After picking up Palm’s new Pre smartphone on launch day roughly a week ago (and spending over six hours to do so), I thought it’d be fun to run through some early thoughts on the device given my long history with Sprint and Palm products. (I worked on Sprint’s PR team for nearly a decade, leaving in 2004.)
I’ll unabashedly admit that I’m a Palm fanboy dating back to the standalone PDA days. Over the past eight or so years I have owned a Palm Pilot, a Handspring Visor, the Treo 600, Treo 650, Treo 700P and ending with the Treo 800w. I still remember how exciting my first Treo was, how cutting edge at the time. Over the years, however, it seemed that Palm simply was going through the motions as it sat back and produced me-too hardware while ceding real innovation to Apple, Google, RIM and others.
The Pre has certainly changed all that, and has brought sexy back to Palm, something they haven’t really had since the 600 or 650. Overall it’s a fantastic device, but there are some kinks that need to be worked out and some nits that I personally have – my hope is that Palm will take its cue from Apple and push out updates and fixes on a very, very regular basis.
