Today over at webOS Internals, Dudestatus has put together a solution that brings the gnuboy Game Boy Emulator to webOS.

The solution is a bit technical and we’ll recommend sitting back and letting a final package release before experimenting, but the video below demonstrates the possibilities.  If you were holding your breath in anticipation of whether or not the 600MHz TI OMAP3430 processor can handle the emulator you can breath easy.  How hard could it be to replicate game play on a device that was powered by just 8Mhz right?

For full details on how you can get the gnuboy GameBoy Emulator on your webOS device hit webOS Internals here.

[Source: Cell Fanatic]

Console Platforms · Emulation · Emulator · Game Boy · Games · Hardware · Nintendo · Video Games

While still only on Sprint, the Pixi and the Pre are in the middle of a price war between Amazon and Wal-Mart each trying to undercut the other with low, low prices in a bid to grab more online market share.

PreCentral.net has been tracking the Amazon-Walmart price war as it relates to the Pre and Pixi, which are listed on the official Sprint.com Web site for $149 and $99 respectively (with two-year contracts), although only after a $100 mail-in rebate (that’s the part where you have to fill in the paper form, cut the UPC off the cardboard box, and wait six to eight weeks for your refund; ugh).

Thanks to the battle between the two online shopping giants, however, both the Pre and the Pixi have been seeing steep discounts over the past couple of weeks.

The price tags vary from day to day, but as of Tuesday morning, I spotted the Palm Pixi for just $25 (again, with a two-year Sprint contract) on both Amazon.com and Walmart.com … no mail-in rebate required.

As for the Pre, which sold at launch for $200 with service, Walmart.com currently has it listed for $99 with a two-year contract, while Amazon is down to $80 with a two-year service agreement. (PreCentral previously found the Pre on Walmart.com for $75, but the price must have gone back up.)

Read the full story at Yahoo.

Amazon.com · Contract · Online shopping · palm pixi · Price war · Rebate · Wal-Mart · Walmart.com

A comparison between three of the biggest hyped smartphone in the mobile arena, the Palm Pre, the Motorola Droid and of course no comparison would be complete without the inclusion of the iPhone 3GS.

The video is a side by side comparison lasting just over seven minutes and basically covers the similarities and differences of these three high profile smartphones, the Palm Pre on Sprint, Motorola Droid on Verizon and the iPhone 3GS on AT&T.

The reviewer states that out of all three smartphones the Palm Pre is by far the most compact and the webOS runs really smooth. Next up is the iconic iPhone 3GS and the reviewer states that out of all the phones the iPhone 3GS is definitely the best constructed handset and the one everyone wants to beat.

As for the Motorola Droid, the reviewer says it takes a lot from both the Palm Pre and iPhone 3GS with a high level construction and industrial design, and one of the thinnest handsets with a side out QWERTY.

[Source: Phones Review]

Handhelds · iPhone · iPhone 3GS · Mobile phone · motorola · Palm Pre · Smartphone · WebOS

Best Buy doorbuster special deals have just gone live and one of the special Black Friday 2009 deals includes the Sprint Palm Pre.

You can buy the Sprint Palm Pre on Black Friday for only $79.99, at the moment when you shop Best Buy is offering the Palm Pre for $149.99 so just sit back and wait until Black Friday and get it a lot cheaper.

The special doorbusters special price will be available in stores November 27 and online on November 26, you will get it for the low price mentioned above after savings with an upgraded or new 2-year agreement with Sprint and activation through Best Buy.

[Source: Phones Review]

Best Buy · blackfriday · Doorbuster · Handhelds · Holidays · Palm OS · PalmPre · Sprint

Palm Pixi, the video review in five minutes (or so).
By: Noah Kravitz – Editor in Chief, PhoneDog Media

No tags

Palm’s latest update to its mobile operating system now allows owners of the Pre and Pixi to use Yahoo’s instant messaging client and watch YouTube videos in wide screen view, among other things.

But one feature not included in the update is the seamless synchronization with iTunes, Apple’s popular software for managing music and other media on a computer.

Palm has long clashed with Apple over whether or not owners of its devices can sync them up with their iTunes libraries without any intermediate software.

Palm confirmed that the newest release of WebOS, the mobile operating system for Palm devices, does not include a fix to the media syncing capability, although declined to specify the reasons behind the decision.

Read the full story on NY Times.

Apple · handheld · Instant messaging · iTunes · Operating system · Palm Pre · yahoo · YouTube

Highlights of a review of the Pixi from NY Times:

Twenty-five bucks for an app phone? That’s unbelievable. (Or, rather, it emphasizes how irrelevant a phone’s starter price really is. The true cost is embedded in your two years of monthly service fees–in this case, $2,309.)

Anyway, the Pixi is absolutely gorgeous, with a razor-thin (OK, .4-inch-thin) design. The front is flat glossy black; the back is curved hard rubber. It weighs just over 3 ounces. THREE OUNCES!? That’s insane. If this phone were any smaller and lighter, it would cease to exist.

This time, the illuminated keyboard doesn’t slide out—it’s always there beneath the screen; the phone is a slab design. The keyboard is very tiny indeed (just over two inches wide), but because the keys are super-raised and rubberized and move and click when you type on them, it’s not bad. You wind up supplementing each press with your thumbnail, and it works.

The operating system is the same fluid WebOS you can read about in my Pre review here. Once again, it integrates contacts, e-mail and calendars from all online sources—Google, Yahoo, Exchange and so on—and merges them on the phone.

However, on the Pixi, almost everything from the Pre has been diminished. The most painful change is the screen, which is only 320 by 400 pixels; that is, it shows 17 percent less, vertically, and you really miss those extra 80 pixels. You feel a little cramped.

The camera is 2 megapixels, down from 3. The battery life is shorter. The speaker is quieter. You can’t open as many apps at once.

There’s no Wi-Fi, either, so your only connection to the Internet is over Sprint’s cellular airwaves; cellular connections are generally slower than Wi-Fi ones. (Then again, I’ve found Sprint’s Internet coverage to be excellent.)

Worst of all, the cheaper, slower processor in the Pixi makes it slow to open apps, load Web pages and trigger functions. Sometimes it gets ridiculous; you might wait a whole minute for a Web page, for example.

Google · New York Times · Operating system · Sprint · Sprint Nextel · Telecommunications · Wi-Fi · yahoo

Market research firm IDC has for years been compiling data on the best-selling smartphones in the US. While their numbers from the second quarter of 2009 ranked the Palm Pre at #8, in the following three months the Pre moved up to #6. The jump was likely spurred on by a number of factors, including increased supply and price cuts at Sprint and resellers, as well as the fact that the Pre was only on the market for one third of the second quarter.
It will be interesting to see the top ten list for Q1 2010, since by then the Pre will have launched on Verizon.

[Source: Pre Central]

Advertising and Marketing · Business · International Data Corporation · MarketResearch · PalmPre · Smartphone · Sprint · Sprint Nextel

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Palm may prove to be Verizon’s best hope if the Droid line doesn’t bear fruit, Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu said in a note today. He points to contacts within the cell industry and supply chain that suggest Verizon will carry one or more of Palm’s webOS phones, such as the Pre or Pixi, sometime in 2010. Sales of both the Motorola Droid and HTC’s Droid Eris have purportedly been “somewhat disappointing” and may lead to Verizon using Palm to bolster its smartphone catalog.
Adoption of the smartphones could happen as early as the first half of the year as Sprint’s exclusive isn’t expected to last past 2009. Verizon’s wireless chief Lowell McAdam has also signaled a desire to attach Palm’s new devices to the network.

Wu adds that Palm has advantages that can’t necessarily be matched by Android. Although Google’s platform has multi-manufacturer support, Palm can directly tie software to new hardware features and supports full multi-touch where Android 2.0 only has limited recognition. Accordingly, Palm can produce a more cohesive experience even with more limited resources.

Claims of sub-par Droid sales are new and may partly contradict rough predictions that more than a quarter million have bought the Droid in its first week. While a fraction of Apple’s iPhone 3GS launch numbers even in the US, the Droid is thought to have had a better launch than the Pre and T-Mobile’s myTouch 3G, both of which are estimated to have moved about 60,000 units each in their opening weekends.

Barclays Capital analyst Amir Rozwadowski partly backed Wu’s analysis in his own note today. He warns that demand for the Pre is “tempered” this fall and that Palm’s limited recognition in Europe won’t help the company but stresses that the smartphone designer is in a stable position with little immediate risk. Rozwadowski also expects Palm to reach Verizon and says it could be a “critical part” of the company’s strategy to branch out to Verizon, possibly with a launch for the Pre in February.

[Source: Electronista]

Apple · Google · HTC Corporation · iPhone · Lowell McAdam · Smartphone · T-Mobile · Verizon