Hasta La Gadget!

Oh, hey, look at that: you can buy a Pre now! As of 8:00AM on the East Coast, the phone went on sale at Sprint stores, with Best Buy, Radio Shack and Wal-Mart also retailing the phone today as Saturday dawns across the country. After Sprint’s invite only pre-Pre launch event last night, we still saw plenty of folks lined up outside Sprint’s “flagship” New York store in the Flatiron Building before the doors opened. Apparently people started queuing around 5:00AM, with Chris Lee and Randy Williams the first through the door — replacing a Treo Pro and a HTC Mogul, respectively. Like last night, the process took about 40 minutes, but a lot of that is spent waiting for a small pit crew of Sprint employees to swap over your address book, so if you forgo that we’d say you can be in and out in 30, which should still be plenty of time to savor the moment. Word is that the Flatiron store has about 100 units, but it’s clear that inventory varies widely between locations and retailers — Touchstones seem to be a much rarer commodity.

We’ll be checking out some other launches across the country, so stay tuned, and be sure to send in your own pictures and impressions!

Some word from the wilds:
Tipster Brad says that his Best Buy store in Orlando has only 9 Pres available, and they’re giving them out one by one on an appointment basis — he was fourth in line, so he’ll be going back at 12:15PM to pick his up. Unfortunately, their Touchstone stock is zero.

Kevin C. Tofel was fourth in line at his local Sprint store, which purportedly had 30 phones in stock, but he picked up the last of the Touchstones.

We just checked in at the Bryant Park Sprint store in New York City, and while Pre inventory is cool, they are all out of Touchstones. We’re starting to think the supply of those is quite limited. We also hear that at least one tenacious gentleman got in line at 6:00PM yesterday, and spent the night outside the store in order to get his first.

Continue reading Palm Pre goes on sale nationwide, line forms on the right

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Palm Pre goes on sale nationwide, line forms on the right originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 06 Jun 2009 09:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Tethering is not supported and Sprint has no plans to offer a tethering add-on. The company says it just isn’t a very good user experience and would prefer folks added on a data card line instead.
• About 1,000 invitations were sent out to randomly-selected Premier customers for this evening’s events at ten locations across the country. We’ve heard intermittent reports of folks getting in with no invite, but the Chicago store was staying firm.
• We were told that no store selling Pres this evening would be out of stock for tomorrow, but all bets are off once the floodgates open on Saturday. Company-owned stores got the lion’s share of stock while Best Buys and Radio Shacks were held to lower levels, so your best bet over the weekend is likely a Sprint store.
• We played with our keyboard and then a Sprint employee’s immediately after that had been in use for two weeks; the keys had lost some of their “stickiness,” which we take as a good sign. Fresh Pres have a slightly odd feel across the key surfaces.

Got any other interesting tidbits from your adventures this evening? Throw ’em in comments!

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Palm Pre: takeaways from Premier night originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As you may soon become aware, this week’s podcast is about two hours long. Now, we’re aware that this might present a difficult scenario for those of you who like to rent out a sensory deprivation room every week to maximize the experience of listening to Josh, Nilay and Paul babble, so here are some usage ideas for this “wild card” hour of listening to be spent in the real world:

• Listen to the first half of the podcast twice
• Stand in line for the Pre for an hour and then leave
• Teach yourself to juggle Wiimotes
• Make a recording of yourself lightly chuckling off and on for an hour

Those are just a few of the things we though of off the top of our heads, we’re sure you can improve upon these ideas when the moment of truth comes.

Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Nilay Patel, Paul Miller
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Song: Hotel California

00:03:15 – Palm Pre review
00:49:12 – Engadget & Joystiq live from Microsoft’s E3 2009 keynote
00:50:34 – Microsoft announces “Project Natal” motion controller for Xbox 360!
00:51:40 – Project Natal video hands-on, impressions, and further details
00:52:30 – Xbox Live gets 1080p Zune video store, Netflix browsing, Twitter and Facebook integration
01:03:03 – Xbox 360 getting full retail games delivered on demand
01:15:20 – Engadget & Joystiq live from Nintendo’s E3 2009 keynote
01:15:35 – Nintendo Wii Vitality Sensor detects your pulse
01:22:40 – Miyamoto: Super Mario Bros. Wii could be better, but the Wii’s too weak
01:23:30 – Engadget & Joystiq live from Sony’s E3 2009 keynote
01:24:12 – Sony PSP Go announced — $249, no UMD
01:32:20 – PSP Go first hands-on! (updated)
01:41:20 – Sony announces new PS3 motion controller
01:58:10 – Apple iPhone 3.0 rumor roundup, part II: parental controls and sketchy shots

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Twitter: @joshuatopolsky @futurepaul @reckless @engadget

Filed under: Podcasts

Engadget Podcast 149 – 06.05.2009 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This won’t apply to many of you, but just a little public service announcement to members of Sprint’s elite Premier corps: you can get your Pre tonight if you’ve received an invitation to do so and you’re willing to make the trek to one of ten stores around the country where launch parties are being held. Our understanding is that this is strictly an invite-only event and that non-Premier riff raff (and non-Sprint customers) will be turned away, but honestly, if we were in the market for a Pre, we’d probably loiter for a bit just to see what’s up and get a gauge on whether they’re willing to bend the rules — particularly if the Pres end up not selling out by the time the night’s over. Either way, if you want a Pre this weekend you’ll need to leave your basement at some point because the phone won’t be sold online initially — so let us know how it goes out there in the trenches, folks, and we’ll do the same. Stay tuned!

[Image via PreCentral]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Palm Pres available tonight to invited Premier customers at launch events originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Look, if this were one of those elusive GSM Pres, we might be able to understand this. But seriously — $899.99 for a Palm Pre that you won’t get until launch day anyway? ‘Course, there are those certain folks that are born everyday, but we couldn’t caution you enough to steer clear here. After all, lines won’t even be a problem come tomorrow, right guys? On another note, how did some chap from Encino end up with five of these gems? White panel van delivery or something?

[Via GadgetVenue]

Filed under: Cellphones

Palm Pre hits eBay prior to official launch: just $900 and a fistful of shame originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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