Palm Pre Vs Nokia N97

So Palm Pre had been the attention hog at CES 2009 ,why not its meant to put Palm on the spotlight again , but how does Pre stands to N97 , let’s see

Physical Attributes

	Nokia N97	Palm Pre
Size	117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm	100.5 X 59.5 X 16.5 mm
Weight	150g	135 gm
Display Size	3.5 inch - 640 X 360 Pix	3.1 inch - 320 X 480 Pix
Colors	16 million colors	24 bit colors
Connectivity	GPS , WiFi , Bluetooth , micro USB	GPS , WiFi , Bluetooth , Micro USB
Memory	32 GB onboard + 16Gb SD card	8 GB ( 7.4 GB available)
Data Input	QWERTY Keyboard , Handwriting , onscreen keyboard	QWERTY Keyboard ,
Camera	5 MP Carl Zeiuss	3.1 MP
Carrier Type	GSM	Sprint EVDO - GSM to be launched later
Applications	Tens of Thousands	None Available
OS	Symbian s60 V5	Palm Web OS

Software Attributes

How Palm Pre stands up to Nokia N97 ( headings taken from Pre Site for better comparison)

Notifications Bar : Pre offers Notifications of Text Messages and appointments at the bottom of the screen without changing the screen.

Nokia had been offering Text messaging icon on the top and with the new E71’s also on the bottom of the screen . Appointments are shown on the main screen as they arrive

Mutilple Activities : Pre is capable to run multiple applications at once , so does Nokia . Pre used Applications cards to flip through while Nokia uses Home Key to call the list of applications .

Connected Calendars and Contacts : Pre offers constant connectivity with Outlook , Google and Facebook Calendars through Palm Synergy while Nokia has their Ovi Services while Google Calendar is connected through GCalSynceb-connected applications

Web Connected : Pre as they say have a browser which shows pages as they are meant to be seen and applications constantly keep themselves connected to the Net to update themselves while Nokia’s web browser also do the same and also show the pages as they are meant to be seen or use Opera Mini . For application update , Nokia’s Widgets may get update but not the applications installed .

Universal Search : In Pre one can search Wikipedia , Contacts and Web right through the screen while Pre recommends related items . In Nokia contacts can be searched ight from the screen just start typing on the main screen and it shows the contacts . For Web search Widgets will help

Combined MEsaging : all the conversations with the same person are grouped together in one chat-style view. (Even if it started in IM, for example, and you want to reply with text.) You can also see who’s online right from contacts, and start a new conversation with just one touch.

In Nokia it’s called Nokia Conversations which for now works with Text Messaging only

Email , Wifi , GPS : Both has them .

In Pre email from Outlook or personal accounts like Gmail, AOL, and Yahoo! are supported .

In Nokia the Nokia Email client handles all the emails . ( HTML still not available )

Breakthrough design : a Vertical Slide out keyboard , Accelerometer is what Pre Offers

A Horizontal Side Out ‘Wide’ keyboard is what Nokia has , Accelerometer present since N95

In my opinion Nokia N97 beats pre in all the attributes , Pre has tried to copy Nokia in many things but Nokia with their stable OS , strong background and with previous device experience leaves Pre far far behind .

Pre does have some intuitive features like dedicated “gesture bar “ the black part right below the screen but i think it’s waste of screen real estate that could have been used to make the screen bigger .

Both Pre and Nokia N97 are to be launched soon , let’s see what the future holds for both of them .

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Nokia.

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Tagged as: Nokia

http://dpconnected.wordpress.com dp81

This is a strong comparison. However, not sure where you are based, but Nokia is an afterthought in the U.S. Perhaps rightly, the U.S is the 3rd most important market to Nokia(after Europe and Asia). It shows too because, while the #1 handset maker globally, in the U.S. it is not even in the top three. Additionally, Nokia’s offering for CDMA based networks is pathetic, thus your comparison only applies to GSM networks in Europe cause the N97 will never be available to Sprint customers. Lastly, Symbian is tired and old. It is a poor OS compared to OSX or Web OS(based on previews).
Pingback: Palm Pre Vs Nokia N97 | Tea Break
Farhan

@ Dp81 ,
Sir , I’m based in Pakistan and like Globally Nokia is ruling the handset market here infact Pakistan is among their largest market of entry level phones . I agree Nokia N97 will never see the light of the day coming to Sprint EVDO but Nokia has a very strong footing in Europe and Asia a much larger market compared to US alone . Coming to US , N97 could be used on T-mobile and ATT networks good for those who don’t want to be stuck with network dependent phones , I myself have used my Pakistani N95-8gb on ATT.

Coming to Symbian is old , I agree it’s old but evolving with constant changes keeping it abreast with the modern times , say like Mac OS and Windows they are also ‘old’ but there is ahuge difference in performance from Win 3.1 and Win 7

will await your followup comments
ilsotovoce

Well, has Palm said anything about existing Palm o/s applications being able to run on the new version??? I’ve not heard that yet from anyone… What about number of address entries? Current Palm is limited to ONLY 9999!

But then, really NONE of us at CES got to see and play with the damn thing up front and personal. I FULLY agree with Rima’s comments at http://www.fromwhereistand.info about the rest of us not being able to play with it. It REALLY SUCKED that Palm kept this hidden for the press only!
Farhan

Palm hasn’t said anything about previous applications working on it , as it’s a new OS , old applications may not work however for Nokia the N97 has backward compatiblity with S60V3 applications .
Applet

Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion and just as relevant, everyone hates cognitive dissonance, so it’s really quite natural for you to bash the latest gadgets from other makers. I’ve done it too … but you should at least try to maintain some level of fairness regarding the attribute list.

For example, 24-bit color produces 16.7 million colors, so they’re equivalent there. Many of your other attribute comparisons are a bit silly right now for a device that hasn’t been released, such “none available” for applications. There will certainly be applications available by launch, even quite possibly ones that will provide handwriting recognition/Graffiti, an onscreen keyboard, and/or an emulator to allow those old Palm apps to work.

The gesture bar area is like the old silkscreen area on the Palm Pilots, a dedicated area for specialized tasks. Looking at the screen, you’d recover maybe 40-50 pixels (?), while either sacrificing the specialized gestures, or needing to increase application complexity to allow the specialized gestures to be used anywhere – I think it’s a reasonable compromise.

From where I stand, the N97 wins on screen resolution, screen size, removable storage, and higher quality camera/lens; and loses at least on the keyboard. Since the phones run on different OS’s, one of which we’ve not yet seen in the real world, we can’t really say for sure that 32GB is better than 8GB (just compare a Vista laptop to a Linux laptop). On the flip side, I’m going to guess that the Pre will handily win the usability test.

Two phones have truly wowed me in the past two years: the iPhone and now the Pre. Other high-profile phones have been spec’d out impressively (like the N97), but they haven’t wowed me. Even though, the iPhone wowed me, it looked like it was still missing some things, so I’ve waited patiently. The Pre (especially if it had removable storage) looks like it will finally cause me to upgrade.
http://www.breastenlargementl.com Quieffurf

I think you are thinking like sukrat, but I think you should cover the other side of the topic in the post too…
Farhan

Buddy you said it ” a device that hasn’t been released” all my comparison is based on available data on the web , the actual tests will come once the devices are released as an update Palm is working on ‘App Catalogue ‘ and soon will launch Mojo their SDK for developers
Graham

I really like palms. I’ve had every version since the palm pilot and am really loking forward to the Pre. Over 10 yers plus, however, I have accumulated a mass of data managed by a host of Palm OS 3rd party software. I really need to still be able to access all of this on an upgrade to the Pre. There’s too much to literally start again. I’m sure that I am not alone.
Me, myself and I

From what I’ve seen, however, the Palm software engineers did a marvelous job, while their hardware engineers blew it again. Nokia N97 wins hands down on hardware. Only, Symbian couldn’t compete in usability even with Palm OS, so I expect it to loose out by a far margin compared to Web OS. Especially after I’ve seen the demo. And at least for me usability is what counts. I don’t care to carry double the hardware with me if it doesn’t let me do things faster.
http://0800allergy.com sputtorpociot

I am unable to understand this post. But well some points are useful for me.
James Breaux

I appreciate a good comparison, but prefer it to be unbiased. It was obvious that you’re not giving an unbiased review right from the start with the 16 million colors verses 24 bit color. Even the screen resolution you give in different formats… even though the Nokia is a higher resolution, it’s not as much as you’re showing since you quote a landscape 640 number first verses the portrait 320 on the Palm. I’m guessing dpi is a bit better on the Nokia, but not by much. (640×360 on 3.5 inch screen verses 480×320 on 3.1 inch screen) If you’re going to provide comparisons for your readers, please try to be fair. You do Nokia a disservice by trying to hide the specs. When the price is available, are you going to list the Nokia in Pakistani currency and the Palm in USD?
http://www.senseapplied.com Farhan

Dear James Breaux ,
Thanks for your comments , I appreciate when the flaws in my posts are pointed out , I did made some mistakes which is being pointed out in comments.

coming to the comparison
for 16 million vs 24 bit color , they are essentially the same here the quote from wikipedia ” 24-bit truecolor uses 8 bits to represent red, 8 bits to represent blue and 8 bits to represent green. 28 = 256 levels of each of these three colors can therefore be combined to give a total of 16,777,216 mixed colors (256 × 256 × 256). ”

About screen res , I never said Nokia has a smaller screen or lesser dpi , I cannot calculate dpi as screen dimensions are not known but as you said Nokia does have a higher dpi.

I did Nokia a disservice , please read the whole post , in the end I’m all for Nokia to be better then Pre .
Nokia has started bringing out software snippets to be used in N97 , try new Ovi contacts and you will get presence on it .

Regarding price , I never alone quote prices in Pakistani RS. and Dollars unless the post is only meant for the Pakistani Market like the 5800 in Pakistan one , I always quote the prices in local currency along with it’s dollar equivalent , do read my other posts .

I will appreciate your followup comments , it will further enhance my knowledge
BobMarleyFTW

Nokia N97 has better hardware. Pre has better Software. It’s the balance between the two which will decide which is best
ie N97′s software is so bad that it takes 5m to send a message whereas Pre’s hardware is good enough for a fair amount of music, photo’s etc. (Do forgive my exaggerations, as I find them useful to make a point).
BobMarleyFTW

To anyone who read my post and didn’t understand, I made those up to use as an example and I personally do not know the capabilities of either phones Software/Hardware well enough to make assumptions like that.

–Bob
http://www.senseapplied.com Farhan

Bob , let’s be real about the phones that’s why I have the specs and my thoughts , waiting for both to show in real world tests then the real showdown will begin
http://yahoo.com Erik

I used palm in the past and was really convinced by the user interface. What moved me away from Palm was the fragile hardware (e.g. drop it from 30cm and it breaks) and the unstable phone function on the Treo 650 (my last Palm).

I think I am going to wait sometime before returning to Palm. Let the Palm Pre prove itself on the above issues. Wait for some more stability of the new OS and for some more applications. Also, interesting to see what the robustness and usability of the software, battery life, and reception quality of the phone will be.

These days, capacitative screens (iphone, pre) and gestures are hot, but is this marketing hype or a true usability enhancement? Also interesting to see what this will all lead to.

I
http://www.symbianblogger.com Symbian Software

My favorite mobile phone is the legendary Nokia N95 8gb I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
http://www.symbianblogger.com/category/mobile-softwares Symbian Applications

I love my new Nokia N96. Nokia FTW. I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
farrukh

Hello! Dear All!

I hope you are fine! i have a problem in my Palm Pre Model No. (P100eww) that I RESET my Cell Phone by mistake and after Reset when i restart my phone so in starting its show the options that you must SIGN IN or SIGN UP!for your back up and restore your Data! so when i try to create profile to Sign up and Click connect so its show the option [you need to be connected to your wireless service provider's network to sign in. when you are in a location with service, please Try again]my Location Country is Pakistan, i use palm pre in Pakistan, so i request to you that please give me any solution and solve my problem! i really thanks full to all peoples.
I am waiting your Best Response!

Thanks and Regards

Farrukh Farooqui!

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