January 16th, 2009
Could Palm Pre's weakness be its battery?
Gizmodo’s John Herrman asks a very, very good question on this otherwise slow Friday:
Could the Palm Pre’s weakness be its battery?
According to him, Pre Central has “confirmed” that the Palm Pre’s battery will be identical in size to the Centro’s, indicating a modest 1150mAh-1350mAh capacity.
And we’ve all seen the Pre in action: a large, ultra-sharp screen, graphically-intensive webOS (It could be lightweight, though — Ed.) and strong integration to online services. In other words, a potentially much bigger energy hog than the Centro.
Herrman points out that the Treo Pro has a 1500mAh battery, and only gets about two days’ worth of use. And the batteries of Apple’s iPhone 3G (1400mAh), T-Mobile’s G1 (1150mAh) and RIM’s BlackBerry Storm (1400mAh) have been panned on this and other sites, needing a charge once a night, more or less.
Will the Pre be in the same camp? Or has Palm had the foresight to make the battery exceed the current crop of smartphones?
Or has battery technology gotten markedly better since the Centro? (Any Li-ion aficionados out there?)
Apparently, PalmInfoCenter was told directly by a PR rep to expect 1200mAh. As you might recall, Palm wouldn’t let me (or anyone else) play with a unit at CES, so I have no firsthand experience.
Is a weak (and thus, comparable) battery a dealbreaker for Palm’s Pre? Can Palm really sell 1.5 million units with a battery like that?
(Kudos to Herrman for being the first to ask such an obvious question.)
Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor for ZDNet and SmartPlanet.
See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
Email Andrew Nusca 
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to The ToyBox via Email alerts or RSS.
| 01/16/09
