Goodbye Palm OS, Hello Android

[dasseattle]

Greetings, earthlings (sorry, been watching too much Dr Who).

I've been a rabid Palm OS fan since 1997 (PalmPilot Pro). My first smartphone was a Palm OS-based Kyocera 6035, followed some years later by a Palm Treo 700p. I waited with bated breathe for Verizon to get the Palm Pre, and as soon as they announced the Pre Plus was in stores, I was there.

However, as I played with the Pre, my eye fell upon the Droid. Its larger screen....the voice commands....being able to say "Starbucks" and have it show me the nearest Starbucks and directions to it.....well, with a huge case of "am I really going to desert Palm" guilt, I spent the next few weeks making multiple visits to Verizon stores and online researching both the Pre Plus/Web OS and the Droid/Eris/Android, and it kept coming back to the bigger screen and voice commands.

I mulled over waiting for the next generation of Verizon Android phones, with faster processors and amoled displays, but decided, in the end, I'm not ready to give up a hardware keyboard, and no matter how attractive the Nexus One might look, there's no way I'm buying a phone that I can't play with multiple times beforehand, and for which the vendor charges a $45 restocking fee during the "buyer's remorse" period if you want to send it back. No way.

As for the faster processor and amoled screens, what the Droid has now is plenty fast enough and clear enough for me, especially compared to my Treo.

So, I bit the bullet, bade a mental farewell to Palm, and ordered a Droid yesterday. Should arrive Monday.

Am already reading up on developer info - I was a programmer in a past life and think it might be fun to try to write some apps.

Looking forward to the upcoming tethering, pinch & zoom and the audible.com player.

[Martin030908]

Welcome.... don't forget.... we'll be the first devices to get Flash 10.1