In a move akin to Herman’s Hermits opening for the Rolling Stones, Palm has decided to announce the new Palm Pixi, a phone akin to the Palm Centro of yore in price point and features, on the very day Apple will eat up the rest of the news cycle.
The Pixi is a non-slider with touchscreen and full keyboard. It will cost about $149 with two year contract and rebates on Sprint. You have 8GB of on board storage and it takes 2-megapixel pictures – down from the Pre’s 3-megapixels.
There is no Wi-Fi, a dealbreaker for many. The Pixi will be available in multiple “Artist Series” styles and will be available around the holidays.
The Pre costs about $199 – cut to $99 for a bit and then raised back up – so a $50 savings isn’t much when it comes to a device without Wi-Fi. I think the average smartphone buyer is looking for a few things in a device – a touchscreen, 3G networking, and, ideally, some alternative form of transfer. This doesn’t have it.
That said, it’s a fascinating move by Palm. Either they wanted to bury this news in the Apple event today or they foolishly thought this would overshadow the event. I’m betting on the former.
WebOS is a contender but with phones like the Hero and the Tattoo appearing on the horizon and HTC really taking a a hard look at its competitors – and eating them – Palm may be barking up the wrong tree.
We’ll have hands on later today.
Thin Palm Pixi Phone Puts
Fast, Intuitive Communication at Fingertips
Palm’s Thinnest Phone Yet Expands Palm webOS Line with Customizable Style
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sept. 9, 2009 – Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) today introduced the Palm® Pixi™ phone for faster, more intuitive and personal communication in a compact and customizable design.(1) With the instinctively useable Palm webOS™ platform, strikingly thin design, a visible full keyboard and fashionable personalization options, Palm Pixi lets you express yourself in amazingly useful ways. It’s scheduled to be available exclusively from Sprint in time for the holidays.
“With Palm webOS, we’re creating a new, more intuitive smartphone experience defined by unmatched simplicity and usefulness,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. “Palm Pixi brings this unique experience to a broader range of people who want enhanced messaging and social networking in a design that lets them express their personal style.”
In addition to linking your information from Google™, Facebook and Exchange ActiveSync, Palm Pixi adds Yahoo! and LinkedIn integration to Palm Synergy™ and assembles it all in a single view.(2) You can get your Yahoo! contacts, calendar and IM, and access to your LinkedIn contacts, including job titles. Synergy on Palm Pixi makes messaging easier by showing you all your conversations with the same person in one chat-style thread, so you can start a conversation on AIM Instant Messenger, Google Talk™ or Yahoo! Messenger and continue it by text message later.(3)
Complementing the phone’s already rich Facebook integration with the contacts, phone, calendar and photo applications, a new Facebook application will be available with Palm Pixi so you can see and comment on all the latest news from your friends, as well as easily update your status. The phone’s full QWERTY keyboard puts it all at your fingertips, and the multi-touch screen lets you move back and forth between open applications using natural gestures.(4) The unique removable back cover is rubberized, making it scratch-resistant, slip-resistant and durable.
Personalization with Style
For those who want to express themselves with some extra style, Palm is introducing the Palm Pixi Artist Series. Designed by some of today’s most unique and compelling artists, these numbered, limited-edition back covers let you change designs to suit your mood. You can see the first collection in the series, as well as information about the artists, at www.palm.com/artistseries. Palm will be showcasing the fashionable new Palm Pixi with the Artist Series covers this week at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York (Sept. 10-17).
You can also tailor Palm Pixi to your interests with downloadable applications from the Palm Beta App Catalog, including the latest entertainment and social networking applications such as Local Concerts by iLike, and Yelp™.(5) You can use Palm media sync to customize your phone with music, photos and videos from iTunes (Versions 8.1.1-8.2.1)(6), or use the on-device Amazon MP3 store to purchase individual songs or full albums over-the-air.(3)
“Palm Pixi continues Sprint’s leadership in providing useful and innovative devices on America’s most dependable 3G network,”(7) said Dan Hesse, chief executive officer at Sprint. “We are pleased to be the first carrier to bring this device to market and offer both devices in the growing Palm webOS family. Sprint’s Everything Data plans, which provide unrestricted access to the Internet, mobile content and applications, and our Ready Now retail experience make for a perfect combination with these new Palm products.”
The Sprint Mobile Broadband Network reaches more than 271 million people, 18,652 cities and 1,838 airports, and Sprint’s networks are now performing at best-ever levels.
Customers who purchase Palm Pixi will benefit from Sprint’s Ready Now, which the company pioneered to help customers leave the store educated, comfortable and confident about the phones they’re taking home. It is like having a free personal trainer that educates you on all your phone can do by setting up all the applications you want to use on the device.
Palm Pixi is also the perfect complement to Sprint’s Simply EverythingSM plan, which provides unlimited nationwide calling, texting, email, social networking, web browsing, GPS navigation, Sprint TV, streaming music, NFL Mobile Live, NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile and much more for only $99.99 per month. It’s a savings of $1,200 over two years versus some comparable competitor plans.
Palm Pixi Features
High-speed connectivity (EVDO Rev. A)
2.63-inch multi-touch screen with a vibrant 18-bit color 320×400 resolution TFT display
Gesture area, which enables simple, intuitive gestures for navigation
Exposed QWERTY keyboard for fast messaging
Robust messaging support (IM, SMS and MMS capabilities), including Google Talk, AIM and Yahoo! IM
High-performance, desktop-class web browser
Integrated GPS(8)
Multimedia options, including pictures, video playback and music, and featuring a 2-megapixel fixed-focus camera with LED flash, and a standard 3.5mm headset jack
Email, including Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) (for access to corporate Microsoft Exchange servers), as well as personal email support (Google push, Yahoo! push, POP3, IMAP)(9)
Bluetooth® 2.1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support
8GB of internal user storage (~7GB user available)(10)
USB mass storage mode
MicroUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
The first handset to launch with Qualcomm’s high-performance MSM7627™ chipset
Proximity sensor, which automatically disables the touch screen and turns off the display whenever you put the phone up to your ear
Light sensor, which dims the display if the ambient light is dark, such as at night or in a movie theater, to reduce power usage
Accelerometer, which automatically orients web pages and photos to your perspective
Ringer switch, which easily silences the device with one touch
Removable, rechargeable 1150 mAh battery
Dimensions: 55mm (W) x 111mm (L) x 10.85mm (D) [2.17 in. (W) x 4.37 in. (L) x 0.43 in. (D)]
Weight: 99.5 grams (3.51 ounces)
Sprint services, including Sprint TV® and Sprint Radio, Sprint Navigation, Sprint’s exclusive NFL Mobile Live and NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile LiveAvailability and Pricing
The Palm Pixi phone is scheduled to be available from Sprint in time for the holidays. Pricing for the phone, as well as the limited-edition Palm Pixi Artist Series covers, will be announced closer to availability. Customers who would like to register to receive additional information about Palm Pixi and be notified when it’s available can register at www.palm.com/pixi.
In addition, effective today the Palm Pre™ phone from Sprint is available for $149.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $150 instant rebate and $100 mail-in rebate. You can find this great pricing at Sprint stores, on the web (www.sprint.com) and by calling Sprint’s telesales group (1-800-SPRINT1). With the new Palm Pixi phone, and Palm Pre at a lower price, Palm and Sprint are bringing greater choice of Palm webOS phones to a larger audience.
don’t think you read through the press release right. they lowered the price of the Pre to $149 and this one will probably be under $100
double-check your pricing info. palm announced that they’ve dropped the pre’s price to $149.
pixi’s price has not yet been determined. most are guessing it will come in around $99.
I guess Biggs already has his opinion about Palm. Doesn’t need to read a press release to comment on it.
Half cooked article
yeah price is little doubtful here.plz check it
The first device with webOS didn’t impress too many. And now they’ve removed Wi-Fi? o_O
Watch Palm stocks growth during past year. I woult say they failed.
I have an iphone 3gs and often find myself switching to 3g because the wifi is finicky. For people that live in cities with good 3g coverage I don’t see lack of wifi as a big problem, especially if it’s cheap. I asked my fiance if her blackberry had wifi and she was like whaaaa?
Without Wi-Fi, what a pity.
Blinkin’ flip, Biggs. Your fanboy is showing. For a cheap communicator this shows great promise, and it’s amazingly thin. Lack of wifi is a strong point against it for me, but I’m a techno-geek. The majority of people simply don’t care, especially when you consider Sprint’s cheap unlimited data plan.
Sure, lack of Wi-fi is a nogo for me! Better stick with others then!
The wifi is a selling point for me only because I like to have a backup connection point in case Im in a bad coverage area cuz I travel but for the average consumer they are trying to lure in with this phone, wifi is unnecessary, especially with unlimited data that Sprint pushes. I agree, techno-savvy people are upset but this phone isnt for them. Great looking phone, hope it does well even tho the HTC Hero may take all the chips this holiday season!
Do people still pay $ for a phone w/o wifi and sign a internet contract? If this one is not free, it is DOA
At least make some attempt to hide you bias. Also, inexpensive wi-fi devoid BlackBerry phones are still selling extremely well, so apparently there’s a large market looking more at pricepoint than multiple
forms of connectivity. Does Steve prefer that you spit or swallow?
how does rubenstein’s semen taste?
RIM needs to build something like this, a full keyboard and a touchscreen, that does not slide out.
The design looks cool. The features seem good. But why the price information gets altered?
Previous post says the Palm Pixie to be $99. Whether the rate is low or high Palm is really burying itself by bringing the innovations to light this week. People may consider if Apple’s event disappoints the most.
I think the Pixi is an iphone 3g competitor. Price and rom size.
Between my old Dash — which the Pixi reminds me of, minus the awesomeness of Web OS — and my new Pre, I’ve rarely if ever had to jump onto wifi (knock on wood). Practically speaking, the combination of the phone being out of range and an unsecured wifi connection being available is extremely remote in my experience, but to each his own.
Pixi looks like a good alternative for those who don’t want the Pre and where wifi is not a deal breaker. Note that Palm is going after the youth market with this device.
I expect the introduction of this and alternative Palm devices to spur app development on the platform.
WiFi schmifi, the real missing link is the GSM radio sets that both Pre and Pixi still lack. Let’s get these phoones on a set of radios athat are used by the majority of the Cell Carriers in the world. In this case, Apple had it right, producing a phone that has radio’s used by the majority of the world.
The Pre will have exclusivity with Sprint till about December I heard. The rest of the world is waiting for the Pre to drop on GSM networks very anxiously. The Pixi will also have exclusivity with Sprint for atleast 6 months after its released so I would guess the phone will be released in November sometime. Only makes sense.
I do data logging with Palm pdas, I work in racing tuning for both cars and bikes, and the wide band Lambda data loggers have software for palms.
This will be perfect for that purpose, if it has serial port option.
I can certainly see the need for Wifi if you are one of the unfortunate vics who have an iPhone in any of the major metro areas where the AT&T data network has been brought to it’s knees.
Here In NYC I consistently get well over a 1000kbs down with my Pre so have yet to see the need for Wifi – except maybe to use in conjunction with the Homebrew app that let’s the Pre operate as a hotspot.