HP’s Big Mistake

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I simply don’t do Apple. I’m not going to go into all the reasons here because today I want to rant about another company, HP.

As you can read elsewhere in my blog, my current smartphone is a Palm Pre +. I love just about everything about it, but with enough frustrations and nitpicks that I was recently flirting with the idea of switching to an Android device. I looked at the Motorola Droid Pro, which has a profile that is almost perfect for my needs (physical keyboard is a must), but switching to Verizon means losing international compatibility and the ability to be on line and on the phone at the same time. Continue reading “HP’s Big Mistake”

The Palm Pre: My New “Everything” Device?

UPDATED: 6/6

Warning: This post is only for complete gadget freaks, of which I am admittedly one.

Around 5 years ago, I was on a train from New York to Washington DC to attend a historic meeting. A bunch of independent filmmakers had been summoned to meet with Dan Glickman, the new head of the MPAA to discuss issues related to independent film. I was on the train with five other filmmakers, and on the entire trip we were playing with our Treo 650’s. We were trading apps (yes there were app phones before the iPhone), beaming the apps to each other via infrared port, and showing off all the tricks we had learned on the device.

In point of fact, at that moment in the not too distant past, everyone I knew in the film business had the identical phone. Why? Indie filmmakers are always on the move, and need to carry their office with them wherever they go. The 650 was a beautiful device, and with some hacks and third party software, it did pretty much everything one could ask for, and more. Continue reading “The Palm Pre: My New “Everything” Device?”