Hasta La Gadget!

CES 2009 brought us a new player in the smartphone upper-echelon. Let’s drill down and see how the Palm Pre compares with the iPhone and Android’s G1.

1. Multitouch touchscreen/gesture control: All three are capacitive, only the Pre and iPhone have multitouch. The Pre’s glowy little “gesture area” has dropped the touchable real estate all the way down tto the bottom of the phone, which is great for being able to navigate with one hand and not interfere with the screen at all. The wavey dock you bring up from the bottom looks awesome, but can you use it out of the box without a second thought or page through the manual? That’s my question. Advantage: iPhone/Pre tossup.

2. Multitasking: One of the beefiest of our beefs with the iPhone SDK is its insistence on Apps running one at a time. The G1’s notifications drawer was definitely a step in the right direction, but the Pre’s interface is the first smartphone OS that was built with multitasking as a core design element. Resembling the Xbox’s old Blades, or a less-jarring OS X Expose even, the Pre’s “Cards” interface always places you in the context of every app running for fast switching, and notifications from other apps don’t pull you away completely from the task at hand. Multitasking is hugely important on a phone, and it’s a good sign that Palm recognizes. Advantage: Pre

3. Hardware: Adrian says:

While the hardware is definitely high quality, I’m not entirely blown away by the design. It looks really nice, and original, but it’s a little too cutesy in shape and kind of reminds me of an oversized pebble. A slightly larger screen could have definitely been put to good use, and I really don’t like the black space on the sides of the screen.

A phone with a built-in QWERTY still hasn’t touched the iPhone in terms of sleekness and pure sex. And it might still be a while. Advantage: iPhone

4. Development platform: The Pre’s “Web OS” sure sounds nice—all developers need to know is JavaScript, HTML and CSS? Sounds good in theory, but building a mobile app will never be as easy as cranking out a new theme for your Tumblr. Palm’s stressing ease of development, though, so it will be interesting to see how it stacks up against Apple’s solid, familiar-to-devs OS X-based SDK and Android’s fully open source approach. Advantage: Pre? If it’s straight-up JavaScript, that’s a lot of programmers ready to go. Note: we had iPhone here before, but we’ve switched with a qualification. Developer community still goes to iPhone for volume.

5. Web Integration: The Pre subtly integrates the internet into the phone at every opportunity, and it’s awesome. Contacts get pulled in from Facebook, Gmail, IM and and scanned for dupes; the messaging app shows your last several emails, IMs and SMS with that contact in a single window. Really, really smart stuff. Advantage: Pre

6. App Store/developer community: A smartphone is only as good as the software it runs. On the Pre, Palm is still keeping application delivery details like pricing behind the curtain, but they did say the app delivery will be entirely handled by the phone (without a desktop app), which is a shame. They’re saying that they’re not going to duplicate Apple’s Hobbesian app approval black box mistake, which Android has also hasn’t fallen for, but there will be an approval process based on “security and stability.” But as we know with Android, a dev community needs enough devices in the hands of consumers to reach critical mass, which the Pre will have to match. Advantage: iPhone, even with the black box, but Android and Pre’s more open stances are reassuring.

7. Wireless charger: We’ve seen wireless charger tech for years at CES, but it’s taken this long for a major consumer gadget to come bundled with its own wireless charger in the box. Whoops, it’s not in the box, sold separately for unknown $$. But still: Bravo. Advantage: Pre

8. The Network: Dan Hesse, Sprint’s CEO, gave our coast-to-coast 3G test a shout out in his press conference. Of course he did: Sprint won (in download speeds). Sprint was the only major carrier without a powerful, hype-catching smartphone choice, and now they have one. The Pre is a data-centric phone with a network we’ve proven to be strong in a large swatch of the country—that’s a good combo. But would you switch to Sprint for the Pre? Ugh. Advantage: Not cut and dry for everyone, but we stand by our numbers: Sprint is the best 3G network in our tests.

9. Physical keyboard: It’s preference, but one held by a large swathe of the gadget buying public: physical QWERTY keypads are still the mainstream input of choice. Touch is getting better all the time, but a lot of people still want physical keyboards. But better yet is the ability to choose; unfortunately, the Pre doesn’t have a soft onscreen keyboard, and its slide-out is the same meh QWERTY from the Treo Pro. Advantage: It’s preference, but on me, the iPhone’s soft keyboard can’t be beat.

10. Camera: The Pre has an LED Flash for its 3MP camera, something both the iPhone and G1 lack. Flash cellphone photos are ugly, but for a lot of people, they’re good enough. So credit for throwing it in. Advantage: Pre

11. Battery: Apple’s still an outlier with their non-removable battery; like the G1’s, the Pre’s comes out for a spare swap too. We’ve heard Apple’s reasons for this a million times, we know the drill, but removable batteries will never stop being handy. Advantage: Pre

12. Copy & Paste: Yep, Pre’s got it. iPhone still doesn’t. Advantage: Pre/G1

13. Browser: All three use a browser based on WebKit, which has become the standard for the mobile web. We couldn’t put it through our Mobile Browser Battlemodo ringer obviously, but what we saw looked great, and it’s the only other mobile browser besides the iPhone that supports multitouch zooming. Advantage: iPhone/Pre

So there you have it. We’re excited. Are you?

Windows Mobile Standard devices — you know, those pre-touchscreen relics — are getting to be tougher sales by the day. Touch is perceived as a “premium” experience (we’re not entirely sold on that) and with boatloads of price pressure in that category, these little guys are liable to get squeezed clean out of the market. The new Shadow, even more so than the original Shadow before it, definitely belies its Windows Mobile underpinnings with a funky shell that’s fit for average consumers who just want a decent looking slider — never mind a smartphone. The red-to-black gradient rear was totally bangin’, but as is all too often the case these days, the glossy top was a brutal canvas for grease, fingerprints, and other unsavory stains that you probably don’t want to press against your face. It’s a tradeoff, we suppose.

Filed under: Cellphones, CES, Handhelds

Hands-on with T-Mobile’s revised Shadow originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’d never pegged the S740 as the kind of phone HTC would be looking to bring to the New World; it’s an oddball by modern Windows Mobile standards, shucking the touchy, feely trend for a traditional numeric keypad that reminds us of a simpler, more innocent time. Miracles can and do happen from time to time, though — and on that note we give you the S743, a dead ringer for the S740 that’s had its Euro-friendly 3G gutted and replaced with HSDPA 850 / 1900 for North American use. It’s got WinMo 6.1 Standard, a 2.4-inch QVGA display, and faceted styling inspired by the Touch Diamond, but the S743’s real claim to fame is its slide-out QWERTY keyboard for those moments when triple-tapping and predictive text just aren’t going to cut it. Look for this sucker to invade US retailers some time this quarter.

Filed under: Cellphones, CES, Handhelds

HTC not done with non-touchscreens yet, brings S743 to US market originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve already seen it go down unofficially, but we’ve received word from HTC today that Android’s coveted “Cupcake” branch of updates and fixes — or at least a majority of it — will likely be making it to the G1 in the future as a legitimate over-the-air push. HTC isn’t involved in deciding what updates get pushed to the G1 or when, but given the update cadence so far and the G1’s support for Cupcake’s capabilities, the company believes that it’s just a matter of time before T-Mobile makes it happen. The timing is still a big question — HTC’s more or less out of the loop on the schedule, and it’s up to Google and T-Mobile to figure out how it’s going to play out. We’ll keep you updated as we find out more!

Update: We pressed HTC spokespeople to give us a little more to go on, but got the standard “we can’t comment on rumors or speculation” line. T-Mobile, Google, your move — you’ve got plenty of folks waiting. A belated Festivus gift, perhaps?

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

HTC believes Cupcake will come to the T-Mobile G1 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apples for the masses
So the news of Apple selling the iPhone at Wal-Mart is being hyped as unbelievable. I mean, really, Wal-Mart? Apple? What is this, the Beverly Hillbillies? You know, I don’t think I would have ever guessed that any schmoe on the street could walk into their local Wal-Mart and buy a 12-pack of Old Milwaukee and an iPhone in the same visit. Really, the huge display of iPods in my local Wal-Mart never made the thought cross my mind. Completely blind-sided I tell you. Contrary to rumor, “everyday low prices” does not apply here. Apple would never stoop THAT low.

Androids will rule…maybe, someday
Google’s method of market-testing beta releases seems to be carrying over into the physical world with news coming out from HTC saying that they expect over 1 million phones to be sold by the end of the 2008. While these numbers pale in comparison to the iPhone (especially since you can now get one at Wal-Mart), the groundswell is growing and it won’t be too long before the market sees an influx of Android-powered devices. Other devices are on the way from other manufacturers and HTC is rumored to be releasing the G2 phone sometime, so we’ll see what happens.

Gas-free zone
Everyone likes lists, so here’s Gizmodo’s take on the best Android apps of 2008. I don’t care how cool those apps are, they still don’t have iFart. Move along, Android.

Photo credit: MShades via Flickr

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