Palm Treo 500?
Well, the new phone looks like the magical Centro of the $99, tiny, 3G’ness but it isn’t, it’s the Treo 500. I have so many problems with this I can’t number them, ok, I can, three (via PIC).
1) Well, I can’t believe that the next step in their product line is a Windows Mobile device with the same small 320×240 screen and they removed the touch screen. Awesome, in a time when everyone’s ramping up their game Palm is ramping it down.
2) Is it me or did they remove the 5-way directional pad as well? What’s the user input interface?
3) Is their marketing composed of the dumbest conceivable marketing people? They barely do any advertising and when they decide to be mysterious and promote a special date all Apple style, they decide to launch a low end device? I can only presume this is low end because Palm decided to take out the touch screen??
Obviously it’s all speculation and rumors, but if the this turns out to be correct… Man. What the hell.
UPDATE: Just read gizmodo’s bit on this and they’re saying that it could come in two colors grey and white. Remember how awful that white Centro looked? Yeah. It’s sad that that’s the design cue Palm is taking from Apple - especially sad since Apple’s already completely over white.
UPDATE 2: Not really related to this, but just read Mike Cane’s long post on Palm and the Foleo. Well worth taking a few minutes to read.
September 11th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
I too, don’t really *get it* either. I do applaud Palm for coming up with something different, but I think it looks ugly, but way better than the original white version. Yuck!
Palm is totally awful in terms of marketing. They spend all this money on making these Flash sites like Palmthing.com and what was that other one? Anyway, they do hardly d*ck in promoting it and instead expect the Palm community to pick up on it and spread it around for free advertising. It’s a wonder they are still in business. How many people know about this Palmthing site outside of the Palm community, or even within the Palm community? This is ridiculously stupid.
Spend the money on a TV advertising campaign. And while you’re at it, make it cool and slick and don’t bother jazzing up the Centro or this Gandolf/Treo 500. If many of us think it’s ugly, chances are, many others will feel the same way.
I still call for a major changing of the guards. We need some fresh faces, ideas. Obviously the ones still making the decisions are so totally out of touch with the community and consumer taste.
September 11th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Sigh. Yeah, I didn’t even know about palmthing.com! Heh! It’s pretty unbelievable how lame this is - I’m pretty sure I only like this thing a little because they first showed the white version to completely lower my bar and then they showed this one that’s still a bit ugly but much better than the white. :)
They need to get off their thumbs and do something. And you’re right, that something should be firing everyone with a C, P or VP at the start of their titles, probably in that order!
September 12th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
[...] just launched the Treo 500v and for some reason I don’t hate it. What I said before about the 500v holds. Aesthetically, I think it’s not great - not horrible, but really an improvement over [...]