The BF will be in the market for a new phone soon.  He’s been looking at the G1 which I recommended he get.  Last night, however, he saw that the Palm Pre also has a slide out keyboard as well and might want that.  I advised him against it.

My issue with Palm Pre is not with the Pre itself but with Palm.  I had been a loyal supporter of Palm even though I originally started as a Handspring user.  I’ve had six Palm devices if you include the Handspring devices.  My last devices were a LifeDrive and a Palm Treo 650 which was extremely kludgy especially its integration with Microsoft Exchange via Good Technology.

What I fault Palm with is releasing new devices and then immediately abandoning them.  This happened with the LifeDrive as well as with the Foleo.  The LifeDrive is a bit thick but it had the basic functionality of an iPhone (sans phone) years before iPhone was released.  Admittedly it had some glitches.  Instead of improving the device, they discontinued it.  There was only one update for this device.  The Foleo was a predecessor to what we now call netbooks.  It never really made it to the market before Palm killed it off though a few people have them.  Again as with the LifeDrive, if you were an early adopter you were screwed.

With the last version of the Treo they have completely abandoned their own Palm OS in favor of Windows Mobile operating system.  One can still get Palm OS on the Centro but it’s nothing to write home about.  And as many who own them know, there aren’t many apps being developed for the Centro.

I fear the same pattern with the Pre.  It has a brand new operating system in Web OS.  Do we know for sure that Palm is going to support it long term?  How do we know they aren’t just going to throw in the towel (again)?  I am not totally against the Pre (it does look interesting) but I told the BF that he should wait until the Pre is around for at least one year before buying one.

Photo credit: James Whatley

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