Palm Pre Return Rate Is 40%, Defects To Blame
| by PalmWebOS.org on July 22nd, 2009 |
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A report from Barron’s cites Keven Dede, an analyst from Jesup & Lamont, who says the Palm Pre return rates are likely around 40%. That’s right – close to half of all Palm Pre phones are returned to the stores and either a new Pre is shelled out or another phone is chosen in its place.
Sounds kind of high, doesn’t it? Palm’s success doesn’t rely solely on the Pre but more on WebOS as a platform and I’m pretty sure the company has proved its viability enough to gain stability. But still, the Palm Pre was supposed to bring an infusion of revenue and profit that could help the company branch out to produce more variations of Palm WebOS phones. This revelation could likely slow those ambitions.
We already know that the Palm Eos is in the works and will likely launch at the end of this year or beginning of next year but surely Palm can’t afford to have half of its customers returning this device as well. Selling 300,000 units looks a lot less impressive when less than 200,000 are valid transactions and the other 100,000+ are simply chalked up as a loss.
Are you one of the 4 in 10 Palm Pre purchasers who returned at least one device? Did you get another Pre or decide to just stick with a more proven platform?
1. Jason wrote on July 22, 2009
I returned my Pre and went back to my Centro. I will miss some of the WebOS apps but I need the basic PIMs to be as good or better than PalmOS PIMs. I’ll revisit WebOS and/or Pre in 3 months when the SDK finally gets released.
The implementation of the basic PIMs is really sad…it is a giant step back from my centro. every single PIM feature is a backwards compromise of the palm os version.
Yeah, i know with an update things could improve but i bought this pre phone june 6th and i expected it to work on june 6th…otherwise they should have beta tested this thing before releasing it to the public.
I am really attached to using a stylus, a keyboard, a 5-way button and dedicated phone buttons, along with true backup (to a disk not a cloud), 80% one-handed operation, and all my great apps NOW. I do wish PalmOS got updated (or fixed) as often as it appears WebOS may get updated to keep customers happy (and Palm alive).
2. David Coleman wrote on July 23, 2009
Clearly MANY are being returned because of the terrible problems with the screen cracking and then Sprint (and ultimately Palm) unwilling do even acknowledge the issue, let alone solve it in a professional, customer-oriented manner.
3. Paul wrote on July 23, 2009
I can’t believe it’s only 40% return rate. I returned the first on within 3 hours of getting it and returned the second one 6 days later. What a piece of crap they came up with.
4. Tonz wrote on July 23, 2009
I am waiting for my new Pre to be delivered. My Sprint rep is sending me a new one even thought Spring phone support folks would not. We have about 80 phones on a business account with Sprint and I manage the account, so I guess I get some attention.
The one I have now has two main problems; it goes dead periodically and it seems underpowered. I hope the new one doesn’t go dead, and I hope I can live with the power.
I don’t know how Palm could put so much into a device, get it so close to perfect and then skimp on the processor.
Maybe I’m wrong but power seems to be the issue. The phone always seems to be catching up with itself; like trying to run too many apps on an early version of Windows. Most commands (swipe, tap etc.) do not respond for at least a few seconds and sometimes 10 seconds or more!
Its really a shame because the device has so much potential; it does soooo many things well!
Maybe the next gen will have better hardware.
5. rupert wrote on July 24, 2009
Dear all,
can you google a little bit MORE before publishing a post, please?
http://www.precentral.net/palm-pre-return-rate-now-pegged-2-3-dueling-analysts
Rupert
6. Carl wrote on July 27, 2009
VerSpyzon Lied tome, Locked my LG, helped the illegal Bush NSA wiretaps.
I’m v happy to have moved to Sprint! 8:PM Fri, Jul10 I put up ~$630 for 2 Pres & accesories. The Columbus Sprint people on Sawmill were excellent. Anne, Kahlil, Susan were great.
One Pre was not.
My girfriend Marg waited for me to deduce their operation. No docs. XXX. The 1st logon is to SPRINT’s towers. Sat 8:AM my log-on activation hung. Twice. Minutes later some crank called my wire phone. SPRINT!! My God SPRINT detected my PREliminary trouble and called me.
Iff insanity is to expect different results from same actions, my Pre was crazy. Taps were ignored. Various window “Cards” resulted. Clunky communication between apps. No docs, just a oval Go piece with no rules. Sun 3:AM I lownloaded webOS 1.0.4. It fixed none of my problems. I was PISSED. She’s From CalTech. So she worked out some functions on hers. By Sun 2:PM I knew that 50% of 2 PREs had a bad touch-pad.
Engineer’s analogy: A pillow case is a flat rectangle. Stuffit and the corneds are held small by 2 intersecting edges. The PRE pad only saw 1 of 3 taps in the lower left. You know, the Phone icon…
SPRINT let me swap for 2 Blackberry 8338 Curves. Sprint’s Susan was great on the set-up! Had PREs for 44 hrs, 4 hrs sleep.
The HackBerries were not.
Again clunky softwhere. Some docs. You can get used to it. But. CDMA2000 Rev 0 slow & browser is crude. AND 2 of 2 trackballs were defective. Spin, spin, JUMP! Wed SPRINT swapped the 2 bad Curves for another pair of PREs… Another customer’s HackBerry Pearl had a HOLE were the trackball had been.
Today Jul27 I’m happy w the SPRINT network’s PRE on CDMA2000= TIA-856= EvDO RevA is much faster than Hackberry on Rev 0!
Marg likes hers. But mine keeps launching “Contacts”… The stuffed pillowcase pad has a problem. Work-around: Over-reach the Phone icon. Did I mention the great browser & screen? I hope PREliminary quality issues are not serious. Even on the HackBery.
Carl,
SPRINT fan,
Columbus, OH