iPhone rival Palm Pre to sell for $199 after rebate on June 6th - Page 6

I don't want to buy and carry around a specialized battery that works for one device. I used my wife's ipod AA battery thingamig for my iPhone and a $10 external rechargable pack that isn't much larger than a cell phone battery because all it really is is a cell phone battery with a dock connector.

Well this was a discussion based on replaceable battery vs portable iphone charger, not universal battery booster (which I have one of lol.) To top it off, you can buy rechargeable AA batteries so you're not always throwing your money away.

I said it earlier and I'll say it again, a removable battery is really not that big of a feature that most people look at, and if they convince themselves it's the reason they didn't get an iphone, it's more than likely because that had a salesperson there doing most of the convincing. I'm just pointing out the irony in someone saying they don't want to carry another battery, but then they turn around and carry a portable charger specific to the iphone.

Obviously the fewer things anyone has to carry the better. If I could use my phone as my credit card, car keys, and personal ID, I would.

Oh and not having to send the phone off in case (God forbid) the battery screws up is an added advantage to being able to replace the battery.

I view the Pre launch on 6/06 as rather a despair:

Are you buying a Pre?
Hell yes -- I'll be first in line.............................................. ...................................6464 (22.0%)
No, I'm holding off till WWDC to see what Apple announces.................................14395 (49.0%)
No thanks, I'm sticking with my BlackBerry / S60 / Windows Mobile device............5915 (20.1%)
Huh? You mean am I buying the soundtrack to 'Prefontaine' starring Jared Leto?...2628 (..8.9%)

Being able to same the pack with most iPods and the iPhone is a definite plus, instead of having to buy a different sized battery for each cell phone you get. The external battery pack you have now should work with future iPhones and iPods.

If you don’t have the pack with you but you have your laptop and the USB cable, connecting it to your notebook without logging in and putting the screen to black is a good way to charge the device many times over during a long trip where you are stuck on a plane or a bus or in some location that you know you won’t get access to an AC outlet.

I'm not saying that the price isn't right for them. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's the lowest they could charge for it and still eke out a profit. But that's also the problem. What if they have to drop the price by 50% over the $100 rebate? If they have to charge $149, or $129, or even $99, can they stay in business with that?

That's the big question.

It's already been stated that people are switching from Verizon to go to AT&T for the iPhone. So you don't think they're moving from Sprint?

Sprint is bleeding customers right and left. Do you doubt a good number are moving to AT&T and going for the iPhone?

I assume you've been reading about all of the problems Sprint is having with keeping its customers. It's even been questioned whether Sprint will be a viable business in a couple of years.

Both Sprint and Palm need this to be a big success. It has to at least show that it can stop some of the defections of Sprints customer base. It also has to show that Palm will stop losing $100 million or more every quarter. This last quarter, losses were greater than sales. Palm's sales are less than a third than about a year ago.

The Pre is their last chance.

If it fails, it will not only take Palm with it, but will hurt Sprint severely, as they have nothing else to take up the slack. The Instinct didn't do well after the initial surge.

Like other networks, no, even more than other networks, Sprint must have a blockbuster phone. If this isn't it, what is?

Not sure what benchmarks you would use to call the price indefensible? Maybe some weird moral code where things should not be more expensive than you think they should be or can afford? The portal to that bizzaro dimension must be very small

It is simple business - price segmentation. If you have some thing revolutionary that you think people will pay a lot for, charge a lot for it so you get the early adopters/suckers' money. Normal business practice. Apple should only be criticized had they not done that. Then you reduce the price to grow volume, increase buzz, etc. after you have creamed off the early $$s.

It was a brilliant plan and it worked beyond anyone's expectations (except maybe Jobs'). Sell a couple of million with long lines out the doors, get millions of $ of free advertising and all that lovely up front revenue. Then offer that $100 rebate soon after to maintain the buzz and pretend to be a "nice" company (remember, it could only be spent on high margin Apple gear). Reduce prices further when you know it is a hit, then go to the standard carrier subsidy model as it goes mainstream. Now they are about to bump features at the same/lower price to hurt lower volume/margin competition, like with the iPod. All while still making industry leading margins...

Nothing about that is B#llsh!t or indefensible - Apple don't owe you a cheap phone. Pre pricing is fair or even cheap because the iPhone has boxed them in - almost no-one will pay much more for it than an iPhone even though it has all those as yet unrecouped R&D costs and Elevation Partners' "last chance saloon" premium to pay back. Palm wishes they could charge $600 each for the first million to frustrated hardcore Sprint fans but that ship sailed a couple of years back.

Let's face it - Apple is a brutal money making machine...

Companies offer rebates in hopes (and with knowledge that) most people will either forget to mail-in the rebate or send it in too late or incorrectly and they get to keep the extra money they originally paid. So, Sprint is VERY hopeful that most buyers who pay $299 will screw-up the rebate offer and they can keep the extra $100. That is why almost everything in Best Buy comes with rebates, it's just a sales and marketing scam that most people fall for. Don't get fooled America!!

As for the Pre, it looks nice, but no landscape view, no landscape typing, extra small keys, and a smaller screen make it a no, no, no for me. Also, Sprint is last in users, I don't know how many will switch from their carrier to join the #4 carrier. We'll see. BUT competition is good, so I welcome it.

While it's always possible, if you read what i was responding to, you would have seen that it was a direct response to the other post, and I was conjecturing from what he had posted, that he hadn't thought about the situation, and that he do so.

Lol apple fan boys are freaking out! This is hilarious seeing all these paniced posts. If you like your iPhone then keep it. It won't make you any cooler I'd you switch with everyone else and get a Pre. Stop being rediculous people. The Pre is going to sell a ton of phones. I am so excited to toss my spotty coverage laggy iPhone 3g for a phone that works. The Pre is going to be awsome, who knows maybe apples new iPhone announcement will able to get peoples attention away from palms newer much better phone.

It's a given:
1. that a completely new product (like iPhone, Pre, Storm) can't have every feature that it's competitors already have.
2. that a new product will be criticized for the things it doesn't have.

The key to success is figuring out (a) which features will clearly differentiate your new product from its competitors, and make it super attractive to most consumers, (b) which features are needed (i.e. deal-breakers for many) but don't differentiate, and (c) which features aren't really needed in the current increment.

Everybody has a different perspective on what goes in a, b, and c. From my perspective, I don't think Palm has an outstanding (a). And now that Apple has raised the bar with the App Store, it's difficult to put an App Store into category (c) instead of (b).


Palm started work on the Pre around summer 2007, so they'll have been at it for 2 years (even discounting all their prior phone experience). And Apple supposedly started working on a phone in summer 2004, taking almost 3 years to get its first iPhone to market.

I'm stuck on Sprint because of our corporate account. I'm very tempted to get a PRE, but my sprint|nextel experience has been so bad in the last year, I don't want to give those bastards a dime extra.. I'd rather see them go down in flames.. Which is a bummer, because I do hope the PRE is enough to keep Palm afloat, but going exclusively with the asshats a sprint doesn't make me feel confident.

sorry for the following, but it was kind of cathartic

<MEGA-RANT>

I had a BB8830 that worked great, had unlimited phone as modem that worked great with my Macbooks, but it died after 9 months, complete hardware failure.. The bulk of our company is uses nextel DC, and since the BB 8350i had just came out I got one of those to get back DC, and just figured Wifi would stand in for the old sprint cdma data plan. It worked great for about a month.

Then it stopped connecting to the network. I ran a software update on it, and it worked for about a day. I literally spent 4 hours and 15 minutes on the phone with tech support, to completely wipe the phone and re-install the os. It worked for 4 days. I did this 3 more times each about 3 or 4 days apart, then for some reason the os reinstall failed and bricked the phone..

I had talked with my rep and initially thought they were just going to send a new phone, but my problems started after the 30 day return policy. Basically it started acting weird on day 26 but I didn't realize how weird the phone was getting until day 36.(My first daughter was born on day 29 and I was in the hospital with my wife for 4 days) My rep couldn't just send me a new one for some reason. He entered in a service note on my account that basically said charge the guy 50 bucks to look at his phone and then give him a replacement.

The guys at the local sprint store basically refused to charge me the 50 dollars insisting that the phone would be fine after a software restore.. and they could do that for free. No charge! Yay!

I explained to them that yes it does seem to work fine for a couple of days before it starts acting weird and won't connect anymore.. I asked the guy do you expect me to drive 20 minutes over here every 4 days and have you spend an hour re installing my os?

He looked at me like a dog that's been shown a card trick, and basically said "but look your phone is working great."

My rep told me to go back to the store and demand that they charge me the fee and replace my phone..

This took place over about a month and a half after the initial failure of the device, and that happened literally 3 days after my daughter was born... so you can imagine that I was fairly tired and kind of crazy busy with that. The last thing I wanted to deal with was dead cell phone. I just kind of assumed that it would work itself out, I mean why wouldn't it... (I think I still had a bit of the new father high going on, I was way more patient than I should've been.)

The worst part were the people at the sprint store. They were acting like I was trying to scam them for a new phone.. Which was just strange, I can see you treating somebody like that if they come in with a year and a half old well abused phone and bitch and moan want a new one. I had the phone for under 60 days.. I just wanted the phone that I had to just work properly, that's all..

I told my rep that it's ridiculous that I should have to go and scream in some 22 year old kids face to get this thing replaced, it's obviously a lemon, and it shouldn't take that kind of effort. I had my account admin send me one of the crappy moto iDen flip phones that we have for backup, switched my number to that phone and told my rep, sprint nor RIM will ever personally see $ from me ever again..

and they never will

</MEGA-RANT>

I'd like Palm to stick around, but I really wonder if they'll see 2010..

You wouldn't think they'd survive the furor. It'll be interesting to see it play out, if that happens.

No company works the rebate themselves, though you may think they do from the e-mails and other communications you receive.

They hire companies that specialize in rebates. One of the biggest selling points these companies make to sell their services is the percentage of successful rebates they pay out. That is, the lower the percentage, the better.

I've preferred Newegg because they usually just have lower pricing. But now they also seem to have rebates at times. Sad.

I agree - my reality (only mine, I know), is that I have a 2yr old iPhone 2G, battery is still pretty good, but I have an iPhone/iPod charging ecosystem wherever I am.
Office - desk charger/laptop usb cable
On the road - dual tip to my Kensington laptop AC/DC power adapter or USB cable/laptop or rechargeable external battery pack (in the laptop bag)
Car - dash mount and car charger (used for iPod too).
In a pinch - anyone else's iPhone/iPod charger (even my mum has one)

Sounds like a lot of stuff but it is only mildly incremental to all the other stuff I have to carry anyway - laptop, power supply etc. or sits around in the places I inhabit. Given that I now use it as a gaming device a lot more than I thought I would, a paltry extra battery would not cut it anyway.

A small change in behavior (charge it every night [at least]), is a small price to pay for the productivity/enjoyment I get from it.

Well, no, because it's Palm's OS.

Speaking of charging, how well does everyone think the "wireless charger" that supposedly comes with the pre will work?

and that $100 bucks will come in handy for the second battery!
... IF you can wait a few weeks until that rebate check comes in.

and we're looking forward to it!

the real question is: how good is palm's mac support going to be? if it doesn't sync well, it's not going to fly in the mac market. my guess is - it's going to be sub par, crippled compared to the windows support and months later... i'd love to be proven wrong.

No doubt it will work well enough. This isn't a new technology. My electric toothbrush has that as well.

Other than the iphone, are there any other phones that stand out as having good mac support? How do nokia phones hold up for example? How easy has Apple made it for other companies?

I've been using Mark/Space syncing software to help with that. They also have one for the iPhone.

But you have to pay for extra software.

So you don't think it'll take forever to charge up?

I don't think you're gonna want to be putting key fobs or anything with a magnetic strip near or on this type of charger.

Oh so you've used a Pre to know how well it works, I wonder how many on here have done the same?

promise? (that it's the last time that is...)

Inductive charging is a cool feature. I understand why electric toothbrushes should have it. They need the closed environment and are used infrequently between charges. Does having a dock with a plug make that big of a difference in convenience since it still has to be docked to charge? It would be really cool if it could just laid it on a simple pad that you also your keys and wallet on at night or on your desk or dashboard? Is there a time difference in how long it takes to charge the same size battery with direct connection? How much heat is output is there and how much more power does it use to complete the charge? My guess is that its much slower, less efficient and not ideal for a mobile phone at this time.

I'm sure it will work, but comparing it to the toothbrush charger is not a good comparison. The toothbrush sits on the charger for 23hrs 56min, assuming you use it twice a day for 2 minutes.

The amount of charge and time that it takes to charge is what will be different about this charger, it will have to be.

That would not be good, until the pad could sense the device and determine what distinct area to send power so that wouldnt occur.

i thought you're looking to replace your iphone? please get your talking points straight...

That's pretty amazing. In the very same post you can wag your finger at "fanboys" for "freaking out" while assuring us that an unreleased phone is "awesome" and has you "excited" to toss your iPhone. A phone that you have never touched and which no one knows anything at all about some pretty important particulars like battery life, whether or not it will generate much of an app or peripheral ecosystem, and, you know, how it actually functions in real life,

So if iPhone users are "fanboys" for liking the phone they own and use everyday, what would be a good word for people who lose their shit over some PR and videos on the web?

I'm not saying the Pre won't be a perfectly nice phone, but for every "fanboy" dismissing it as too little too late there seems to be at least two "enthusiasts" who are making wild claims for excellence sight unseen.

I would think that the checkered history of tech world prerelease buzz, fueled by marketing and sites like Gizmodo and Engadget, who generally think anything that runs on current is "awesome", would suggest that moderation is in order. Wait till it comes out. Read some reviews. See if there are any deal breakers.

do we have a price on that charger yet? i don't think it comes with the pre....

Nope, which means it has a port for charging/syncing. I see it as a gimmick more than a useful feature.

"Each Pre comes with a charger in the box, but Palm will also market a $49.99 Touchstone charging dock, which it claims is the first inductive charging solution for phones, available exclusively for Pre. When bundled with a Touchstone back cover for Pre, the dock will sell for $69.99.

Don't worry, it's probably only the iPhone OS that would have a problem like this. All other smartphones OSes are built from the ground up with multitasking in mind, so the batteries last just fine, even with a whole load of things running in the background. It would take Apple to rewrite the iPhone with multitasking in mind to make the battery in it last more than 5 minutes. Push notifications are just a half-arsed cover up for true multitasking.

So you'd rather go through the hassle of getting a rebate to end up at the same price because that leaves you with the sense that you got some kind of discount?

That's pretty convoluted, even for you.

It also means that anyone that wants to sell you a product just has to raise their price then give it back to you in "rebate" deal that you have a 50/50 chance of actually ever getting.

You must think Best Buy is some kind of heaven.

I think you might be confusing me with someone. I have a touch pro.

I don't see why it would take much longer than any other method. It's certainly less efficient because of the losses, but they don't amount to too much.

There have been recharging platforms like that out for years, but they've never caught on.

The amount of time is dependent on how they design it. In theory, there's no reason why the times should be much longer.

By the way, as has been pointed out "rebates" are pretty much a scam. There is a specific calculation as to how many people will actually manage to navigate the process (and the process generally has some stoppers built in for the unwary).

Given the hyper-competitive environment that the Pre is launching into, and the necessity of doing well out of the gate, I'd have to assume that Palm didn't think they could actually make enough money simply selling the Pre for $199, or they would have done so. They must know that $300 up front is going to kill a certain percentage of sales, so they may have felt they had no choice. We have to assume the numbers have been crunched, and the hope is that enough rebates will go unredeemed to make some kind of economic sense.

If I had to guess (given remarks from Palm re the "premium" nature of Pre not being price sensitive) the rebate thing was some kind of last minute compromise between losing money or losing sales.

But all of that bodes ill for any near term discounts to drive sales. If they can't sell the thing for $199 straight up when they more or less have to move a lot of units upon release, they're probably right at the edge of what's sustainable. Palm doesn't have the deep pocket luxury of MS to be able to sell things at a loss-- they need profits, and now.

Even if the Pre is a success, if it doesn't make much money for Palm they could still be in trouble.