iPhone 3G S vs Palm Pre: The Battle Begins

June 9, 2009, 08:53 AM —  PC World — 

The guessing game is over: Apple's iPhone 3G S has arrived. Don't let appearances fool you. On the outside nothing looks much different with the 3G S. The real difference is what's inside. So how will Apple's iPhone 3G s compare to the Palm Pre?

The main difference is quite obvious -- for the same price as a 16GB iPhone3G S you only get a 8GB Palm Pre. In comparison, the current generation 8GB iPhone 3G dropped in price to $99, going after Pre's lower capacity storage.

For just $100 more than the Palm Pre (that is if you get your $100 mail-in rebate) you can get a top-notch iPhone 3G S with a whopping 32GB of storage (four times more than the Pre).

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Comments

which to choose??

One 42 year old kid's opinion.

I have a 3G iPhone for work and I just got a Pre on my personal line. Upon having the Pre for only a few days I can say this; the universal search feature is killer. The keyboard is great too; my wife has a Centro and it's keyboard was just too small for me, but the Pre's keyboard is just the right size. Truthfully with the iPhone, I have yet to; type an email, text message or internet search with the touchscreen keyboard and not had to backspace either to remove some mishcabobble text or some word that vaguely resembled what I typed but has no meaning the subject and replace it with what I MEANT to type or replace the "B"s with spaces that my thumb mistyped, that is a supreme pain in the thumb! But with the iPhone like the Blackberry you just hit the space bar twice and you get a period, with the Pre you get a period key, it takes a bit of getting used to.
On the other hand, iTunes and the iPod features are great! And the app store has something for just about everybody to waste their time and remain unproductive (I know, there are a ton of productivity tools as well). I ought to know, I have about 25 apps on my iPhone; from games to music apps to fart machines to a replica of the "Easy" button to...well that's about it. OH! the app store has a "flashlight" app, how many times have you needed one of those???
From what I am told, there is a video camera feature coming out in the Pre's first update. Who cares about autofocus, it's a cellphone!!! The flash is useful but only to an extent, it doesn't go further than 10 feet anyway. One really cool techie feature on the Pre is the optional Touchstone (a $79 charging accessory). This is a small cylindrical piece that uses the same USB cable used with the AC adapter/computer connection that only requires you to put the phone on it to charge. The phone magnetically connects to the touchstone to charge; that's right wireless charging! Pretty shweet. How's that for techie!!! The Sprint stores I went to expected to sell 1 touchstone for every 10 Pre that they sold, well they sold 1 for ever 3 and sold out of them rather quickly.

Overall, it's a huge toss up. How do you choose? Well it's simple:
What cellular carrier do you currently have now?
You don't have service currently???
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN LIVING, UNDER A ROCK???

They are both pretty good phones and with the 3GS coming out and the features it includes it will be an even tighter race. A better battery life and turn by turn directions will be a welcome addition. Voice recognition??? no big deal, I have an app for that!!!

I don't plan on getting a 3GS as I am not going to make an investment of another phone out of contract, too pricey in this economic environment. Which, come to think of it, for there to be such a run on these hi-end techie gadgets in this economy it says something to me; Sprint has sold out of the Pre in just about everyone of their retail stores, certainly all of the ones in my area (NYC/NJ metro area) as well as just about all of the accessories, I'm lucky I was able to buy a car charger. and with a retail of over $500 that says something. A new 2 year contract gets you a Pre for $299 then a $100 mail in rebate lowers that to $199. Not too bad for an 8gb touchscreen smartphone with a real keyboard that is actually pretty small in size! Will it kill the iPhone, I don't think so, but it sure will sprint the opportunity to give AT&T a run for their money.
| reply

Shilling for Apple

It's not all about the number of apps, the amount of storage, and price, or even just about the underlying network (which is why I'm waiting until Verizon finally gets a great phone in the Pre).

There are many apps that will run in MotionApps' Classic emulator. You should remember that Palm practically invented the PDA. And then there's the ability to really multi-task. No, not you, the phone! And being able to get to any app/search from within any other app may very well be worth the price of admission on it's own.

That said, I'm waiting. iPhones are great, but I expect that by the time I get my next phone, I'll be sticking with Verizon, but switching from my clunky, old Moto q9m to another phone with a real keyboard, but one that also has a touchscreen and real multi-tasking. I hope that I don't have to wait too long.
| reply

iPhone VS Palm

I found a deatiled iPhone 3GS VS Palm Pre comparison table, share it here.
maccolar on 6/10/09 at 7:17 am | reply
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