Palm Pre Vs Nokia N900

Which Linux mobile phone would you get?

  • Palm Pre

    Votes: 4 20.0%
  • Nokia N900

    Votes: 8 40.0%
  • Some Android phone

    Votes: 5 25.0%
  • Openmoko GTA02 (Core)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 3 15.0%

  • Total voters
    20

OrR

Corporate games suck.
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I was so sure I had found my dream mobile phone in the Palm Pre. It's awesome and also Linux based and relatively open. It would be perfect friends with my Pandora. However, now the N900 has been announced and it's basically the same with a few advantages: It has the Maemo community behind it which looks quite big and enthusiastic. It has a defined price tag of around 500€. It has an awesome high res screen and a bigger keyboard. OK, I've preordered a Pandora so I won't really need those two things but they are definitely nice to have.
Has anyone got an idea what the GSM Pre will cost without contract?
Any estimates how cameras and battery runtimes compare?
How big is the difference in openness between the two, and how do you think the development communities compare?
Any other arguments for one over the other?
I'm having a really hard time deciding but getting both would be a waste of money and pocket space... ;)
 
http://discuss.gdgt.com/palm/pre/support/how-is-the-pres-battery-life/
I just stumbled across this, I hope it helps.
I think that the Pre is definitely going to have alot more openness than the other phones, along with better apps and support. And free programming tools to make your own apps, I really think the Pre is the perfect choice.
 
Which one was it who said, "We've decided to stick with tools that programmers (Of websites, not applications) are more familiar with such as Javascript and HTML because we're too lazy / stupid to give them native code tools"?
 
Well, I'm actually surprised how open and positive Palm are about homebrew. However, you are right, Maemo does seem to have a more healthy philosophy behind it. I really like both devices a lot. The N900 is somewhat superior but it's also 560€ at Amazon.de, down from 600€. If the Pre is significantly cheaper (~450€ or below), I'd still consider it, though.
 
So the Palm Pre is 481€ in Germany while the Nokia N900 is up to 600€ again. I guess I'll get the Pre then... Still not entirely certain, though.
 
I'd also consider what you're getting with the N900 for the money. More storage, a better camera, a higher resolution screen (albeit resistive rather than capacitive). I also would prefer Maemo to WebOS for a number of reasons, though WebOS is probably the more user-friendly of the two. The N900 might cost more, but I think it gives a better value than the Pre does.

If only it came in a 1900/850 3G version. :(
 
Storage and screen would be great arguments. However, I've ordered a Pandora which does both of those. The camera is a good point but I'd like to see a comparison how much difference there really is between the two built in cameras. I find WebOS fascinating. Again, I'd probably prefer Maemo because it seems more open but I already have a very open system with the Pandora so a different software philosophy on my second pocket computer wouldn't bug me that much.
 
If openness is really important for you, than none of the 2 will be an option. There is only one open phone that is the Freerunner. The Palm Pre and Nokia N900 are semi-open.

The same applies to Android. As you can see here google has send a c&d letter to the most well known ROM mod creator for Android phones. Google created closed source apps that are vital parts of the OS. It will be very hard to have a good experience on the phone without them.
 
b_o_b said:
There is only one open phone that is the Freerunner. The Palm Pre and Nokia N900 are semi-open.

True, but I'm willing to settle for these conditions as a fallback, since truly open phones don't seem to work well enough yet:
* Must be able to run unsigned native code, preferably compiled on the device itself
* Must be able to transfer files, including source code and executables, back and forth over a Mass Storage protocol or *SD card
* Should have bindings to just about everything on the device
* I should not need any sort of "developer" privileges, I expect to do this on a stock phone with only possibly a free registration on their developer website. Like, I want to buy the phone, take it home, register online, and then start programming stuff right away, with no restrictions.
 
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I own an Openmoko Neo1973. I love it but it doesn't work. Also, the hardware design could be better. First priority is that it works and the usability is ok. I'm pretty sure both the N900 and the Pre satisfy my needs in that regard while the present version of the Freerunner still doesn't. Openness is the second priority. While I agree that Android seems too fucked up to support it, it looks to me like both the Pre and the N900 do a lot of things right, while undoubtedly still doing a lot of things wrong as well.
 
I'm not sure if this thread is intended in the context of games or in the context of a phone.

I've had a chance to play with the Pre, the touchscreen interface is nice, but the slide out keyboard is crap. It's so small I doubt there's any greater accuracy than with an on screen keyboard, and I'd prefer T9 or SureType at that size. It's rather unfortunate, because with Facebook integration and the like it looks like a great phone (mobile communication and information device) and comes in a very comfortable size. I'd be waiting for a successor device, either with a better keyboard or no keyboard at all.

For gaming I don't think it'll have much to offer, I don't see any gaming hardware in there and the impression I get is that coding isn't that well suited to it.

The N900 I haven't been able to play with, but the keyboard simply based on being wide will be better (I've tried quite a few landscape slide out keyboards and I never had much problem with any of them), it also has the same integration as far as Facebook goes, and seems to go even further. Also, the fact that it runs a full distro of linux, which should make for some easy recompiling of apps means that the work to get a large software library for it will be smaller than developing for the device from scratch. All it will take is some people who want to port apps. I'm liking it as a phone much better than the Pre, however, Nokia reps have said it's step 4 in a 5 step plan for Maemo, meaning the N910 or whatever it's called will actually be designed as mass market, and Maemo 6 will support multi touch. If I had to buy a new phone right now, it'd likely be the N900, but as is I'll be waiting either way.

As far as gaming goes it looks really solid, it's got a 3D chip in it, that was demoed with bounce. Stylus + touch screen will make for some nice DS type games, and will probably work quite well for RTS and TBS games that already run on Linux. The slide out keyboard might be handy as well, although I suspect it won't be too great for emulation, it'd likely be no better than an iPhone as far as standard console emulation goes, but might be handy for emulating MSX, C64 and the like, and should be awesome for ScummVM. I don't think I'd get it just for its capabilities as a gaming device, but the controls look like they'll be better than the N95 8GB I'm currently on, which is close to being really nice but is also very limited in the specific games that work well. I also wouldn't be surprised to see something like N-Gage moved to Maemo.

Android phones look good in the phone aspect, I find they're pretty even with the Pre for the most part, down to the shitty camera, but more devices with a fairly unified interface means more development. I think the Dream is kinda ugly with the slide out keyboard, but the Magic appeals to me. On account of the shitty camera (like with WM phones), I think I'd probably stay away from it in favour of the N95, although the Xperia X3 is rumoured to run on Android, and the X2 suggests they'll be putting in their own good camera software. Landscape slide out keyboard + android + good camera should make for a sweet phone (and the X3 should be out around the same time as the N910 or whatever Nokia decides to call it).

For gaming, touch screen should be pretty solid, I figure the potential is about the same as the N900, right down to no multitouch. Yeah Android can be hacked to support it, but it's not in there by default, so a lot of games will likely work around no multitouch restriction. Enough of them come with slide out keyboards that there should be some decent suppor there too. However, I'm a bit worried that the handset design is so fractured that it'll end up being like S60v3 and N-Gage. A lot of S60v3 games assume a candybar phone, even though there are a bunch of sliders, so the games end up having much more shitty controls than they need to on handsets like the N81 and N95 (I'm particularly disappointed with NES and GB emulators that don't make use of the A/B button option on those two). Nokia might go ahead and do the same with Maemo, but right now it seems all Maemo devices have the same general physical design meaning there will be consistent game design as well, and it should be possible to buy whatever Maemo device you want with that design.
 
So i bought a Pre yesterday. It's the first electronics device since my Zodiac that I've been more or less completely happy with. B) Haven't started adding homebrew apps to it, yet, because I have to wait for the installation program to add international support. I'm not skilled enough to tinker with it myself, or at least too afraid to break something... :D I love how fast and usable the Pre is for browsing and most other stuff. The camera sucks, though, and my touchstone (inductive charger) makes annoying messages pop up on screen every few seconds sometimes. Well, at least I got that thing for free at the launch party.
 
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