Found my old Palm Pre

[sixty_four]

Great thread...

Former PalmOS fan here. I've had a IIIxe, Clie 610 and a Tungsten T (OG!). I still have all of these but I think only my IIIxe is serviceable since the others have non-replaceable batteries that are probably dead (I'm looking at you every-single-decent-smartphone out there now!!!). I should fire it up and see if I can still Graffiti.

I had resisted the smartphone thing for years but my increased reliance on email and text-based communication made my Sanyo flip phones seem pretty lame. I hit the Verizon store to see what was available and liked the Palm Pixi and REALLY liked the Pre. Coming from PalmOS, I liked the bundled apps. A friend of mine advised against the Pre primarily because the WebOS ecosystem (what a stupid term...oh well) wasn't nearly as vibrant as Android or iOS. I finally decided I was going to go with a midrange feature phone with a slideout keyboard when the Droid Incredible caught my eye. I loved the feel of it and the thought of having a device that integrated the functionality of my flip phone, PDA and so much more sold me.

It's been a downhill addiction ever since.

But to stay on topic in this subforum, I've always like small yet powerful, pocket-able and easy to handle devices. The fondness I have/had for my Tungsten T, Droid Inc, OG Moto X and now my Pixel 2 reflects that.

 

[pkcable]

GOD I can't think of the name of it, BUT does anyone remember that Palm OS app that used to aggregate news for you? You would tell it what categories you were interested in and then it would pull in stories when you synced it, that you could then read at your leisure. I KNOW we do it all on our phones now, BUT there was just something so cool about pulling out your PDA, and pulling out that pen and then checking your schedule, or reading one of those articles I just mentioned OR playing a quick game of DRUG WARS!!!!! lol

 

[Jeremy8000]

Ah, memories...

Treo 600/650... HipTop (a/k/a Sidekick)... Nokia 9300... virtually every model of BlackBerry from the 7200 series up until the 8300... too many others to recall, but those were among my favorites.

I do really miss the HipTop - best physical keyboard of any phone I'd ever used, even surpassing the BlackBerrys.

 

[vimagreg]

Good thread! My first Palm was a m130, a truly beast at time. Had, then, some PDAs until I decided to buy my first smartphone: MotoQ. Wow how good it was (no, it wasn't but for me it sounded like, as it was the best I could buy). Some time after I got a Treo 700wx and really loved it. One of the best keyboards ever. Some other models and my unforgettable Palm Pre. Then Pre2, then Pre3, Veer and Pixie. Yeah, I really used to love webOS, for me even now the best mobile OS ever made by far. So many years in front of Android and iPhoneOS at that time...

I really miss webOS and sometimes feel sad because of its lost potential. Actually when I see options we have today, all of them iOS or Android, and remember webOS, BB10, Maemo from my incredible Nokia N900... Man, I really feel sorry. Today we could have a so more vibrant market with so many options! I really don't believe Android and iOS are the best development options we ever had...

Well, at least I can now use a lot of old webOS gestures on my iPhone X. Consolation prize, though...

 

[maverick7526]

I really miss webOS and sometimes feel sad because of its lost potential. Actually when I see options we have today, all of them iOS or Android, and remember webOS, BB10, Maemo from my incredible Nokia N900... Man, I really feel sorry. Today we could have a so more vibrant market with so many options! I really don't believe Android and iOS are the best development options we ever had...

Android was better than webos back then, and it is still better now. Straight out of the box webos was terrible. If you didn't patch it, it was completely unusable. Later versions were ok, pre+, pre 2 etc, however by the time those came out it was too late. You can only make a first impression once, and the pre- was terrible. I remember seeing this phone@ CES, and was like whoa this will change everything! Then 6 months later when it released, it still felt rushed. Idk what it was, but Palm just had terrible software QC, and that's why it failed. They were trying to run before they could walk, and it showed.

 

[jjinal]

It was during these times that the tech geeks who frequent these forums were created. After I went thru several versions of Palm Pilots I bought a HP iPaq 5500 to compliment my color screen Moto flip phone. I was hooked on tech at that point. The next 10 years were great years to be a mobile tech geek. There were exciting developments every year and the hardware kept getting better and better. Then around 2012 the advances became incremental. The evolution of mobile tech began to slow and I became less excited each year. The devices were way better than 2002 but I was less enthusiastic about them. If you lived through that era and paid attention it was a time like no other.. Will we ever see that type of tech revolution again? I've heard experts claim that the smartphone won't last forever. What's next??

 

[pixielee22]

I loved loved loved my palm pre!

 

[dmxjago]

I had one too and it was pretty good for it's time. It had real multi tasking and one of the reasons I purchased it.

 

[anon(5630457)]

I found an old Palm IIIe when I was moving about a year ago. Talk about ancient tech!