Today, June 6th, is the big day for the Palm Pre, making it's first debut in stores. As avid iPhone users (and tech geeks) we at iSmashPhone decided to purchase a Palm Pre for review and comparison purposes. Here's what went down.
The mall, and the Sprint Kiosk, both opened at 9:00 AM. We arrived at 9:20 AM. Remember the lines for the iPhone and iPhone 3G outside of Apple and AT&T stores? Here's a reminder. Those kind of lines did not form for the Palm Pre outside of Sprint stores.
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There was 5 people at the kiosk. Perhaps it's a sign of the tough economic times, or maybe it's a sign of people's lack of enthusiasm for Palm products.
We bought the phone, which costs $300. You are given a $100 dollar rebate, so it actually costs $200. However, once you accept the rebate, you cannot return the phone (which is why you shouldn't rush to get your rebate, you have 3 weeks).
So now the activation process began. The clerk began asking questions, and one of them was simply astounding.
The Sprint employee asked for my Gmail email address, AND MY PASSWORD. I couldn't believe it. I had no choice but to give the clerk my password because apparently that's a necessary step in the activation process (gave my gmail account for spam). The password to my main personal email is currently stored in a computer at a Sprint kiosk. That's just great.
Now the activation process began. Long story short, the process failed. We hung around for 1 hour waiting for the Sprint kiosk geniuses to make it work, but they couldn't. We were instructed to go to a Sprint Repair Center 15 miles away. Angrily, we went.
After some time, the people at the Sprint repair center were able to make things work. However, there were issues with getting the EVDO (Sprint's equivalent to 3G) working. After some more time, they were able to get things working.
The problem has nothing to do with the Palm Pre, but rather Sprint's disfunctional activation process. Sprint is also having issues with EVDO. They claim that they'll get it sorted out soon.
This seems rather familiar to the AT&T fail on the iPhone 3G's opening day. So far we like the phone. We'll post a full review after spending some more time with the Pre.
Keep in mind that after activation you will need to install 64 mb update on your Pre in order to activate media features. Unlike iPhone update is delivered over EVDO.
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How did they fix the EV-activation problem? My sprint store has the same issue.
They asked for your password? I’d have asked to see the manager.
They asked for your password… and you gave it to them… who is the idiot here?
Why would they need your username and password just to activate the phone?
Your experience could not have been more different than mine. I went to a Sprint store, waited for a half an hour and got my Pre. Within 10 minutes it was activated and working. The process was simple and straightforward and went off without a hitch. Sorry you had such a bad experience.
…and I was handed the phone and asked to enter my email address and my password into the phone – not into Sprint’s system.
Um. Yeah. iphones first days weren’t exactly smooth, either. And please find out if it’s a system wide problem or if it was just an idiot Sprint employee asking for the password.
I went to a Sprint store (not a silly kiosk) and they let me walk out without even activating the phone. I set everything up in the comfort of my own home and it worked superbly!
The email address is required for activation of the phone but the address and password are entered into the phone and registered with Palm’s registration service. Sprint doesn’t keep your email address or password on file anywhere in their systems. The clerk should have asked you to enter that information into the phone directly and not asked you to give the information to him/her. Also, the failure has to do with Palm’s registration server being bogged down at the time. Sprint doesn’t run that server and has no admin access to it at all. It’s all supplied and maintained by Palm.
can someone tell me why your effing email password is needed to activate a phone?
so what if you dont have an email address? you cant use that phone?
or if its gmail specific…same question
I’m having the same problem with not being able to activate my phone. Sprint says it’s a Palm problem. The customer service rep at Palm just told me to wait for up to 12 hours to see if the phone fixes itself??? What? That’s the worst “fix” I’ve ever heard! I still don’t have access to my phone!
I’ve spent 8.5 hours today, as well as traveling to 2 stores (one of them twice) to try to get 3 different Pre’s to activate. So far, none of them have activated.
I am having this problem right now. It’s been about 2 hours and my phone hasn’t activated. I got tired of waiting for it to work in the store so I brought it home and still nothing…