Pre Or Droid?

Which would you go with?


  • Total voters
    19

Consequence_9

have you realized that rock stars always seem to l
Joined
Sep 29, 2008
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I'm in the market for a new phone/carrier. Had an iphone on at&t which broke. It would cost double what I paid for to get it fixed & I've already pissed away 50 bux trying to fix it myself. I don't want to waste more money on it, not to mention I feel like a tool using it & I'm pretty fed up with at&t's service.

I'm gonna do a brief run-down of my likes & dislikes. I'm hoping anyone who owns/used one or more can chime in to help me decide. =]

One of the things I really hated about the iphone was it's lack of physical buttons/keyboard. Obviously all 3 phones I'm thinking about have keyboards, but which is best? The pre looks like it has the best keyboard of the three. They look well sized, spaced & it seems like it'd be the easiest to type on and would be tactile-y satisfying. The G1 has the most keys, which I like, but the layout & spacing seem like it'd take some getting used to. The droid looks like it has the worst keyboard of the bunch, I feel like I'd really dislike it. I don't like that there is no space at all between keys, as well as the shape of them & they look like they wouldn't be tactile-y satisfying.

Next up is OS. I got sick of the iphone OS very fast. Even after 'jailbreaking' it I remained highly unsatisfied. I'm a linux guy & anything running linux in my pocket gets me off (see what i did there?), so the two android phones are a no brainer in this category. If anyone has a pre I'd like their impressions on webOS. It certainly looks miles better than iphoneOS, but looks aren't everything. Having said that, I don't know how I feel about motoblur either. It doesn't look very aesthetically pleasing to me, but it is android and can probably be changed.

Hardware is up next. I must give the iphone some credit here; it was satisfying to hold in the hand & the headphone/mic jack was great. The screen was quite nice, but the screen is honestly the least of my concerns since I'm not big on small screen movies & I'm sure all 3 are decent. I have no preference as to screen size either. Multitouch however is a must for me because I will be using the internet a considerable amount. I know the US version of the Droid doesn't support it out of box, but as long as the hardware's there the software will follow (one way or another). The G1 has it unofficially as well, and I only really need it in the web-browser.

The Pre & Droid both have internal headphone jacks, which put them ahead of the G1 in this category because I do expect to use it as an mp3 player at times as well as quite frequently for calls. Can anyone comment on if they have integrated mic support through the headphone jack ala iphone tho?

The Pre takes the cake for aesthetics easily, followed by the droid & then G1. This isn't too big of a concern to me as I'm more a fan of function over form, but do you pre/g1 owners have any specific likes & dislikes?

All three phones are sliders, although I vastly prefer the Pre in this category because it slides vertically. I don't like having to flip the phone horizontally & slide it out just to respond to texts. I like having the phone actually near my mouth, otherwise I feel... I dunno, weird? It's hard to explain, haha. The G1 seems like it'd be the worst in this reguard and I dunno about the droid.

Battery life is a biggie for me. The iphone had abysmal battery life, my biggest complaint. How do these three hold up?

Since all of these are exclusive to different networks, is there anything I should know about any of them in particular? How good/bad is coverage/customer service?

That's about all I can think of ATM. If you own one of these or have used one please voice your opinion =]
 
...felt like a tool using it...

One of the things that gets me through my day at work is watching one of the partners using his iPhone. Bluetooth headset on, shouting into his phone while walking through the office.

I asked him if he likes the iPhone and he told me he couldn't live without it.

on topic - a fancy an Android just to learn the SDK.
 
I have a G1 and am very pleased with it. It is a bit slow but that can be solved by hacking the phone and use the amazing Cyanogen Mod. G1 will probably not be able to use Android 2, but I am sure Cyanogen will add Android 2 functionality to his mod when the source is available.
If I needed a phone now, I would probably buy a Droid. It is the best Android phone available right now. I do believe Android will be a great success, it is open and it is backed by Google. It will be used on a lot of phones and also be pre-installed on netbooks.

Palm Pre with WebOS, although a very nice phone is just made by and for one company. I don't think you will see the synergy you will see in development for the Android platform.
 
The keyboard on the Pre is not perfect but I have gotten used to it quite well. Using short thumbnails to type makes it easy.
WebOS is a beautiful standard Linux system while I have often heard the complaint that Google rewrote standard system components in Android for no apparent reason.
The multitasking is simply fantastic. I have never seen switching between running programs done this well on a handheld.
If you code your apps the official way, there are limits to what you can do. At the moment, there is a lack of good games and more complex programs. However, I expect Palm to continue to improve here and they have already been doing so. There is an active homebrew community with it's own on device app installer. They also make patches to add functionality to the OS. The great thing is that Palm doesn't fight these efforts but actually cooperates with the open source and homebrew community. That is what makes me so certain that I have bought the right phone.
The 3.5 mm jack on the Pre is for complete headsets with microphone.
My Pre is simply beautiful. One annoying thing about the hardware is the flap covering the USB socket. You need a good fingernail to open it. That's one good reason to get the Touchstone (somewhat expensive wireless charger) because charging otherwise works over USB. The other reason is that the special backcover you need for wireless charging is rubberized which feels much better. The battery is the other big issue. It runs for maybe five hours of continuous use and thus barely gets me through a day at university. There are batteries twice as big available which come with a thicker backcover but they are not compatible with the wireless charger. I use an external battery for emergencies (Minty Boost). I heard that future software updates will probably improve the situation a little.
I love my Pre because it is exactly the open touchscreen phone I've been waiting for for about five years. You don't have to hack it to install what you want, it is actually open. It's also not simply a desktop Linux on a phone but a modern fresh multitasking UI with great internet integration. Some things are not quite finished, like hardware access in official software, so you are an early adopter on an evolving system. That's one of the things I like about new gadgets, though, and Palm actually listens to it's users so you get to help the evolution along if you want to.
 
OrR said:
The keyboard on the Pre is not perfect but I have gotten used to it quite well. Using short thumbnails to type makes it easy.
WebOS is a beautiful standard Linux system while I have often heard the complaint that Google rewrote standard system components in Android for no apparent reason.
The multitasking is simply fantastic. I have never seen switching between running programs done this well on a handheld.
If you code your apps the official way, there are limits to what you can do. At the moment, there is a lack of good games and more complex programs. However, I expect Palm to continue to improve here and they have already been doing so. There is an active homebrew community with it's own on device app installer. They also make patches to add functionality to the OS. The great thing is that Palm doesn't fight these efforts but actually cooperates with the open source and homebrew community. That is what makes me so certain that I have bought the right phone.
The 3.5 mm jack on the Pre is for complete headsets with microphone.
My Pre is simply beautiful. One annoying thing about the hardware is the flap covering the USB socket. You need a good fingernail to open it. That's one good reason to get the Touchstone (somewhat expensive wireless charger) because charging otherwise works over USB. The other reason is that the special backcover you need for wireless charging is rubberized which feels much better. The battery is the other big issue. It runs for maybe five hours of continuous use and thus barely gets me through a day at university. There are batteries twice as big available which come with a thicker backcover but they are not compatible with the wireless charger. I use an external battery for emergencies (Minty Boost). I heard that future software updates will probably improve the situation a little.
I love my Pre because it is exactly the open touchscreen phone I've been waiting for for about five years. You don't have to hack it to install what you want, it is actually open. It's also not simply a desktop Linux on a phone but a modern fresh multitasking UI with great internet integration. Some things are not quite finished, like hardware access in official software, so you are an early adopter on an evolving system. That's one of the things I like about new gadgets, though, and Palm actually listens to it's users so you get to help the evolution along if you want to.
Hmmm, I'm quite tempted to get one now from this good review.
smile.gif
 
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Tag5 said:
OrR said:
The keyboard on the Pre is not perfect but I have gotten used to it quite well. Using short thumbnails to type makes it easy.
WebOS is a beautiful standard Linux system while I have often heard the complaint that Google rewrote standard system components in Android for no apparent reason.
The multitasking is simply fantastic. I have never seen switching between running programs done this well on a handheld.
If you code your apps the official way, there are limits to what you can do. At the moment, there is a lack of good games and more complex programs. However, I expect Palm to continue to improve here and they have already been doing so. There is an active homebrew community with it's own on device app installer. They also make patches to add functionality to the OS. The great thing is that Palm doesn't fight these efforts but actually cooperates with the open source and homebrew community. That is what makes me so certain that I have bought the right phone.
The 3.5 mm jack on the Pre is for complete headsets with microphone.
My Pre is simply beautiful. One annoying thing about the hardware is the flap covering the USB socket. You need a good fingernail to open it. That's one good reason to get the Touchstone (somewhat expensive wireless charger) because charging otherwise works over USB. The other reason is that the special backcover you need for wireless charging is rubberized which feels much better. The battery is the other big issue. It runs for maybe five hours of continuous use and thus barely gets me through a day at university. There are batteries twice as big available which come with a thicker backcover but they are not compatible with the wireless charger. I use an external battery for emergencies (Minty Boost). I heard that future software updates will probably improve the situation a little.
I love my Pre because it is exactly the open touchscreen phone I've been waiting for for about five years. You don't have to hack it to install what you want, it is actually open. It's also not simply a desktop Linux on a phone but a modern fresh multitasking UI with great internet integration. Some things are not quite finished, like hardware access in official software, so you are an early adopter on an evolving system. That's one of the things I like about new gadgets, though, and Palm actually listens to it's users so you get to help the evolution along if you want to.
Hmmm, I'm quite tempted to get one now from this good review.
smile.gif
Yah, me too! Thanks for taking the time, very informative post =] I'm leaning pretty heavily twoards it now, somehow completely missed that webOS is linux based so that just puts icing on the cake for me =D

EDIT: Just remembered a few quick questions I had; is tethering supported (officially or via homebrew) & does sprint make you pay extra for it? (< wanna be able to use it with the pandora when it comes out ;]) Also What's sprint's service like (good/bad coverage, dropped calls, etc)?
 
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There is tethering support through a homebrew app, I think. Didn't need it, yet, because I don't have my Pandora. ;) I don't think you can get it officially through Sprint, but that also means you can't pay for it even if you want to. I'm using the GSM version in Germany, though, so I can't tell you anything about the American networks.
 
sorry to bump that again, but thinking about getting a pre myself.
would you still recommend it, or after several months of use have you gotten fed up with it? also how did the battery life turn out? did it improve?

tnx!
 
Droid is like the G1 x 2. I'd go for that!
 
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