Hasta La Gadget!

As the dust settles from the last two weeks of mobile madness, one question remains unanswered: Which of the new generation of smartphones should you actually buy? We’ve collected everything you need to know.

We’ve selected the five phones that most feel like modern handsets to us—the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G S, the Palm Pre, the HTC Magic (or, as we soon expect, the T-Mobile G2) and the BlackBerry Storm—and broken them down by hardware, software and cost. This is a guide in the strictest sense, meaning we aren’t declaring winners or losers, just giving you the information you need to make your own choice. So! On with the matrices. Phones’ hardware specs tend to dominate carriers’ marketing, but in many cases they just don’t mean much, with a few exceptions: screens, storage, graphics performance and input.

The iPhones and Pre hold a sizable advantage in the screen department, trumping the G2, which doesn’t have multitouch, and the Storm, which has an ill-conceived pseudo-multitouch clickscreen that left most reviewers at best underwhelmed, and at worst downright frustrated.

In terms of storage, our phones take two fundamentally different approaches. The iPhone and Pre include healthy amounts of nonremovable storage—in the case of the iPhone 3G S, up to 32GB—which makes sense: if we’re going to use our phones as they’re marketed (as multimedia devices), we need space. The G2, like the G1 before it, depends on a removable microSD card for file storage, since its inbuilt memory is measured in megabytes. So does the Storm. This is fine if the carrier bundles the handset with a capacious card; Verizon is good about this. T-Mobile, on the other hand, shipped the G1 with a pitifully small 1GB card, so we’ll just have to hope they’re more generous with the G2.

Technical 3D ability is actually fairly uniform across this hardware, with the exception of the iPhone 3G S, which is, in this area, a next-gen product. Only Apple and HTC, though, give developers any meaningful kind of access to their handsets’ graphics accelerators, meaning the G2 and iPhones (particularly the bulked-up 3G S) will be the sole options for would-be gamers. And of the two platforms, iPhone OS has amassed plenty of serious gaming titles, while Android, let’s be honest, hasn’t.

The Pre is an obvious standout in that it has a hardware keyboard in addition to its touchscreen. The hardware QWERTY/onscreen keyboard debate is all about personal preference, so whether this is a boon or a burden is up to you. Typing on a screen is an acquired skill—but much more so on the Storm than the iPhone or G2.

Battery life would seem to be a valuable metric; it’s not. The differences in capacity and claimed endurance don’t really matter much, since realistically, they all need to be charged nightly.

Note: the Storm is due a minor hardware refresh, possibly quite soon. The main change, it’s been rumored, is a different touchscreen.
The greatest hardware in the world couldn’t save a phone with shitty software, and your handset’s OS is the single largest determining factor in how you’ll enjoy your phone. We’ve explored the differences between the major smartphone platforms at length here, and there’s no point getting too far into the specific differences right now.

To summarize: iPhone OS claims advantages in ease of use, its burgeoning App Store, and a respectable core feature set, but falters on multitasking and its lack of ability to install unsanctioned apps. The Pre’s WebOS is extremely slick and friendly to multitasking, but its App Catalog is light on content, and its development SDK is somewhat restrictive. Android and BlackBerry OS are both more laissez-faire, letting users install apps from whatever source they choose. Neither of their app stores is spectacular, but Android’s is markedly less anemic. More on app stores here.

Carrier preferences will often override prices, but here they are anyway. The Pre and G2 are the most economic options, and the Storm roughly ties the 3G S as the most expensive. (It’s easy to underestimate how much a small monthly cost difference can add up over two years.) But again, carrier loyalty (or more likely, disloyalty) and coverage quality is as important as cost. If Sprint’s killing your Pre buzz, it could be worth waiting until next year, when Verizon is rumored to pick it up. Likewise, if T-Mobile coverage in your area is patchy, don’t worry: by the time T-Mobile actually offers the G2, we’ll probably have at least another functionally identical handset lined up for release elsewhere.

So there you have it: everything you need to know about the latest crop of consumer smartphones. Go forth, and be gouged.

You sort of knew this was coming after he shepherded the Pre to launch, but Palm just announced that Jon Rubinstein is taking over as CEO, replacing Ed Colligan after sixteen years in the top spot. After a short break, Colligan will join the very vocal Roger McNamee at major Palm investor Elevation Partners, so he won’t be totally out of the loop, but the shuffle is still somewhat unexpected — and the Palm / Apple bloodlines just got even deeper with the Rubinstein, the ex-head of the iPod and Mac divisions, now totally in charge.

[Via Brighthand]

Filed under: Cellphones

Jon Rubinstein takes over as Palm CEO originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This webOS ROM leak just keeps getting better and better. The PreCentral guys have reportedly found in the code some interesting tidbit in the miniboot.sh that distinctly references two different devices: “castle” (likely the codename for Pre) and “pixie,” which we have previously heard as another name for the rumored AT&T-bound Eos. Is this a sign that Palm’s oft-whispered Pre successor is revving up just around the corner? We can only hope.

Filed under: Cellphones

Palm Pixie (Eos) confirmed via webOS ROM leak? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Jun 2009 01:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s never a dull moment when Palm investor Roger McNamee sits down for an interview, and his latest chat with Fox Business is no exception — in addition to saying that the Pre launch was a “dream come true,” he more or less implied that all future Palm devices will have hardware keyboards: “Our goal is to address all of those people who say I cannot have a real life without a keyboard — I can’t live doing one thing at a time.” Yeah, it’s not much, but taken in context it seems like he’s saying that keyboards and multitasking will be Palm’s major differentiators against the iPhone. That’s not to say he thinks the Pre is destined to kill Cupertino’s baby — in addition to calling Apple “the most successful company in the history of Silicon Valley,” McNamee also reiterated Palm’s characterization of the iPhone as primarily a consumer-centric media phone: “If what you care about most is listening to music or playing back videos, the iPhone is probably the right phone for you.” That’s a pretty slickly-delivered backhanded compliment, if you ask us — although from El Rog we’d expect nothing less. Check the whole interview after the break — it’s a good one.

[Via Everything Pre]

Continue reading Roger McNamee says Pre launch was a “dream come true,” hints that all Palm devices will have physical keyboards

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Roger McNamee says Pre launch was a “dream come true,” hints that all Palm devices will have physical keyboards originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You’ve seen our Palm Pre review, but if you only had to get ten things out of it, which ten things would they be? It would be these ten things.

1) Palm’s webOS is tremendously usable. The new concepts they introduce—gestures under the screen, cards to represent running apps, searching for contacts and apps from the main screen—are all intuitive and easy to pick up. The look of the UI is also soothing, with largish icons and largish text, fluid animations and rounded corners. It’s definitely a “web” OS in that it takes a lot of cues from web design patterns and motifs.

2) The Pre is a fantastic size and shape and feels natural in both your pocket or your hand. The rounded pebble shape is pleasurable, and the weight is solid without being weighty. That said…

3) When you open up the phone, the story changes dramatically. The edges are too sharp—sharp enough to cut cheese—and the keyboard is tiny and difficult to type on. If Palm had included iPhone/Android-level word correction, basically a system that would basically fix misspellings for you to correct for inaccurate typing, this wouldn’t be a problem.

4) Multitasking is handled elegantly. Palm’s webOS introduces the concept of “cards” as apps, where you can shuffle them around, scroll through your deck and deal them off your phone to close them. It’s great most of the time to be able to swap between emailing and texting and YouTube and your browser without having to close out and lose your spot in each app. Unfortunately, multitasking works the same as it does in your PC in that you have a limited amount of system resources to go around, and using heavy apps will mean you can’t do much else without a significant slowdown—like having your music stutter.

5) There will be various hardware editions with this OS. Unlike the iPhone, where there’s basically only one phone with the iPhone OS every year, Palm’s planning on releasing different phones in different form factors all running the same OS. There’s already been one leaked: the Centro-like Palm Eos that’s heading to AT&T.

6) It works with iTunes. Palm went to the trouble of making the Pre pretend to be an iPod when synced to iTunes, allowing you to transfer your music and video and photos without a problem. Playlists make it over just fine, but song ratings and play counts aren’t supported on the Pre. And your DRM’ed iTunes songs won’t make it over either, but your MP3 and DRM-free ones will.

7) Facebook and Google sync well. Not only does it have push Gmail, there’s something called Synergy that grabs your Facebook and Google contacts and merges them together on your phone. You may not want ALL your Facebook contacts or everyone you’ve ever emailed from your Gmail account to be on your phone, but it’s all or nothing at this point.

8) It works with your old Palm apps. If you’re an old-school Palm OS user that really needs some random app, like the eBook reader or Epocrates medical software (before their Pre version comes out), this can ease your transition.

9) The screen and multitouch are both high quality. Like I said in the review, the screen is crisp and sharp and clear, and the multitouch seems to track slightly better and quicker than the iPhone.

10) The app catalog is tiny now, but will most likely grow quite fast since the phone is slightly more consumery than Android phones (Android is a little more hardcore-based than this). Although I don’t see an explosion as big as the iTunes App Store, I do think there will be quite a few apps for the phone eventually.

11) BONUS! The Touchstone charger charges really slowly. If you’re looking to charge in a hurry, plug the microUSB charger directly into the Pre. But if you’re just docking it at work and want to keep the screen on standby so you can see emails and texts come in, the Touchstone is a decent solution. It does, however, make your phone quite hot.

These are the ten main points, and serve as a fast introductory course to knowing the Palm Pre. If you’re interested in doing more research on the device before you buy, here’s the review and the FAQ.