Why I'll be getting a Palm Pre

I love the iPhone.

There, I said it.

But I hate AT&T's service coverage.

If I hadn't had such a bad experience with AT&T as the IT guy that's responsible for making iPhone's work with our corporate email system, things would be different. It really sucks too, because as a lifelong Sprint subscriber, I would drop them for AT&T and the iPhone in a split second. This, my friends, is not meant to be. Sprint has been good to me, no complaints here.

Our Help Desk is usually busy with calls from our extensive mobile work force, using AT&T iPhones and 3G laptop cards, complaining about lack of service, poor coverage and dropped VPN connections while traveling. My two week stint with a test iPhone was a pleasant experience, but I would rate its coverage below my Sprint enabled Palm Centro, hands down.

That being said, I do question Palm's decision to release the Palm Pre just two days before the start of Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference and risk silencing the Palm Pre's thunder if a new iPhone is unveiled. As a long time Palm devotee, I truly want the company to succeed. If the Palm Pre is their ticket to once again becoming the giant of the mobile world as they once were, I want to be along for the ride, no matter what the end.

So, come Saturday morning, I hope to have my hands on this revolutionary new smartphone. It's fresh, it's new, and it's Palm. I've grown bored and tired with Palm's Garnet OS, and am ready for something new. It will be fun to see how it all unfolds.

I'm pretty sure I'll be posting my first impressions of the Pre once it's in my hands. Coming soon.

Update: Engadget finally has an extensive review of the Pre up. Read it here.