Ars Reviews the Palm Pre, part 1: the BlackBerry killer
by Volker Weber
Since the Pre's unveiling at CES 2009, the tech press has been caught up in the Rocky-like narrative of a former champ, now fallen on lean times, who tries to recapture his former glory by stepping in the ring with a make-or-break, high-profile exhibition fight against the reigning titleholder. But there's a serious problem with how this narrative has been presented, and specifically with the mobile device that has been cast in the part of the young, strutting, seemingly invincible heavyweight titleholder. See, the Palm Pre isn't out to KO the iPhone, but rather it's swinging at the real reigning champ: RIM's BlackBerry.
If you do away the who-kills-whom story, there are some interesting insights in this story.
Comments
Am I the only one who thinks it's odd that they mentioned Domino along with Exchange when talking about IM, but not eMail? I would think they'd either ignore it completely (my expectation) or be consistent.
But Lotus-centric nitpicking aside, they make some interesting points.
This is a good piece by Ars. When I show the Pre to iPhone owners, the first thing they want to see are the apps and the media player. They don't understand this is not what the Pre does well. The apps aren't there yet; I'm waiting patiently for that. As for the media player, I have not used it much -- I don't want to use the battery playing media, that is what my iPod is for. I have no MP3s or videos on it yet, I've only watched a little TV and YouTube.
The Pre is a messaging and Internet device. It's almost unnoticeable whether someone is messaging with you via SMS or IM. It integrates with Google's services well. To me, the choice was between Android and Pre. I don't like the G1 hardware which made the decision easier.
I agree that this Ars article better identifies the target market for the Pre and notes that it is different to the iPhone market (with some overlap of course).
It will be interesting to see where the iPhone goes post 3.0...
