Reminds me of the old T|T days. I'm also curious as to real-world battery life after you've had a few days wth it (since I'd say your usage habits are probably rather similar to mine).

10. Just out of curiosity, what Sprint package do you have ? The $100 Simply Everything plan? I am seriously thinking about jumping ship in the coming months if Verizon doesn't bring out a very strong Android device w/ a real keyboard.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid + Verizon Palm Centro

touchscreen is very sensitive and accurate so far.

Evo 4G: 4.3" 480x800 LCD with hardware acceleration, 1Ghz CPU, 1GB internal storage + 32GB memory card support (8GB card standard), HDMI output and a reasonably fast, modern OS. And a kickstand too!

Be patient, sir. I am sure an Android solution for DiVX/XVID will come along eventually. The platform is approaching such critical mass that it HAS to "grow up" eventually!

BTW, I fondled an Archos 5 tablet the other day and it felt horribly cheap and plasticky (but still has nice specs for the price)! The screen sensitivity and accuracy left a lot to be desired as well. I think Dell is going to end up being champ in the 5" screen category...but I still say 5" is the odd size out. Too big for yer pocket and too small to be a good PMP! 7"+ is the sweet spot.

The Evo will NOT become a footnote thanks to AT&T's recent pricing shenanigans. Aside from potential battery life, camera lens scratch, and no optical d-pad (all easily addressible if HTC feels it necessary in a 12-month refresh), it's the first "no glaring deficiency" smartphone to hit the market.

Also, Apple pulling a Palm and going backwards in screen size while still refusing to even give us a microSDHC slot or a user-replacable battery isn't helping matters much. iPhone will continue to lead the industry but eventually Jobs will have to dump AT&T for greener pastures if Android keeps gaining momentum at its current rate. Android still has a LONG way to go but even I must admit that its rate of improvements & adoption over the past 8-9 months has been staggering.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid + Verizon Palm Centro

No. I saw two posters for it. About as close as I expect to come to it.

TOMORROW, new iPhone. Your EVO will become a footnote again.

Gekko wrote:
So have any of you played with an EVO yet? I'm posting from it now. 24+ hours since purchase and it keeps getting better. Go check it out! Give it a little time to get used to a whole new modern OS but the hardware software and web integration is truly awesome. And the ability to customize your experience in so many ways is head spinning.

I played with it today at a Sprint store downtown. Very sweet hardware. I did some side by side comparison tests with my Palm Pre and even though my Pre is overclocked to 800MHz, the EVO beat it quite handily. Sprint did its usual bang up job by putting an black zip tie across the lower middle of the screen so it was hard to test the virtual keyboard but given that handicap, I really liked typing on the EVO keyboard.

Having said that, I found myself wishing the EVO had webOS. The Pre's UI just flows better than Android's. One annoying little quirk is that the EVO model that I played with would only switch from portrait to landscape if I turned it counterclockwise which wouldn't normally be problem except that the ugly black zip tie made the clockwise turn less convenient. My Pre on the other hand, will switch orientations in whichever direction I turn it - clockwise, counterclockwise, or upside down.

But overall a very nice piece of hardware.
Fool/Palm Apologist
Shouting down the PIC Faithful Since 2009
Screw convergence
Palm III->Visor Deluxe->Visor Platinum->Visor Prism->Tungsten E->Palm LifeDrive->Palm TX->Palm Pre
Visor Pro+VisorPhone->Treo 180g->Treo 270->Treo 600->Treo 680->T-Mobile G1->Palm Pre
http://mind-grapes.blogspot.com/

Gekko wrote:
that putz Ruby and the apologists all blamed Sprint. If you build a good phone they will come.no excuses.

That's one theory. My theory is that perhaps Sprint finally learned a lesson about arbitrarily disabling features. The Pre for example, like the EVO, is perfectly capable of acting as a wifi hotspot, a feature which stodgy, old Verizon actively promoted when they finally got the Pre. Sprint on the other hand disabled this feature along with any kind of tethering that was not purchased as an expensive add-on.

http://www.prethinking.com/home/2009/6/15/sprint-warns-against-palm-pre-tethering-hacking.html

And the Palm Pixi didn't even have wifi until it got to Verizon.

All this proves is that Sprint has never had a decent selling phone until now and all those failures can't be someone else's fault. Sprint has to share in the blame.
Fool/Palm Apologist
Shouting down the PIC Faithful Since 2009
Screw convergence
Palm III->Visor Deluxe->Visor Platinum->Visor Prism->Tungsten E->Palm LifeDrive->Palm TX->Palm Pre
Visor Pro+VisorPhone->Treo 180g->Treo 270->Treo 600->Treo 680->T-Mobile G1->Palm Pre
http://mind-grapes.blogspot.com/

Gekko wrote:

tethering? wow that's a stretch. come up with some better excuses please. maybe you and Beersie can uncover the conspiracy behind the Fooleo debacle too. maybe the CIA was behind it?

Just one example of how Sprint has traditionally undermined itself. Whether it's by limiting access to low-cost plans like SERO or by limiting advanced features like tethering, Sprint has traditionally shot itself in the foot almost as much Palm has with the Foleo debacle being only one of many examples.
Fool/Palm Apologist
Shouting down the PIC Faithful Since 2009
Screw convergence
Palm III->Visor Deluxe->Visor Platinum->Visor Prism->Tungsten E->Palm LifeDrive->Palm TX->Palm Pre
Visor Pro+VisorPhone->Treo 180g->Treo 270->Treo 600->Treo 680->T-Mobile G1->Palm Pre
http://mind-grapes.blogspot.com/

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH and HAHAHAHAHAHAHA and HAHAHAHAHAHAAH too.

No gyroscope for you!

Con -

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/06/07/by-the-numbers-the-iphone-4-vs-evo-4g/

I can link a weekly event like a conference call to Hong Kong's timezone and the time will shift relative to the new timezone so a 10 am call in HK will become 7 pm the day before when I am on the West Coast. GREAT. However, if I want to meet someone at 4 pm on Thursday when I am in Seattle, I can just put the time in at 4 pm on Thursday w/o any timezone link (Palm's default) and the event stays at 4 pm Thursday even when I change the clock from Hong Kong's time to Seattle's. Whoever added this feature to Palm's calendar knew what they were doing. I tried a Nokia for a week but a change in the phone's clock/date shifted EVERY event in my calendar (a disaster) so I went back to Palm. Even my PC running Outlook 2003 shifts all events so I keep the PC's clock set at Hong Kong time regardless of where I am. This may sound like a trivial matter but it is a deal breaker for me. Every calendar app should have this feature (if any developers are reading....).

Thanks again for the Android updates.....feedback coming from a Palm user is very useful for us who are still clinging to Garnet.

this has my head spinning. i think my ADD kicked in.

not sure what Android does and i'm afraid to test this for fear of putting all my calendar events on Hong Kong time or worse. go play with an EVO with an open mind.

1) Apple
2) Gyroscope
3) Killer screen
4) Apple
5) Apple

You just feel like your pants are on the ground because your EVO is already sooooo obsolete. LMAO.

NEXT!

>>>The battery life is abysmal – MobileCrunch calls it a "dealbreaker" and I agree. Yes you can do a few things to get a little extra time out of it, but this device routinely runs out of power while sitting on standby overnight next to my bed.

>>>And all this software trying to work together and in layers really does result in lots of bugs – particularly with photos. Quite often they fail to save and you have to reboot the device.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

BTW, I know you've been interested in CorePlayer and here's a very good explanation from the creators themselves as to why no Android version has yet appeared:
http://forum.corecodec.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=2885

Still not imminent due to issues with Android itself.

Archos does it by ignoring Android altogether and writing native code for the hardware. Hell, I wish other device makers would do that! I'm really shocked HTC didn't do it for the EVO or even another device.

And that told you all you needed to know about battery life, huh? Eejit.

2. real world 4G is 10X faster than 3G.

3. Android OS is so much more open and flexible than the iPhone. you're in a closed lock proprietary walled garden at the mercy of Apple. no thanks.

4. Removable storage with accessible file system? Replaceable battery? maybe not deal-breakers but certainly nice to have.

5. Android's tight integration with Gmail and the Cloud is a huge selling point.

6. the EVO's 4.3" display blows everything else away. size does matter. i can't go back.

7. every lard ass and their brother has an iPhone today. i like to have something different.

You might appreciate this. Very few people have traditionally purchased "full retail price" CDMA handsets here in the States. However, with the rapid rollout of new handsets, I am hearing about more people upgrading every 6-8 months and selling their previous handset to offset the purchase price of a new unit.

I found it rather interesting that the full retail price of the Evo 4G is "only" $450, vs. $599 for an HTC Incredible. That's a historically low price for a full-featured CDMA smartphone, much less a flagship device! Previously $400 would get you a new Verizon Pixi Plus or something in that neighborhood.

So I think that Sprint and/or HTC are really trying to get a lot of users who may have purchaed a Palm Pre sometime in the past 12 months to dump it and jump on the Evo bandwagon if they are ineligible for a contract extension and subsidized handset.

P.S. Gekko, to me, removable storage is very important and a replaceable battery is an absolute MUST. You'll find, as Mr. Cane likes to remind us, that Android devices generally have shitty battery life. I have one Droid battery in my phone, another in the desktop charger and another one in my travel bag 'just in case'.

The 4.3" screen is nice but at 800x480 I think 4.0" or 4.1" is going to be the new sweet spot. 4.3" honestly begs for something more along the lines of the iPhone 4's higher resolutions.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid + Verizon Palm Centro

Did you see how The Cloud exposed all the AT&T data from iPad 3G owners? This is Your Future, Gekko. You can't get around that UDID like you can with Chrome's Incognito mode for your pr0n!

Con - yes you are correct - i'm always just one drunken night away from a stripper/hooker/con artist stealing my phone from me. ironically, often i spend more on booze etc. in one night than the phone is worth. sad yes i know.

- 3:18am EST.

i'm not a wannabe literary pseudo-intellectual like your faux twitter friends.

We never did see any big announcements about "X million" of either Pre or Pixi being sold, have we?

And I have yet to see either phone in the wild.

Still: iPhone, Sidekick (or SK-like phones, hard to tell nowadays), Berry, and a rare stray Droid.

maybe you should have laid off the drugs back in the 80's?????????????