[kjb86]

obviously when there's some people on their 5th or 6th phone, we've got some hardware issues. the failure rate of the pre is much too high to be reliable hardware. its just something factual. i love my pre but it doesn't have great build quality.

Ya but every phone has a failure rate no matter what.

It's part of the manufacturing process.

Even the holy grail iPhone have had build issues in the past.

In our day and age where capitalism rules and products aren't built to last, we have issues just like everything you buy.

Is the Pre manufactured a little less than normal.. yes.. we all know that just by touching it. Just the way she goes. I don't understand why this forum is turning into a real big argument.. it's almost like I'm reading BGR or Engadget lol

[finngirl]

Can't relate still on my 1st Pre, great hardware, over 10 months old. There are also 647 people (85%) polled that also disagree with you about the quality of the hardware:

http://forums.precentral.net/palm-pr...pre-proud.html

And what percentage of people are NOT happy with the build quality of their hardware?



Oh, yeah, the poll didn't ask that question....!

I can't believe anyone uses that "poll" to defend these phones.

[intellidryad]

Instead of a device with a nice, polished, error-free user interface, what we got was an interface that is extremely slow and full of bugs and unfinished business. The state that this phone was released in would barely qualify it for alpha testing given any other company, much less commercial sale. For instance, the phone has a powerful CPU with a powerful graphics chip, but the graphics chip was not enabled.

Not to blame you, but welcome to the world of first generation devices.

Palm was not the first to include a GPU but not use it. Back in the days, hTC once released their first finger oriented touchscreen phone with touchflow UI: the hTC touch. It included a GPU, but no drivers. The only option to get the GPU driver was to buy the next generation of hTC phones. How's that?

And the hardware quality. I had the first generation Core Duo Apple MacBook.
Cracking case? Check.
Spontaneous shutdown and overheating? Check.
Frequent bug fixing firmware update? (in addition to OS updates) Check.

How about Palm's own track record?
TX: power button guaranteed to break one year later
Zire 71: rubber paint peals off

By no means does all this justify Palm's release of uncompleted products. It is sad that quality taking a second seat had became the trend in the industry, but I am not surprised.

Gone are the days when Sony releases perfectly finished Clie PDAs in a bug free.

Mind you, I consider webOS 1.4.1.1 fairly complete. It is now on par with Palm OS 5.2 in stability, which is the most stable OS that I've ever known of.

[demetry14]

Ciao

[GenericMusings]

Can't relate still on my 1st Pre, great hardware, over 10 months old. There are also 647 people (85%) polled that also disagree with you about the quality of the hardware:

http://forums.precentral.net/palm-pr...pre-proud.html

And how many of those who answered that poll either used or opened multiple accounts in order to skew the results to the positive side? It's not like you can't open a new gmail or hotmail account in under 5 minutes. Tell me people wouldn't try and cook the books... I dare you.

[jaserjaser]

long time bb user jus got pre+ over the weekend and loving webos!!!!!

[sputnik767]

Not to blame you, but welcome to the world of first generation devices.

Palm was not the first to include a GPU but not use it. Back in the days, hTC once released their first finger oriented touchscreen phone with touchflow UI: the hTC touch. It included a GPU, but no drivers. The only option to get the GPU driver was to buy the next generation of hTC phones. How's that?

And the hardware quality. I had the first generation Core Duo Apple MacBook.
Cracking case? Check.
Spontaneous shutdown and overheating? Check.
Frequent bug fixing firmware update? (in addition to OS updates) Check.

How about Palm's own track record?
TX: power button guaranteed to break one year later
Zire 71: rubber paint peals off

By no means does all this justify Palm's release of uncompleted products. It is sad that quality taking a second seat had became the trend in the industry, but I am not surprised.

Gone are the days when Sony releases perfectly finished Clie PDAs in a bug free.

Mind you, I consider webOS 1.4.1.1 fairly complete. It is now on par with Palm OS 5.2 in stability, which is the most stable OS that I've ever known of.

Actually for me, 1.4.1.1 has been the least stable release. I am experiencing a lot of random shutdowns, mainly using the music player remix app, and after the 1.4.1 update my phone has been missing some calls and text messages with no notification. I can deal with random shutdowns while listening to music, it's not that critical, but the missed call issue is a major problem. It is primarily a phone, and at the very least, this part should be completely bug free. BTW, it's not a signal issue. Where I live, I'm getting 5 bars consistently.

[petbull]

Actually, I'm more upset about the quality of the refurbs than the original phone. I don't think anyone checks these. You would think that the quality of these would be better as they weed out the obvious issues, but I think they just put them back in circulation and the problems just keep getting reported again and again.

[gladesmellzgood]

Actually, I'm more upset about the quality of the refurbs than the original phone. I don't think anyone checks these. You would think that the quality of these would be better as they weed out the obvious issues, but I think they just put them back in circulation and the problems just keep getting reported again and again.

My Verizon refurb is better than the 3 new ones I traded for during my 30 day period. I hope nothing happens to this one.

[gbp]

love webOS

[meriwether]

The design of the phone probably contributes to failures more than the manufacturing quality. That's why I believe that whoever acquires Palm will discontinue the Pre.

Agreed. I don't think anyone will ever try this form factor again. That right there tells you something about it. Put WebOS in an HTC Evo or even a brick-like Droid, and you would see better results. There were undoubtedly reasons for the hardware decisions that were good at the time, but sometimes things don't work out as expected. Especially if you have to make design choices based on lack of resources.

[patchs]

For my 1,000th post, I can say that I will always remain a Palm and a Web OS user.
Dating back to my Handspring Visor Deluxe, to the Visor Prism, to a Palm Tungsten C, Treo 650 and 700p, and now the Pre.
Long live Palm!
Long live Web OS!

[iamsedated]

As much as I love Web OS, the first impression I had was "***" after owning a Treo for years. Say what you want about the old Palm OS but that form factor and solid build is what made the Treo the dominant phone to have. When the phone got smaller, e.g. the 700 series, it was a thing of beauty, at least from a hardware perspective.

Then came the Pre and the slideout keyboard. As others said, they wanted something cool and different that would immediately compete on looks with the iPhone. Just like Blackberry and the dumb STorm, Palm made its mistake. Not only was the phone plastic, many items were poorly planned - the USB connector on the side and the door that would obviously break on numerous owners' phones could be predicted immediately.

As much as I hated the Droid keyboard, the mechanism was rock solid with a satisfying click. The Pre was some bizarre contoured design that had problems. Sure, there will be plenty of you who don't have problems but it was clearly an issue waiting to happen for many people.

Now we look at the Pixi. Simple, slick, solid. If the phone was a little bigger, would people buy it? You bet they would. Everyone who wanted the perfect complement of Blackberry plus touchscreen plus far better OS had a solution... and that was a HUGE part of the market. But no, this was to be the underpowered women's solution.

Bad choices. Don't rip the OP for stating the obvious. Sure it pains us to hear this but it's true.

[cardfan]

I'm not 'in the know' with inside dealings at Palm, but then, I'm pretty sure you're not either. It has been reported many places that this was at Sprint's insistence, so why does Palm get your angst? I agree that the pixie without wifi was a huge error and waste of time, though my wife seems to love hers and doesn't notice the omission in how the phone works. But I think the blame for this is in Sprint's lap.

There shouldn't even have been a Pixi to begin with. It doesn't matter if Sprint insisted on not having wifi, it reflects on Palm.

[cardfan]

Things like that are symptomatic of the problem on this forum. Armchair CEOs that are "experts" don't realize that just because someone else isn't playing their game, doesn't mean they are "blind defenders".

No doubt, Palm did some things wrong. Equally without doubt, they did some things right, otherwise they would have gone under a long time ago, when the armchair CEO's predicted they would.

That's cute Herb. But you're as much as an "Armchair CEO" as the next guy on here. What's your point? It's why we have forums.

[petbull]

There shouldn't even have been a Pixi to begin with. It doesn't matter if Sprint insisted on not having wifi, it reflects on Palm.

come on, this is ridiculous. If a customer says this is what they want, you provide it. business 101.

[dbpaddler]

If it weren't for the Pixi, Palm's sales would've sucked more *ss than they already did. They should've kept the same hardware and wifi and just made the two form factors.

There shouldn't even have been a Pixi to begin with. It doesn't matter if Sprint insisted on not having wifi, it reflects on Palm.

[quini]

love webOS

So do I !!

PD and now, with the 800MHz kernel, I love it even more!

[hparsons]

That's cute Herb. But you're as much as an "Armchair CEO" as the next guy on here. What's your point? It's why we have forums.

I thought my point was pretty clear.

It's very easy to sit back and say what they "should have done" without knowing particulars.

As far as playing armchair CEO myself, I don't think I've done so. I realized back when I owned my own company that lots of people have advice, and it's very "easy" for them to decide what you should be doing, when they're not the ones that have to consider where the resources come from, or what agreements are in place.

For instance, I constantly hear about how Palm goofed about going with Sprint, or going with Sprint so long (you seem to be in the minority in feeling they didn't do so long enough). Possibly they shopped around to the other carriers and were told "not interested" (I do know Palm had been out of Verizon for a long time), or the terms were not acceptable. Possibly Sprint was willing to take them on board, but only if they agreed to 6 months. Possibly they shopped Verizon after the initial release, and Verizon said yes, but we want two devices.

These are all suppositions. And even if they're true, I'm still not going to say Palm made the right (or wrong) decision. They made a decision though, and it's what we get to live with.

I look at things like that as a package deal. Take the good and bad together and then decide as to whether or not the package is what I want. If not, there are other phone mfgs.

[ghinger]

this phone would be perfect if it were just a little bit faster, and yes I have the patch running