Off-Grid Living with the Palm Pre

**blz2** · 06/22/2009, 06:44 PM

Originally Posted by Ezalis

And I thought I was roughing it with my pre at Bonnaroo. Glad the phone lived up to your expectations.

I broke my Treo 755p @ Bonnaroo but my Pre was waiting for me on Monday

Bonnarooooooo!

**Auberon Barnable** · 06/22/2009, 06:59 PM

Salty I am very interested in entirely living off the grid eventually though my current career in IT will force a major life change. You have a new reader of your blog 8).

**S4Rs** · 06/22/2009, 08:09 PM

If you live off grid how do you have wifi? When you say that do just mean you produce your own power. You still have a telephone/dsl?

**kevhead** · 06/22/2009, 08:36 PM

off grid meaning not tied in to the power grid provided by the electric company.

power produced by solar, wind or water means

he sounds like he just uses solar...

I'm also eager to check your blogs when I get off the train being run by the grid!

**dangolden** · 06/22/2009, 08:52 PM

cause that about how long my pre battery lasts. I did some off the grid living this weekend... trying to track down friends at a concert.... spent all day hanging by an outlet so I could keep the pre charged.... it made it all the way through the 3 hour show but then pooped out when I needed it for directions.

do you have power outlets in the field? touchstone cows?

**Salty Off-Grid** · 06/22/2009, 09:06 PM

Dangolden, when I first got my Pre, like in the first day, I had battery problems. But the last two updates have really fixed things. I went about 10 hours the other day, no problem, and I use all the things mentioned in my review. There are literally hundreds of articles now on the web showing you how to tweak the power usage to improve it. Sorry if you haven't made use of those. If you have, then maybe you have a problem with your unit and you should take and swap it for a new one. Really, I have no such problems. Minimum I can go 7 hours of pretty high usage, but since I live on my ranch, it would only take me... oh, about a couple of minutes to walk to the cabin and charge the Pre. We have power, we just aren't on the power grid.

S4Rs, the issues you ask about are discussed in my review. We use wireless internet that uses a wireless radio router that hits a tower on a mesa about 8 miles away near the nearest town.

Y'all that are interested in off-grid living... thanks for mentioning it, and go for it. If you want to know how, read my off-grid series at michaelbunker.com/offgrid.html. It is a bit extremist and some of the opinions might be shocking, but there is a "how to" in there.

My Pre is chattering off the hook from Twitterers, so I appreciate all of y'all reading my review. Thanks for your great comments.

Michael (Salty Off-Grid)

**xboss** · 06/22/2009, 09:56 PM

I'm all for the Pre and can't wait for it to come out over here in HK.

However, after reading the article, it gave me an impression it was written by an advertising agency. It's funny how an "off the grid" user just happened to use just about every features currently available in the exact intended way.

It was just unbelievable (literally). In case you think i'm an iphone fanboy trying to put down the pre. No i'm not, i'm actually currently putting up with Windows Mobile. Even with all the problems with WM, it suits me but I really really would like the pre to be "the phone" for me.

**BeingBoston121** · 06/22/2009, 10:37 PM

I have to ask, how many battery do you go through in a day? Doing half that in a day i'll kill a battery just to watch it die.

**hrminer92** · 06/22/2009, 11:22 PM

A friend's wife has a Pre and she uses it to occasionally watch TV, look at google maps, send text messages, make a few calls, etc. He said that he finally had to plug it in to charge it up and they've had it almost a week. She apparently charged it up the first time right after they got it and thought she was going to break the USB door off, so she had him do it the 2nd time.

**trojandrew** · 06/23/2009, 01:54 AM

Originally Posted by xboss

I'm all for the Pre and can't wait for it to come out over here in HK.

However, after reading the article, it gave me an impression it was written by an advertising agency. It's funny how an "off the grid" user just happened to use just about every features currently available in the exact intended way.

It was just unbelievable (literally). In case you think i'm an iphone fanboy trying to put down the pre. No i'm not, i'm actually currently putting up with Windows Mobile. Even with all the problems with WM, it suits me but I really really would like the pre to be "the phone" for me.

LOL, if this was an ad agency, they went through a TON of trouble (go check out his blogs and websites, Biblical Agrarianism articles galore) to garner a handful of twitter followers. This guy is pretty legit, the Pre just happens to be the exact solution he needs.

**u235** · 06/23/2009, 02:04 AM

Interesting story Salty

**bclinger** · 06/23/2009, 02:13 AM

A very enjoyable read. Thank you for sharing.

**Keegsta** · 06/23/2009, 04:28 AM

Awesome read. Thanks for the interesting story.

**Salty Off-Grid** · 06/23/2009, 08:53 AM

XBoss,

I am very, very real. It is kind of funny though that we have all grown so cynical that we think a satisfied customer must also work for the company!

No, I have received no payment from Palm or any advertising agency at all, though - now you mention it...

Ok, so sarcasm alert (and I mean this in a light-hearted way, not in a mean way)

Palm did contact me back in 2001 (when I started michaelbunker.com) with a brilliant ploy to create a mythical happy customer sometime in the far future. I actually think it was a far-sighted time-traveling Palm exec. He then had me create literally hundreds of hours of Biblical Agrarian sermons and lessons and in 2005 he convinced me to start BiblicalAgrarianism.com because he had predicted the advent of the Christian Agrarian Separatist movement. Palm is on the ball. Some would say they are "palm readers". Also in 2005 he had me move into this simple Agrarian Off-Grid community in order to cement and solidify my future story! On the way, in order to be able to prove the bona-fides of the story, the Palm time-traveler executive also had me say some very controversial things, and created in me the perfect outsider, hostile to most advanced technology and politically and philosophically antithetical to most of what even Palm believes. The plan was perfect. The manchurian spokesman plan was a huge success!

Ok, so that was just all in fun. Anyway, I hope those of you who own a Pre are enjoying it. For those having battery problems, do some research on tweaking the battery usage. One that helped me a lot was that there was an automatic assumption that Wi-Fi sucked the battery big time. Well, that isn't particularly true. If the Wi-Fi signal is stronger than the Sprint signal, you will do much better to leave the Wi-Fi on. Low signal is a major battery drain. That tip helped me immensely since a good portion of my day I am in or near our cabin where the Wi-Fi router is located.

Oh, and I had a heifer die overnight (a commercial cow, not one of our pure Longhorns)

, which was also part of the plan to give me street cred in my advocacy of the Palm Pre.

Hope y'all are doing well,

Michael (Salty Off-Grid)

**Salty Off-Grid** · 06/23/2009, 08:58 AM

By the way. Palm should be paying me. I hadn't thought of that. I would like...

(sinister look, deeply evil cackle... places pinky to side of mouth)

One THOUSSSSAND DOLLARS

(nods head, glares at Palm)

**bclancy** · 06/23/2009, 09:18 AM

Originally Posted by Salty Off-Grid

... Oh, and I had a heifer die overnight (a commercial cow, not one of our pure Longhorns) ...

Sorry to hear that.

**dajlol77** · 06/23/2009, 10:01 AM

Great review, I'll definitely be checking in on your blog as well. Thanks for writing it for us.

It's really a shame that a troll had to chime in, but great response lol

**ksom** · 06/29/2009, 01:55 PM

Originally Posted by Salty Off-Grid

This is my second review on off-grid living with the Palm Pre. My first review was written 3 days after I received the Pre on rollout day June 6th. As of Saturday the 20th I have now had the Palm Pre for 2 weeks. As I said in my first review, I am nowhere near the typical Pre user. My needs are unique and therefore my smartphone has to be unique as well. I live on a completely off-grid 40 acre ranch in Central Texas. We raise Pure Longhorn cattle, a milking Holstein, sheep, rabbits, chickens, and yellow blackmouth curr dogs. We are not anti-technology, but we examine every technology very closely to see if it will actually benefit our simple lifestyle. We live our lives very deliberately, and we know that most supposed "time-saving" technologies have actually created a society of slaves to the machines, and we seriously examine whether a device or technology is actually offering us any benefits or if it just becomes another toy to be serviced by its human slaves.

...

Michael Bunker (Salty Off-Grid)

Very nice review. I like new technology to help people live the lives they want to live better, not try to change people's lives. New technology will change our lives, I just don't think it should be goal. The goal is to live a better life, whatever it is.

**martini9x** · 06/29/2009, 02:33 PM

that was a very cool review. I will check out the blog.

**VaccPalm** · 06/29/2009, 03:43 PM

Very well written and great review. Very well done.

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