The Killer Elite: Palm Pre and HTC Hero
Last week, I bought my first cell phone. As a technology and gadget geek, I had been following the iPhone for years and considered it to be the only viable smartphone for me. The iPhone being so popular, I don’t think I need to explain what makes it such an attractive device.
Before I make any big purchase, I always like to research my options and make sure I’m getting my money’s worth. As I delved deeper into the world of cellular phones, I realized that there are two contenders for the iPhone’s throne: the Palm Pre and the HTC Hero.
Remember the Palm Pilot, the device that brought PDAs to the masses in the late 1990s? Well apparently, Palm is still around. In a last ditch effort for relevance, they hired a team of engineers away from Apple and set to work on the ultimate smartphone. Working from the ground up, they developed a completely new operating system – WebOS – and a phone with a slide-out keyboard. Like the iPhone, it’s a smartphone with oodles of features and an impressively simplistic user interface. Unlike the iPhone, it can multitask, allowing you to do such things as write an email while checking Twitter. And it’s one of the most hackable phones, making it a developer’s dream. Although not all of us like to hack phones or develop hacks, we can all benefit from the innovative things that come from those who do.
HTC is a relatively unknown Taiwanese company. For years, they’ve been the manufacturer of other company’s devices. For example, they created the infamous iPaq for Compaq at the turn of the century. More recently, they changed their business model and started branding their own hardware, and they’ve quickly become major force in the mobile scene. Most Americans may know them as the manufacturer of the first Google Phone, the T-Mobile G1 with Google.
Although it hasn’t been announced yet for the North American market, HTC has recently released the new HTC Hero in Europe. Based on Google’s Android, an open-source mobile operating system, this phone has the best looking hardware and user-interface I’ve ever seen. Being an Android phone, the Hero has all of the Android Marketplace apps at its disposal. Although the marketplace is still relatively small, it will soon outpace the iPhone app store because it is open source and it will be used by so many more cell phone users. As great as the Hero seems to be though, the reviewers gave it poor marks for not having the processor power to handle the user interface. A smartphone with lag just doesn’t cut it.
When I finally decided to hand over my hard earned money for a cell phone, I decided not to go with the iPhone. Instead I bought a Palm Pre. Sure the Pre doesn’t have iTunes (with the incredible Genius function) or a huge app store, but it is incredible with its notification system and its multitasking. Although I’ve been an Apple fanboy for years, I was annoyed that Apple rejected the Google Voice app for what seems to be a desire to appease AT&T. Plus I keep hearing stories of iPhone users who have trouble with AT&T’s 3G service and of iPhone users who say that it’s great at everything except being a phone.
After a week with my Pre, I’m more than pleased. I’m sure I would have loved an iPhone if I had gotten one. But I’m happy to have a less expensive phone and service plan. And as I wait for my landline to be ported over, I love having the option of using several Google Voice apps!
Leave a Comment
