Tag Archives: pre

I’m still on the quest to replace my v1.0 iPhone with something that is not from AT&T. Finding a new mobile phone is really a pain.

So far, I’ve test driven several phones for Verizon:

• Blackberry Tour: Thumbs up. It’s a great phone, but missing wi-fi. Full review coming within the week.
• HTC Ozone: Thumbs up, but I had some minor issues. Full review coming early next week.
• LG EnV Touch: Thumbs down. This phone was unable to sync with the contacts and calendar on my Mac or even with my Google Contacts / Calendar. While it does offer a sync for PC / Outlook users, for me the phone was rendered useless.
• HTC Touch Diamond: Thumbs down. As a Windows Mobile device, it wouldn’t sync with my Mac, but it would sync with Google. However, I found this phone incredibly non-intuitive. I let my techie husband play with it for a few days. When even he found it non-intuitive, I gave up.
• Samsung Omnia: Thumbs down. Another Windows Mobile device, it synced easily with my Google information. Once I turned off what I found to be an annoying home screen overlay and returned to just a basic Windows Today screen, this was a fairly easy to use phone. However, the battery life was exceedingly poor, dying within 5 hours of light to normal use (including occasional email checking and 2 short phone calls).

As for T-Mobile, I’m unable to get their PR rep to respond to me. It does irritate me when I receive press releases about a product – in this case the MyTouch – yet am unable to get my hands on the device. Note to PR folks everywhere: if I can’t get my hands on the application or gadget you’re promoting to me, I can’t review it for the blog.

Like T-Mobile, Sprint hasn’t acknowledged my attempts at contact. That’s a shame, because the Pre is still my number 1 choice for a phone  – if I had to buy one right this minute. I visited a local Sprint store on Sunday and spoke with a sales rep who obviously loved his Pre. He had no problem, once he realized I had a clue, talking to me about various hacks and homebrew applications, as well as what features I could add/turn on/turn off on the phone. He didn’t once try to outright sell me – he just showed me how he used his Pre – and that was effective in itself.

However, I’m very aware that the Motorola Sholes / Android 2.0 phone will be coming to Verizon at the end of October (according to the Internets). It may be the phone that keeps me away from the Pre. In the meantime, I also hope to get my hands on test devices of the Samsung Rogue and Intensity (Verizon), to let you know how those phones stack up to other smartphones and enhanced multimedia devices on the market.

After all, why should I buy a phone right now when the holiday-release phones are just around the corner?

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Today you get a post expressing my absolute anger and frustration at AT&T Wireless.

It’s no secret I’m no fan of their service, considering I can’t use my phone in my house or really on my street. Suburban Cincinnati is obviously a No-Service-Area for them. But my upcoming trip to Alaska has me really frustrated. According to the coverage map, I’ll have no service in the cities we’ll be visiting, although my husband’s Sprint phone will be fine. (Verizon also covers our locations.)

I will be gone for two of the next 6 weeks in a place with no AT&T service. My contract ends in only 6 weeks. My early termination fee? $175. I’ll tell you what – it’s almost worth it.

But here’s the real kicker. I contracted with AT&T 4 years ago when I got my Blackberry. The service was Cingular and was excellent, actually. I never had a problem. When I got the Gen 1 iPhone in 2007, I stayed as Cingular morphed into AT&T. And my service degraded exponentially.

If I’d purchased a phone from AT&T last May, I would then be offered a pro-rated Early Termination Fee, which at this point would be around $20 or so. But since I’ve been a long-time customer, I’m punished. No pro-rating for me, which makes absolutely no sense in my head. According to the Customer Service rep, I didn’t ask for that contract. What? Can I have it now? No.

I’ve talked to 3 different Customer Service reps today, all of whom were very used to angry customers and none of whom really cared nor offered to try to change anything. Shouldn’t an angry customer be worth helping? Even if I’m considering leaving, don’t they want the good customer service karma from making things easy? If it was easy, I’d tell the world about the great service I received from AT&T and maybe come back earlier when I had iPhone envy. Instead, I’m telling the world how horrible they are.

Of course, I have always felt that providers should offer to pay at least half of the ETF when you’re switching. For instance, I really want to take a Palm Pre with me to Alaska, but I can’t afford all the new fees from Sprint, plus the phone, plus $175 to AT&T. Sprint should run a special that covers half of the ETF when you switch. That would actually help drive business, I would think, especially since Sprint needs the business. I’ve never understood why carriers don’t offer some sort of ETF package to encourage switching.

Of course, I don’t understand why AT&T is punishing me for being a long-time customer either. Any way you look at it, I end up a bit screwed.

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The Pre has landed. Well, not for me – I do not have my hands on one of these things and it’s killing me. I can’t wait to give up my iPhone. But even though I don’t have it, a bunch of other folks do. The reviews are pretty good over all, but there’s a caveat. As awesome as the Pre is today, how will it stand up to the new and improved iPhone that I assume will be released in July?

• Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal
• David Pogue at the New York Times
• Edward Baig at USA Today
• Joshua Topolsky‘s excellent and in-depth Engadget review
• Ginny Mies Macworld/PCworld

People seem to like it, with the iPhone caveat of course. The biggest downsides seem to be Sprint as a carrier (although Sprint is better than AT&T in my area) and the lack of apps available at launch / clunky App Store. The App issues will hopefully change and other carriers will most likely be carrying the Pre by early 2010.

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by Michelle Lentz

It’s official! Palm has announced that the Pre will make its debut on June 6th, just a couple of days before the big Apple WWDC keynote.

The Palm Pre will be sold in Sprint stores, Best Buy, Radio Shack, select Wal-Mart stores and online at Sprint.com with a $199.99 price tag. That price requires a a two-year service agreement and is after a $100 mail-in rebate (So I suppose you’re shelling out $300).

You have your choice of Sprint’s Everything Data plan or the Business Essentials with Messaging and Data plan. The wireless Touchstone charging station for the Pre (not required – it comes with a wired charger) will also be available on June 6. The Touchstone kit will be sold for $69.99 or you can buy the individual pieces for $49.99 (charger) and $19.99 (back cover for the Pre).

Now I just have to cross my fingers that the Pre lives up to my very high expectations. Rumor has it that they aren’t going to have a whole lot of Pres on hand, thereby creating demand after a sell-out. Well, my AT&T contract is up in August. I hope the kinks are worked out of the OS and the phone is in stock by then because I really want (need?) a Palm Pre.

Oh yeah. And I hope it works with my Mac.

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by Michelle Lentz

There’s a fair amount of buzz about the Palm Pre launch and when it might actually occur. You see, the closer we get to June, the closer we get to the iPhone 3.0 announcement, which will turn all the blogs into all-iPhone-all-the-time. Based on previous years, it will again be all-iPhone-all-the-time in July when the new iPhone launches. (I’m sort of glad I’ll be on vacation in July.)

By continually avoiding release date talk, other than “first half of 2009,” Palm seriously risks losing a lot of marketing time to the latest iPhone launch. Apparently, a lot of folks expected the Pre to launch last week. The next guesstimated date is May 17. Mid-may would at least give Palm a couple weeks of attention before all eyes shift to Apple.

Both Palm and Sprint need the Pre to help revive their flagging businesses. According to AdAge, Sprint & Palm have enough problems without creating new ones:

Survey results released by ChangeWave last week suggest that the Pre will have to deal with Sprint’s image problem as a second-tier carrier with poor customer service. In a survey of 4,292 cellphone owners, 17% said Sprint is the top reason they will not consider the Pre. Incidentally, the same percentage said they won’t buy an iPhone because of AT&T. But Sprint is no AT&T. It’s struggling to keep its 49 million customers, while its bigger rival is growing its 77 million subscriber base.

I fall into that latter category by the way, I’m itching to get my hands on a Palm Pre and leave my horrid AT&T service (and equally bad customer service) behind. AT&T is apparently a little worried too – and they’re just good sales people. An internal AT&T document has leaked that provides talking points on how the iPhone is better than the Palm Pre. I would beg to differ with a couple of the points, but at least AT&T has talking points. I have my fingers crossed that, upon release, Sprint sales folks can tell me how the Pre is better than my iPhone and how to effectively sync the Pre with my Mac.

A recent post by 24/7 Wall Street lists Palm as one of the 12 brands most likely to disappear in the next year, partially because of its partnership with Sprint.

Recent research shows that almost no one who owns an Apple (AAPL) iPhone or RIM (RIMM) Blackberry will switch to the new smartphone, so Palm will have to essentially expand the market to get share for its new device during a recession.  The “Pre” will also be sold exclusively though Sprint (S), the No.3 cellular carrier in the US which has been losing subscribers consistently for more than two years. The launch of the “Pre” is a disaster in the making.  … The bottom line is that Palm has no chance of getting an even modest part of the smartphone market in a severe economic downturn since it competes with two of the premier technology companies in the world—Apple and RIM. Palm won’t be in business in a year.

Palm is expected to drive the advertising and has hired Modernista for the campaign. (Modernista did the “Skittles thing” before Skittles did.) But I wouldn’t put Sprint out for advertising either. One of my favorite commercials at the moment, one that I’ll stop the DVR and watch, is the new Sprint commercial with the 3-D Twitter birds, some humor, and the shot of the Pre at the end.

What do you think Palm and Sprint’s chances are?

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