Thoughts on the Palm Pre on Verizon

1,117 Views | 13 Replies | Last: 5 yr ago by superunknown
exp
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AG
Hey guys, looking for some advice. I have this strange urge to buy an old Pre and activate it on Verizon just for fun for a few weeks. Yes I'm a cell phone nerd.

Do you think it would work? I'm a little concerned things like setting up a Palm profile when I first turn on the phone will not work since the company is out of business, and with that failing the phone itself might be unusable.

What do y'all think?
boy09
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AG
I think that IS a strange urge...
zurcaled11
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AG
exp said:

Hey guys, looking for some advice. I have this strange urge to buy an old Pre and activate it on Verizon just for fun for a few weeks. Yes I'm a cell phone nerd.

Do you think it would work? I'm a little concerned things like setting up a Palm profile when I first turn on the phone will not work since the company is out of business, and with that failing the phone itself might be unusable.

What do y'all think?
Does the Palm Pre have 3g? I think Verizon and others are phasing out their 2g/edge networks. It might not even be able to connect to a cellular network.
chipotle
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are we being laser disc converter'd on this thread?
MGS
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The Palm Pre was a great phone in it's day.
mhayden
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This thread triggers my "well I don't really want to throw it away, it could still be useful" syndrome.

I've got a couple of Pre's around here somewhere.
exp
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AG
It definitely has 3G. Is it only the 2G network being decommed? If so then no worries.

As a fan of the laser disc troll, sadly I can confirm this is a legitimate question.

@mhayden, if you want to hook a brotha up, let me know :-)
txag2k
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AG
i LOVED my Pre. Man that was a long time ago. They were for sure ahead of the curve Wireless charging was awesome.
exp
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AG
PS - you can pickup a Palm Pixi on Amazon for like $29. I would do that but it doesn't have the super cool slide feature which I think is in and of itself the coolest hardware feature of any cell phone ever. Like a switch blade keyboard. Too bad that keyboard was so tiny, but still cool as hell.

It would be cool if someone made a slightly larger Palm Pre Android knockoff.

Are hardware keyboards dead forever? I am an original Droid lover and then upgraded to Droid 2 Global for improved keyboard. Since then I've found much greater efficiency with swiping (by a factor of 5 probably) but back in the day I loved those keyboards.

Also, I remember when Droid X came out how astonished and amazed we were at how big it was. LOL

This maybe, but likely does not, conclude my Thursday morning circa 2009 cell phone musings.
exp
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AG
See - I knew I wasn't done.

My first Android phone was the HTC Hero on Sprint. Anyone ever rock the Hero? The European version had much cooler hardware design than ours. And back then stock Android was pretty lame, so HTC got major credit for their overlay skin called HTC Sense. It greatly improved stock Android at the time.

Even though Android was well behind iPhone at that time, I could immediately see with my Hero that Android was the future. I ended up returning that thing not due to the phone but because I hate Sprint's network quality. Switched over to Verizon with Droid shortly thereafter and have never left.

HTC Hero - Sprint
Motorola Droid - Verizon (rooted the phuuuu out of that thing, had so much fun learning how to overclock etc but lack of RAM really held it back over time)
Motorola Droid 2 Global - Verizon (nice boost in keyboard and RAM, but I believe a little more locked down on the hacking front)
Blackberry Bold - Verizon (for work - yuck - RIM stock was still worth a lot back then but I knew it would go to 0. Wish I had had money to short their asses)
Samsung Galaxy Nexus - Verizon (curved screen, stock android, hell yeah)
HTC One M8 - Verizon (front facing speakers, aluminum body, dot matrix flip cover, hell yeah, eventually bricked itself)
LG Nexus 5X - Verizon (first mid range phone that gave me the warm and fuzzies, eventually bricked itself)
Google Pixel - Verizon (best phone on the planet, still love it to death after 1.5 years, hasn't slowed down a bit, great battery life still, and functionally a near laptop replacement for me at work)

iPhones have never interested me. Their operating system is too annoying to use after living in Android forever. Notifications are putrid. Lack of back button kills me. Everyone copied multi tasking from the original Palm Pre anyway...

Which brings me to my one big regret. Never owning a Palm Pre. So I figure now is probably my last chance to actually use and enjoy one before it's too late.
RebAg13
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AG
Is that you Dieter Bohn?
Diggity
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AG
I have a large cardboard box full of that ****
Diggity
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AG
I had this phone...it was the end of Blackberry

G Martin 87
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AG
I still have a Sprint Pre. It won't load a profile anymore, so it won't even boot up. I also still have 2 working Palm Pilots (one 3com, the other USRobotics), a Palm V, a Palm Tungsten T, a Palm M105, a Treo 650, and a Centro. The Pre was a gigantic disappointment, mostly because WebOS was so mishandled from the start.

But if you're serious about picking up a used one for anything other than a cool paperweight, you'll need to immerse yourself in the WebOS hacker community. Good luck.
superunknown
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AG
Palm Pre was a great phone.
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