“An ‘also-ran’ is, literally, ‘a horse that does not win, place, or show in a race.’ The world loves an underdog but it never loves an also-ran. It forgets about an also-ran,” John Biggs writes for CrunchGear.
“And so we reach nearly the end of Palm Pre madness and I’m afraid to report that after all the magic, all the tears, all the joy the Palm Pre will be just another phone,” Biggs writes. “It won’t save Palm, it won’t change paradigms, and it won’t send the iPhone hegemony crashing to its knees. The Palm Pre will launch with a whisper, not a bang.”
“Why? Because we hyped it too much. Because the software is untested in real-life situations and we, as neophiles, are delightfully impatient when it comes to wonky design.,” Biggs writes. “Because the hardware is ‘plasticky,’ according to Boy Genius and ‘you often hit multiple keys at the same time while typing.'”
Biggs writes, “I would equate this launch to the G1. Instead of creating an entirely new trunk Palm is branching off of the established phone environments. This new branch will be healthy and well-recieved and I’m sure they’ll sell a few models but this is carrier/OEM blindness at its worst. The pricing will be high, the feature set will remind the world of every other wonky LG and Samsung out there, and the OS will be half-baked at launch.”
Full article here.
The Boy Genius Report has a first hands-on look at the Palm Pre and reports, “There’s a real plasticky aura about it. Additionally, things aren’t looking good for that QWERTY either… When you try and type on the top row of keys, your finger hits the bottom part of the front piece and on top of that, you often hit multiple keys at the same time while typing. It’s actually really frustrating and doesn’t bode well.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: And lo the dream begins to die.
