Will the Pre be Palm’s Tonic?

I got thinking about the Palm Pre the other day and started wondering if it will be enough to save Palm.

First let me say that I think the Pre is great and is certainly going to be a successful product on its own but I would think it would have to be a smashing success to keep a whole company afloat. Yes, Palm still has the Treo Pro and Centro but those have not been anywhere near hot enough to get Palm out of its financial hole despite the number of units they have sold.

The argument of whether the Pre is going to be better than the iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Phone or Nokia is not the question here. There is no doubt that many will prefer the Pre and as such will buy one. But the Pre would need to be a runaway commercial success and I don’t think that it will.

Most of the buzz for the Pre has been coming from people that know about mobile phones. They can see that much of what Palm has done has been a very nice evolutionary step for smartphones, especially for social networking smartphones. They understand how different those things are from current offerings and are able to decide whether they will buy one or not. Still, many of these mobile enthusiasts will just take a wait-and-see approach because they already have a smartphone that works just fine.

So, who will buy the Pre? Will it convert the faithful from the iPhone? Will it erode Windows Phone sales? Is the Blackberry is danger of losing some of its momentum? Or will it draw in an all new crowd of feature phone users that are ready to upgrade to the big time?

All of the above platforms are going to have some defectors, but again, Pre needs to be a very big success to keep Palm alive. Let’s take a look at each of the above.

First, iPhone: I highly doubt we are going to see a lot of people dropping their iPhones for the Pre. The iPhone will do most of what the Pre will do and the iPhone has some kind of Voodoo hold on its user’s minds. Most are white-knuckling their iPhones and will not let go for anything. Plus, with 3.0 coming out they have more functionality to play with. I just don’t think there will be a lot of people walking out of the iPhone camp.

Windows Mobile users: I can see Pre actually stealing a lot of the Windows Phone users. WM users tend to be less emotionally tied to the OS than iPhone users; it’s more about functionality. If the Pre can do everything WM can then it is not a hard decision. Unfortunately for the Palm they are really targeting consumers and not business users with the Pre. There are bound to be a lot of WM users that will consider the Pre to be only for social networking despite this not being the case. Plus, WM come in MANY different shapes and sizes while the Pre is only coming out in one form (unless the Palm Eos is real).

Blackberry: Nope. I just don’t see this affecting Blackberry sales much at all. Blackberry phones are like cockroaches (is it possible to mean that in a good way?), they can survive anything!

Feature and regular cellphone users: Sure, there will be a good number that decide to make the move up and get a Pre but I still doubt the numbers are going to be significant enough. Many just want their phone to be phones and don’t want the added expense of a data plan.

The bottom line is that the Pre has a chance of keeping Palm alive but I think it is a pretty slim one. It’s going to be a fantastic phone but I doubt it is going to be enough for Palm’s ultimate survival. If Palm was to follow up the Pre with a number of new form factors they would potentially be able to create enough momentum to make it through but that takes money and erodes the profitability of the Pre itself.

Honestly, I hope I am wrong. I was a Palm user all the way back to the III and used to write a guide to sales software for Palm. I would love to see them survive and bring out more products like the Pre. I just can’t help but think that they will end up being bought out by someone else. That isn’t all bad as long as they can remain intact as a group in order to continue to advance the platform, but only time will tell if that future is autonomous for Palm.

Excuse Me, That’s a Nice Looking Phone

Over the weekend I spent some time at a birthday party for a friend’s son. Through all the noise and commotion I spotted another Dad playing a game on his i-mate device. It’s not uncommon to see parents with their face buried in their mobile device at these events. However, I don’t often see people with i-mate devices. I’m seeing more and more Windows Mobile, but not so much with i-mate. So I figured that this person was either a hardcore i-mate fan, or a Windows Mobile fan who just happens to have settled on the i-mate PDAL device. Either way, I decided to talk with him and see how he liked Windows Mobile and i-mate.

I asked him how he liked that phone because I don’t see many of those around here. I even pulled out my BlackJack II so he could see that I am also a Windows Mobile user and hopefully jump right into a nice geek conversation about mobility. Ha! What really surprised me was that he didn’t really understand that he was running Windows Mobile. In fact, he didn’t even know the name. Now, a lot of people don’t know the Windows Mobile name. But someone running i-mate hardware is typically more aware of the OS than the average user who picked out the device from the carriers line-up. This person went on to tell me how great it is because he can open Excel documents on his device. Which clearly tells me that he didn’t understand that my device, although different in looks, runs the same OS.

What I’ve been trying to figure out since then is if this was a problem with him not understanding that Windows Mobile runs on numerous different devices? Or was it more that my device looked too “BlackBerry-ish” so he took one look and figured I was using a BlackBerry based device and felt the need to tell me why his was so great? Both of these are growing problems. So much so, that Microsoft is now calling Windows Mobile devices “Windows Phones” (the actual OS name will still remain Windows Mobile) in hopes that people will better connect with the OS of the device. I’m not sure that this will help people better understand that their Moto Q is running the same OS as the BlackJack II, or that the HTC Diamond is running the same as the Samsung Omnia. Both HTC and Samsung are doing their part to build iconic devices. Microsoft needs to do their part to take their OS to a new level and educate the consumer about Windows Mobile. What do you say Microsoft? Are your product and marketing team up to the challenge?

Invasion of the Feature Phone!

Have you noticed the number of feature phones increasing lately? More importantly, have you noticed now capable some of these phones are? Its got me wondering about where smartphones and feature phones are going to intersect.

Feature phones include the Sidekick, Samsung Instinct and Impression, LG Xenon and Motorola Hint and they are really quite capable; there is really very little that separates these from smartphone.  What keeps feature phones from being considered "smart" would be third-party developers, customization, tethering and a few other things.  The newest Sidekick does stretch this definition though, as it already has dozens of apps in its app store.

This is exactly my point though.  If you look at using phones more or less out of the box there is very little difference between these two classes.  You can browse, email, listen to music, watch videos, etc.  Believe it or not, there are a LOT of users of iPhone, Windows Mobile and Blackberry that are actually out-of-the-box types that do little or no customization.

One of the biggest differences we see is in the cost of data.  In Canada you can get $10 unlimited mobile browsing (which really doesn’t differentiate between browsing and downloading data) but data costs (for smartphones) are astronomical.  From Bell you can get $10 unlimited internet on a feature phone but on Windows Mobile you pay $35 for 500mb.  Pretty darn nuts!

So, what is going to happen?  Will we see high priced data packages start being used on feature phones or much better flat rates for all phones?  Obviously I would hope that carriers just bite the bullet and make mobile data flat rate and cheap.  Maybe figure out some way to detect tethering or something, but devices should be FULLY usable.

Lets hope that competition makes cheap mobile data a reality.

HTC Returns to the Messenger Market with the Maple Smartphone

It’s been a long time since HTC had a device in the messenger space. The Excalibur, HTC’s first messenger style device, was a  smash hit with T-Mobile users under the name of Dash. This device was also sold across many other carriers and under many other names, including HTC’s brand as the s620. Following the Excalibur, HTC released the Cavalier. This device added 3G, but never managed to get any traction and didn’t last very long. At this point, HTC turned their focus to other devices and left the messenger market to it’s own devices and companies like Samsung and Moto came in and took over with their BlackJack and Q series of devices.

If the pictures posted by Cnet Germany (via WM Experts) are any indication, all that is about to change. The new HTC Maple is the first messenger device from HTC in a while and it sure looks nice. There is no official comment from my sources at HTC and as such, there is no official specs to be had.  But if we look at what HTC has been doing and what this image shows us, we can guess at what features this might have. HTC’s most recent WinMo Standard device, the Rose, has a 528Mhz processor with 256MB for RAM and ROM and 3G in a very small package.  I would be surprised if these specs don’t make it to the Maple. WiFi is also a staple on most, if not all HTC devices, so expect to see WiFi. Further, you can clearly see the trackball on the front of the Maple.  This is a welcome change from the horrible JOGGR touch panel that the original Excalibur and Cavalier sported. The screen appears to be 320×240 and shows the sliding panel home screen from WinMo 6.1.  Don’t take this as an indication that there won’t be WinMo 6.5 on the device.  We haven’t seen any screen shots of 6.5 on a standard (non-touch) device. So it’s unclear what the user can expect to see with 6.5. WinMo 6.5 will mainly focus on finger usability, so it’s possible that there is no new user experience changes to standard devices.

GPS should also be expected.  Although, to be honest, you can never tell these days.  Some devices where you expect to see it, it’s doesn’t get added.  It sure would be nice to see this with GPS, as I use it so much these days. With any luck, we’ll see a spring launch and hopefully it will be here in North America.

I’ve got my fingers crossed – can’t wait to try the new HTC Maple.

The New HP iPAQ Voice Messenger Smartphone - Take 2

Jack Cook posted about a new voice messenger device from HP earlier today. What’s interesting to me, is that HP might have learned from their past mistakes on this device.  The original Voice Messenger device from HP was a horrible unit with poor screen, low memory, and no real appeal or wow factor to speak of.  To be fair, the voice software that came on the device was pretty cool, but aside from that, there was nothing that made anyone want to own one of these.

I rode HP hard about this device from day one, and I’m excited to see that they listened to what the community had to say and came back with what appears to be a pretty sweet device.

The new Voice Messenger comes with a sure-type like 20-keypad device, integrated GPS, WiFi, 3G, Quad-Band, Bluetooth 2.0, 128MB SDRAM / 256MB Flash ROM, a 1260 mAh battery, and a 3.1 megapixel camera. Best of all, it runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard edition.  It’s great to see that some companies still see the value in having a non-touch screen device.

Visit HP’s web site to learn more about the new Voice Messenger Smartphone. I haven’t seen any information on price or availability yet, but I would expect this to be shipping in the next month or so. I think I’m going to need to get my hands on one of these for review.

Free Halloween Ringtones From Microsoft

It’s getting close to Halloween and why decorate just your house when you can outfit your smartphone as well. Microsoft has released a collection of Halloween themed ringtones and wallpapers. I didn’t care to much for the wallpapers, but the ringtones are actually pretty good. Check them out for yourself - they’re all free to download (with registration). There’s also a large number of non-Halloween related sounds and images.  So if you’re simply bored with what you have, it’s a worth while place to visit.

New HTC s740 Smartphone is Nice, But…

Earlier this week, HTC announced a new Smartphone called the s740. This new device is a non-touch screen version of the Diamond-like Touch Pro. Unlike most other devices these days, the s740 came as a complete surprise to many. The s740 sports a 528MHz processor from Qualcomm (could this be the fastest Smartphone we’ve seen to-date?), 256MB of ROM, 256 MB of RAM, Quad band GPRS, HSDPA/WCDMA , GPS, WiFi, and a 3.2 megapixel camera! Overall, the phone looks very nice with a standard 12 key layout on the face of the phone and a slide out QWERTY.  (Real world picture from NewMobile’s quick hands on impression and pictures taken at the IFA in Berlin. Product specifications are taken directly from the HTC web site.) 

However, if you’ve been using HTC Smartphones over the last couple years, the general design of this phone should be pretty familiar for you. It’s the exact design as the s710/720 Smartphones. Of course, this version has much better specifications and has some serious style. But underneath the same problems that lead me to hang-up on the s710 are still present in this new device. The whole “rotate-slide-wait” procedure every time you want to use the keyboard can get a little annoying - especially for those of us that do a lot of email from our devices. The keyboard design and layout leave a lot to be desired, in my opinion. I never did get use to the off center screen.

Instead of wasting their time with this device, I think HTC would have been much better off creating 2 other Diamond like devices. The first is a simple phone with the regular 12 key number pad. Just take this device, slice off the keyboard part and offer a super thin Smartphone. Heck, I would buy one of these just to drool at the thinness of the device! The other device would be more like the Excalibur / Cavalier devices that we saw years ago from HTC. Just rotate the screen 90 degrees and add a full BlackJack-like keyboard on the front. No silly sliders and no rotating.

Maybe I’m wrong, but you can’t argue with the increase in people using messenger style devices. Samsung, Motorola, and even RIM, all have devices that allow quick and easy access to the keyboard. I can’t imagine that all these companies are making these devices if there wasn’t a market for them. I want to see HTC return to the messenger field and make a device that I would be proud to carry.

Is The HP iPAQ 510 Really A Top Rated Smartphone?

According to Expansys, the HP iPAQ 510 is among the 3 top rated Windows Mobile Smartphones on their site. The other 2, in case you’re wondering, are the Samsung BlackJack II and the Palm Treo 500v. I have no problems with the other two devices, they are both very nice handsets - yes, even the 500v. But the HP device is nowhere near top rated. When the device was released it was slammed by just about every major gadget site. The best thing it has going for it is the voice software that HP pre-loaded on it. From everything I read, it’s pretty amazing. Unfortunately, the device sucks at everything else. It’s running a lower resolution that we haven’t seen on Windows Mobile Smartphone (Standard) devices for years - 176×220. The device is also limited to the much slower EDGE network. That means there’s no enjoyment for fast 3G network when browsing the web or downloading emails. Surely there has to be another device that ranks better than this? Where’s HTC on this list too?

Playing Around with the Samsung i620 Slider Smartphone

The first thing you will notice when you pick up the Samsung i620 is just how small it is and how well it fits in your hands. Samsung is really on to something with this ultra small sliding form factor. It’s the right size for any pocket or purse, and it’s a lot of fun to hold and slide open/shut. I often found myself sliding the phone just for the sake of sliding it. The sliding mechanism is so smooth and the spring action really helps to pop the phone open. I’ve used other sliding phones, but never have they had such a nice slider/spring combination.

Once you held the phone and played with the slider for a good couple minutes, you’re going to start to wonder about the specs of this little guy. It’s a European-based Tri-band device, which means it supports GSM 900/1800/1900 frequencies. Which works great if you’re in the EMEA, but if you’re North American based, this device will have mixed results when it comes to cellular reception. If Samsung had managed to include one more band, then this phone would be a sure fire hit in North America. I’ve heard rumours that there is a North American Tri-band device that is going to be released in the fall of 2008, but at this point I haven’t been able to confirm anything. Aside from the cellular bands supported, the phone also features GPRS/EDGE/3G HSDPA at 1.8 Mbps, 64MB RAM, 128MB ROM, MicroSD support, Bluetooth v2 with A2DP, 2 Megapixel camera, VGA video-call camera, and measures 113mm x 59mm x 11.8mm with a weight of 95 grams. Read more