Coming over from a Pre and Precentral

[CUlaw78]

You won't regret it. My wife and I had our Pres for 25 days... just enough to figure out how slow the interface was before the 30 day cut off. The Hero is VERY nice. Also, I don't know about you, but the Pre's quality seemed rickety to me. You'll love how the Hero feels in your hand.

Yeah, I just sold my Pre last week and got the Hero this week. Every time I hold the Hero, I'm amazed at how much better the build quality is. It feels solid all around, and I'm not afraid that I will scratch it just by looking at it. The hardware and the OS are awesome!

 

[meangreengdub]

Sold my Pre tonight and I'm getting the Hero in the morning, I'm stoked. I can't wait to have a phone that wont feel like it's going to break just holding it.

 

[p4trickh#IM]

Yeah I'm a current Pre user / Precentral member that is ready to make the switch. I signed on for the Pre with high hopes, but the fact is that currently you just can't make great apps with a web only programming environment. I wanted to like this damn phone so much, I bought tons of accessories and a bunch of the lame apps that made it into the app catalog and then tonight my co worker let me toy around with his T-Mobile MyTouch and I was really impressed with android. Personally I would get an iPhone if anyone but AT&T carried them, but I only pay 70 bucks with Sprint for an everything data plan that includes unlimited M2M so I just can't justify switching to AT&T and paying nearly 140.00 bucks to get the plan that would work for me. I plan on getting an HTC Hero with Sprint so I don't have to kill a contract and pay out the wazoo. Hoping to list it on ebay and as long as I can get a decent price for all the crap I got I'll be happy. In case anyone is interest here is what I have:

1 x Palm Pre (no scratches or damage, screen protector)
1 x Touchstone charger
1 x Pre 3.5 Jack headphones
2 x AC Chargers (got the second one with the exchange)
1 x Seidio 2600mAh extended battery
1 x ProClipUSA device holder (perfectly fits the pre, only 1 part of a 2 part system, the actual car mount has to be purchased for whatever car you have at proclipusa.com, I have an HHR so unless you have one I'm keeping it for the HTC Hero when I buy an HTC custom mount)
1 x Official Palm Pre leather case (very nice case with magnet lock)

A note this Pre is a newer one, the first one failed and I've only had this one for a month or two, I swapped right before they started swapping for refurbs so it has only had one owner (me) and I was very gentle with her. Anyway, extremely excited with getting an HTC Hero and I hope to post about it soon.

 

[awrnsmn]

I'm seeing alot of people bailing on the Pre. I went back to my Hero and am staying for a while. If Palm ever gets their act together I might try again, so I'll keep my Pre. The Hero is by far light years ahead of the Pre and has a smooth OS with very little to no lag. I think Palm is digging themselfs a deep hole right now. They better do something fast and wake up. The Pre should have never been released in the state that it is in, it cannot compete with the lack of features. Wether it is a new OS or not, more time should have been put into it before release.

 

[emooney]

Agreed. I stuck with my Pre for 4 months and was feeling like the app store wasn't moving along at all. I still like the Pre's UI over the Hero (I really think Palm nailed the UI) but the lack of apps is really big.

 

[p4trickh#IM]

It really is a promising platform, but it is missing so much and they are asking their customers to be patient, but in the mean time my apps are just plan simple, I've got to add over 20 patches to give it basic functionality and I repeatedly find my multi tasking OS is locking up over a single card or even worse preventing me from opening a new app, asking me to close a card when I do not have ANY cards open. There is no form of a task manager to check for apps / memory hogs gone wild. So yeah as soon as payday arrives I'm picking up a Hero and losing this zero.

 

[gmanvbva]

I recently purchased the Hero for my son and have been "evaluating" it for six days now.
I'm impressed and realizing how handicapped I have been for 5 months (with the Pre)...

 

[sparda07]

came from the pre as well love the Hero

 

[larry313#AC]

I gave up my Pre after I exchanged it 12 times!! Sprint was cool though, they let me exchange it straight up for the Hero. I didnt have to pay a dime.

 

[Rainforrest]

Opposite Reaction...

After 4 weeks with the Hero. I bought a Palm Pre on eBay after playying with one at the Sprint store. WebOS is awesome and fun to use. Multi-tasking is way better on the Pre. I have had as many as 13 cards open with no issues at all. On the Hero, the lag was driving me crazy. If you have more than 4 active widgets the phone slows down considerably. I also hated having to use the back button and the dirt collecting trackball. After using a Pre, to switch back to a Hero is like taking a step backwards IMHO.

Goodbye Hero...

 

[highwayman1224]

Enjoy the pre, I'm just the opposite, you couldn't pay me to go back to that thing.

 

[gottria]

I still have both. I started with the Pre and picked up a used Hero. Love the Hero's build and quality, don't like the OS much, it works fine but it's not as refined as WebOS. It's kinda of like WM upgrade. Apps are great but I'm spending so much time searching and loading, and how many apps that do the same thing can you have. I'm gonna hold onto it and see what 2.0 brings.

 

[jbc28]

I still have both. I started with the Pre and picked up a used Hero. Love the Hero's build and quality, don't like the OS much, it works fine but it's not as refined as WebOS. It's kinda of like WM upgrade. Apps are great but I'm spending so much time searching and loading, and how many apps that do the same thing can you have. I'm gonna hold onto it and see what 2.0 brings.

Seconded. I like the Hero, and it is better than the Treo Pro that it replaced. I wish that I could take everything good about each phone and create a hybrid Pre/Hero.

 

[mcgeorge36]

I have had my pre since August, and its just not really all I hoped that it would be. Would love to get a hero and really considering it, especially after playing with the droid from a friend, but the cost is killing me right now, especially with the pre being so cheap now. Anybody know a good place to get a cheap hero?

 

[Angelo921]

Sprint store in Bergen, NJ. $475+tax so about $500.

Sold my Pre for $200 so diff is $300.

My wife and I came over from ATT. We both had the iphone 3gs and were both on contracts but got tired of giving ATT $187 each month so we opted to break our contracts (total prorated cost of $300) and bought each Pre (after we get the rebate) for $180 and now we are saving $50 a month on our family plan. Whats even better is that we were able to sell both iphones on ebay for Around $1100 so we actually came out ahead even after ebay and paypal fees. lol

 

[ballroomdru]

I picked up the Hero on Sunday, coming from a Blackberry Curve. I like the Android OS, but I didn't like the onscreen keyboard. I'm going to hold out for a couple of weeks and get the Moment.

Coming from a Curve I tried the Moment. I returned it a week later. The battery life for me needed serious help. My Curve is almost never below 40% by the time I go to bed. I had to plug the moment in to charge at least once a day, sometimes twice. How is the battery life on the Hero compared to the Curve?

 

[MichaelMcEntire]

Hi,

Not really unhappy with my pre, but I'm curious what the hero is capable of. There are certain features (mostly homebrew) I've come to love that I'm wondering if the hero can match or beat. One is tethering, works great on my linux desktop. Two and three would be my gameboy and nes emulator, very fun though a little tough to control. I also kinda enjoy the terminal app for accessing the linux backend.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

 

[envoynv]

I have several questions - maybe those of you that have the phone can answer for me:
1. Can you forward text messages?
2. Is there any form of cut, copy & paste on this phone?
3. When the phone rings can you really silence it by turning it over?
4. Is there any way to lock the screen when you answer a call so you don't push any buttons accidentally?
5. If anyone has the Pre and the Hero - how does battery life compare?

Any answers appreciated!

P.S. I have the Pre and my Hero is on order!!

I also had the Pre.

1. You can forward messgaes with Handcent (much better then stock app)
2. Yes
3. Not sure never heard of this.
4. Not sure.
5. Hero battery is better IMO. The Pre didn't hardly make it a day with little use. The hero I have been using heavy and making it with battery to spare in a day.

Jeff

 

[envoynv]

Bye Bye Pre

I researched and studied the Pre until the day I had one in my hands. The WebOS theory is great. But it just did not deliver. It was killing me that it would not sync calendars properly, I would get too many cards open errors when none were open. And that was my second Pre. Yes I miss the swiping off of the screen and the cards concept, but the Hero has so much more that the Pre didn't. I am very happy. You can customize this bad boy until you get tired of it. There are so many ways to do different things. One of the GREAT deals with Android is this. Buy and app and use it for less then 24 hours, you can get a complete refund. On the Pre you buy a crappy app you are stuck. The Hero has a great app called Handcent SMS it is extremely customizable. The email provides you with your labels as they are in gmail. I can go on and on about the advantages. So....

Bye bye Precentral Hello Androidcentral.

 

[kennyidaho]

After 4 weeks with the Hero. I bought a Palm Pre on eBay after playying with one at the Sprint store. WebOS is awesome and fun to use. Multi-tasking is way better on the Pre. I have had as many as 13 cards open with no issues at all. On the Hero, the lag was driving me crazy. If you have more than 4 active widgets the phone slows down considerably. I also hated having to use the back button and the dirt collecting trackball. After using a Pre, to switch back to a Hero is like taking a step backwards IMHO.

Goodbye Hero...

That's until you realize that the user interface is actually the Pre's Achilles Heel, often it takes many more steps to do something then it should. Then you realize that the OS is all looks, there is no substance behind it. Then you realize that the applications that doe exist for the Pre are insanely over priced. Then you miss your first important phone call because you are in USB mode or Media Sync. Then you realize that Palm seems not to care very much about updating the SDK to include API's that might actually let developers develop worth while applications. Then you realize that until Palm comes around to doing this (and they have had many chances to) the platform is essentially dead and it's probably a little to late for Palm to turn it around.

It's not a terrible phone but it's not a smart phone either. If you are after just a basic phone, with basic PIM functions and a decent web browser then the Pre is for you.