Treo 500 In My Hands In London!

Rome wrote :
>> You'd better not ask Lee Iacocca, becasue he will ask you if you have heard of a low-end sports car called the Mustang that he introduced back in 1964.<<<

Primo, you think about US market. I think about european market, which is quite different.

Secundo, the Mustang was successful because it was not marketed as a "me too and low-end" product, but rather as a new and unique product never offered before (to the aimed market segment of course). This is clearly not the same marketing strategy applied by Palm to the '500'

Ivy, you need to be more consistent with you analysis. You wrote:

>>>Take example on the Apple iPhone, everyone says it is highly priced but already 1 millions iPhones are sold in just some months. I am sure no car manufacturer will never think of marketing a low cost / low end sport car to the mass, it's simply incompatible.<<<

If you are thinking about the European market, then why are you using the iphone as an example? Iphone is currently only available in the U.S.

As for the Mustang example, I only pointed out the weakness in your argement of "no car manufacturer will never think of marketing a low cost / low end sport car to the mass, it's simply incompatible." Ford did, some 40+ years ago.

I have to admit that I find it quite funny that some people consider that I am being a bit too "fair" with Palm... I can positively assure you that this is absolutely not the case as I have in fact been extremely upset and frustrated with the company for quite a while.

Having said this, the fact is that playing with the Treo 500 today gave me a renewed sense of energy and belief that while Palm still has a LOT more things to fix at least I can more clearly see that they have not been sitting idle.

As I pointed out in a recent post I am the first to want to see a next generation high-end Treo smartphone ASAP but this should not detract us from the fact that the Treo 500 (and quite possibly the Palm Centro) are actually excellent entry level smartphones.

Cheers, A.

I don't get it. What does this device have that isn't already available in a Treo? Some More memory? a Better Camera?

Where is the CDMA Treo 800? I'm considering the Blackberry 8830, cause I want a new smartphone and I'm over paying verizon $400 for a Year old phone that doesn't have the latest technology.

The Treo 500 doesn't appeal to Me. I'm a tech Maven. I went to Cingular for the 650, pre-ordered and everything.

I want it all in my smartphone, the latest and greatest and all that shines, and I'm willing to pay for it. Why the Hell won't palm get a product to market already.

Can anyone one say "HTC Hermes" with the keyboard on the front?

As a smartphone it surely competes. As you all know every mobile phone manufacturing company has PDA phones and ordinary smartphones. Palm used to call their PDA phones as smartphones and didn't have a product to compete with other companies smartphones. Now it built one. You can't expect from a company to always build "500+ euros" devices as it may have to address to a youth category.. You don't like this device ? Fine, just wait for the treo 800 to come out and give the guys a break.

Charles, I would say "HTC Iris"

OK, for an entry level device aimed at new palm users....not too shabby. But you have to serve the high end users. I need software stability and OUT THE BOX sync capabilities with various platforms (that is where RIM has the edge)....for fun....I carry an iPhone. Now, if I can only get my $200 beans back.....

Interesting, I have a HTC 9000 now, and to be honest, this treo apeals me greatly. I think it looks really good, and I know the 9000 has more features, but I don't really use them actualy... The thing I care for most is speed, so I'll have to wait a bit until some reports of that come in.

500, Foleo, 680, 7xW... I feel what a lot of others are feeling - where is the next generation professional platform IN PALM OS?

Yes, I've heard they are working on the next platform with Linux, but hey, if they can do all this other stuff "right now", why not throw us a bone too?

And please, can we stop confusing PDA with "smartphone"? For the power Treo user, the emphasis is on the PDA functionality. Adding a phone to it was just a matter of convenience in not having to carry additional separate devices, as well as leveraging the convergence of the phone/contact and other PIM relational aspects. But, we are PDA users, while the tweens and teens are phone users are more interested in cool phone features, but tend not to use their phone to manage a datebook, or to-do list or manage a project or do the kinds of things we can do on our Palm OS PDA.

Palm's core customer is not feeling the love, but is feeling left out in the cold.

I would actually prefer to have a Treo without a touchscreen. And the pricepoint is where it should be... for the mass market. Its A Good Thing, people! If you don't like don't buy it. But I am very excited at the prospect of many more people entering the world of mobile computing/mobile internet. Not everyone wants to blow a lot of cash on a phone: that doesn't mean they wouldn't use the features if available. Its about time the Treo entered the commodity market. For those who wanted a Palm OS, obviously it would take a lot more to time and money to optimize for non-touchscreen and Windows Mobile already has done it (in their kludgy way but it works).

So, I went out and did it - after several years of faithful palm use, I got an iPhone. I had a Treo 650 and waited and waited for Palm to get off its ass and put something for the next generation out. As usual, Apple had to do it for them. In fact, Apple did it for everybody. After having played with the iPhone for a few days I can confidently say that there is nothing else out there even close to being in its class. Apple was bold enough to really cut loose on a new UI, and they nailed it. They really have developed not only a new style of smartphone, but a new more satisfying way of interacting with a computer. While there have been touch screens for a long time, they are made completely obsolete by the multi-touch screens fluid user interface. The 3" screen is beautiful. Trading keyboard real estate for screen real estate is the way to go. The iPhone onscreen keyboard works just fine. The safari web browser on the iPhone is absolutely amazing. I pretty much don't have to turn on my laptop when I get home anymore, because I now browse the web and stay up on everything throughout the day on my iPhone instead. Take all of that, and add 8 gigs of memory (the 650's 32 MB is a joke) and the best mobile media player anywhere on the market, and you have something that Palm could have done, and should have done, but will never do. I have had it with Palm. The iPhone is nearly perfect. Goodbye Treonauts.

Yes, Eric Actually HTC Iris.

earl e adopter
Why should Palm enter commodity market?
It would make sense if they had their own platform and could compete on price/platform.
But it does not make sense if, like all other Windows Mobile purveyors, they are selling the same thing as the next HTC customer.
HTC who is now also selling its product under its own name.

The Windows Mobile brands (Compaq, Dell, Palm, HP) will all go the same way as the Windows PC brand => down the drain, because they are all selling the same thing without added value.
The branded Windows PC companied have all switched to services (except DELL, but DELL is not doing great these days), because they cannot compete on price with the real commodities manufacturers.

"The iPhone is nearly perfect."

Sure, sure. Just two words: "Custom software". Oh, you can't use any software on the iPhone? Too bad.

IF THIS NEW 500 Treo had only WIFI I would forgive it the absence of a touchscreen... It is absoltutly ashame to sell a PDA ( not yet a smartphone) without WIFI ... WAKE UP PALM please you will loose millions of faithfull Palm old friends... Oh my God how can you be so narrow minded how do you imagine redaching a populr audienced ( mostly young people without WIFI.. ) whedn Apple is winning the battle over coffee shop HOT SPOT !
The Palm CEO should go away and sell hamburgers and not communication devices... I mean it !