Time to upgrade... Pre?

[Fingolfin269]

I'm on Sprint and am not changing to another carrier. This means my options are limited. I'm currently on a BB8830 and love it but upgrade time is here and shopping for the new phone is always a pleasure.
I could take the easy road and get a Curve, but I'm very intrigued by the Pre. Lots of hype out the gate, pretty good initial reviews, but I remember hearing some concerns that many hoped would be addressed soon after launch.
So, with that being said, what do the Pre owners among you feel about your choice now? If you had it all to do over again would you choose something else? Anything else on the horizon for Sprint that I may want to wait for?

 

[Deeko]

The Touch Pro 2 is supposed to come to Sprint shortly. Its a great phone hardware-wise, but you'd be stuck with Windows Mobile.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Ill check that one out as well. I also didn't realize that sprint got the Tour.

 

[swbsam]

I adore my palm pre. The first unit I had had an issue with the battery being too loose, lending to shut downs, but my replacement is wonderful. I had an iphone (edge) and it's groovy, and I do miss apps to a degree, but the pre is a much more robust device, especially for a 1.0 device.

I love how the gps is better than my garmin, i love saving $20 a month on my bill, and I love that I can multitask

 

[swbsam]

Also, I was with verizon for a week with a windows mobile 6.1 device (I hacked it to 6.5 before returning it) - AWFUL. I had resistive touch screens now, and will not go back.

If you get the pre you should get a screen protector since the screen is plastic (not glass, like the iPhone). It's a stupid thing to take for granted but I have some minor scratches on the screen because I never use the included case

 

[Fingolfin269]

So overall you like it about the same as the iphone (sans some apps)?

I just found out we get a 20% discount with verizon or a 15% discount with att. It brings the iphone price down to a more reasonable level that's for sure.

 

[swbsam]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
So overall you like it about the same as the iphone (sans some apps)?

I just found out we get a 20% discount with verizon or a 15% discount with att. It brings the iphone price down to a more reasonable level that's for sure.

I like it more than the iPhone.. Here's a brief synopsis of my likes and dislikes, since I want to leave work early

likes over iPhone (I had the 1st gen, my wife is a current iphone 3g user)
- The network is better. Since, at least in nyc, sprint also has access to verizon's network, I get reception everywhere, while att service is spotty, at best
- It's smaller. Not that the iphone is huge, the pre just fits in my pocket better
-gestures are fun and useful
-its purdy
- Keyboard. It's not as good as my blackbery curbs keyboard but still much better than a virtual keyboard
- Drag and drop file managemt - you can use it as USB storage
- Homebrew is just getting started, with quite a few nifty apps out there, and no need to "jailbreak" your phone to get bootleg apps on there. Getting tethering to work on it (through a 3rd party app) was so much easier than on my iPhone
- Much faster internet speed
-Free GPS that works better than my garmin. I'm sure the iphone will eventually get one. And verizon had a nice GPS app but I believe there was an additional cost
- The camera is AWESOME. it processes photos in the background, meaning you can SNAP, SNAP, SNAP a bunch of pictures in a row, which you can't do on most cell phone cameras. The flash is useful as well
-Frequent updates that are done OTA, vs. waiting for 280mb iphone updates. None of the updates seemed to have been crucial, but they're nice to have.

What I don't like:
-As far as I know, bluetooth is gimped. Don't stand by my words though, I just can't figure out how to transfer files to my macbook pro using BT
-The music player is adequate, but Apple/iPhone mastered their interface
-plastic screen vs. glass - i just love how i never needed a case for my iphone, but the pre's plastic screen can be scratched (like most phones). keys in same pocket = no no
-lack of apps
-lack of accessories, though it's a phone and not a waffle maker
-A wee bit sluggish if you're running say the gps, pandora, push email, and then say browsing the web at the same time. But who does that? Ok, I did that once But sluggish is better than not being able to do that at all on the iphone
-Battery life. I'd say it's the same as the iphone, but it's more noticeable because I can't find a damn car charger locally

 

[zerocool84]

Even with discounts on the iphone (plan) there is no way the monthly price could touch what you would be paying for a similar plan on Sprint. Pre is a great phone and gets many updates over the air that take care of many issues. It's not a phone for me as the keyboard is too small for me and no expandable memory but it's a great alternative to the iphone that does many things better and does some things it doesn't do. Oh and AT&T is notorious for having horrible 3G reliability.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Thanks for the words of wisdom everyone. Sounds like I'll stick around with Sprint and more than likely go play with a Pre this weekend. Hopefully a Bold will be in stock so I can mess with it as well. I would say I surf the net / text about 50/50 so a keyboard is a must. Hopefully the Pre one is adequate. Speaking of which, that was my main concern with the iPhone. I hate touchscreen when it comes to typing sentences/paragraphs.

 

[Deeko]

I hear you on the keyboard. If a good keyboard is important to you, hold off for the Touch Pro 2. Its WM which kinda sucks, but it has a fantastic keyboard. i've played around with it some. Its WAAY better than the keyboard on the original Touch Pro. I'd at least look at it if I were you.

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: Deeko
I hear you on the keyboard. If a good keyboard is important to you, hold off for the Touch Pro 2. Its WM which kinda sucks, but it has a fantastic keyboard. i've played around with it some. Its WAAY better than the keyboard on the original Touch Pro. I'd at least look at it if I were you.

Yea the TP2 keyboard is awesome. I got to play with it as well. Only thing I'd be worried with it is durability since it slides out. It was a hefty device but I always drop my phones so I'd never get it. It was a great phone though.

 

[Rottie]

Blackbarry Bold only avaiable at ATT not at Sprint
And I find sidekick mobile has a better keyboard than any other phone

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: Rottie
Blackbarry Bold only avaiable at ATT not at Sprint
And I find sidekick mobile has a better keyboard than any other phone

Yup sorry, meant to say Tour.

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269

Originally posted by: Rottie
Blackbarry Bold only avaiable at ATT not at Sprint
And I find sidekick mobile has a better keyboard than any other phone

Yup sorry, meant to say Tour.

The Tour is a great phone but totally different than the Pre. I like it cus it has no sliding parts that will damage when I drop the phone and I always drop my phones. I also like that it has expandable memory and a larger keyboard as I have fat fingers. The Pre OS is just awesome. Another thing to remember is that the Pre has Wifi and the Tour doesn't. For some people that's a deal breaker but I'm always in a 3G zone so it's not a problem for me.

 

[randomlinh]

I have a love hate relationship with my Pre at the moment. The lack of apps sorta sucks, but mostly lag at times. recently I could not cancel a call quick enough. I could have sworn flicking the phone app closed would end it, but it kept dialing a number I accidentally dialed through the contact list. and bringing back the app got laggy and semi frozen, while the call went through.

keyboard is decent enough for me, but I'll take the compromise over having a bigger keyboard/device. horizontal slider would have been better.

The only OSes I fine workable for me are WebOS, iPhone OS, and android. I could not stand windows mobile or blackberry, heh.

 

[Rottie]

I saw BB Tour at best buy for 99 dollars look decent but I didn't like Pre keyboard it feels rubber to me

 

[Rottie]

As for apps for Pre it takes a while for them to make some decent apps Apple iPhone have been here for 3 years now. So be patience dude I won't buyPre for two reasons the keyboard sucks and lack of apps I would wait until maybe Pre II and alot of apps the. I will saycgood bye to my iPhone 3GS

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: Rottie
I saw BB Tour at best buy for 99 dollars look decent but I didn't like Pre keyboard it feels rubber to me

the best buy demo is not a good indicator of the actual keyboard if you're going by that. they are a bit small, but I have no problem w/ them. they are a bit shiny and hard to see sometimes tho at the right angle of light. just recently noticed that.

 

[TheWart]

Originally posted by: Rottie
As for apps for Pre it takes a while for them to make some decent apps Apple iPhone have been here for 3 years now. So be patience dude I won't buyPre for two reasons the keyboard sucks and lack of apps I would wait until maybe Pre II and alot of apps the. I will saycgood bye to my iPhone 3GS

Although by the time of the Pre II there will almost certainly be an iPhone 3GSS (super speed) or iPhone 4g.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: Deeko
The Touch Pro 2 is supposed to come to Sprint shortly. Its a great phone hardware-wise, but you'd be stuck with Windows Mobile.

It's supposedly getting an upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.5 (pardon, "Windows Phone") later on, or such was promised by HTC. It's not going to be as nice as the other OSes in terms of touchscreen stuff (possibly owing to the resistive vs capacitive technology), but it'll work well enough. The rumors of a greatly-improved browser are certainly promising...

 

[Fingolfin269]

I had a chance to play around with the Pre at a Sprint store over the weekend and am still on the fence. The keyboard is... Well, it's better than a touchscreen but seems much worse than the one on my 8830. Granted with time one may become proficient with it but I found that the upper lip of the touchscreen part kept getting in the way of typing on the top row. I'm not sure if I would ever get used to that.
Other than that I really did like the phone. I'm going to go back and check it out again later this week.

 

[yh125d]

I've also been thinking about upgrading from my HTC Kaiser (ATT tilt) to either a Pre or an iPhone

 

[Trader05]

I went through a couple sprint phones in last couple of years. I had a HTC 6700>Blackberry Pearl>LG Lotus>Pre. So far the Pre is the best phone i've had.

After reading stuff about hardware issues, I did run into a hardware issue with the screen (it would turn off when taking a call, but would not come back on), but the store didn't have a problem giving me a new one since it was within the first 30 days. Other than that, the battery life isn't as bad for me since i dont have wifi on, bluetooth or the GPS. The OS is great and easy to use, my gmail sync was painless, and Palm's user profile system automatically backs up your apps and contacts without an extra charge.

I was thinking of getting the Touch Pro a couple months ago when my contract ended, until i read some of current owner's feedback on forums. It seems like they still have some of the issues i've had with my old 6700 brick (OS freezing needing to reboot, battery life, and signal problems). Im glad i waited for the Pre, i just wished i waited a week more for the cheaper price!

 

[Reckoner]

I have the Pre and love WebOS, but Palm really slacked in the Quality Control Department. Mine has screen discoloration at the bottom after being charged, a couple stuck pixels, and the annoying as hell oreo effect (loose slider when closed). I've learned to deal with the issues since I put my phantom skinz on perfectly and don't want to try again

 

[Rottie]

Won't upgrage my 3GS until after noembar 2010to get 4g or gas