Speaking as someone who has literally written the book on webOS (see signature below), I'd like to comment here...
I was a Pre user for a bit over a year. I was quite happy with it, in fact, I was very enthusiastic about webOS in general (the Pre itself was always just OK). A few months ago, due to a small mishap with my Pre (which is what I prefer to call it, instead of the more accurate "I got pissed and threw it against a brick wall"!) I needed a new phone. I had been sitting on my Sprint upgrade credit for about 6 months, waiting for Palm's "next big thing" to come out. So, when I was faced with the choice of (a) paying $100 to replace my Pre (because they wouldn't replace it for free, which I totally understand given it was basically a pile of parts!) or (b) paying I think $150 or so to get an Android device, I figured it was time to give the competition a shot
My wife liked the Epic, and since her upgrade credit would be coming up in a few months I figured in the worst case I'd just have her buy whatever the new webOS hotness was at the time, and we could swap. Everyone wins no matter how things go
It was between the Evo and the Epic and I went with the Epic simply because the screen was just too good to pass up, blowing the Evo out of the water IMO in terms of vibrance. So anyway, I've been an Epic user, and Android user, for about 3 months now.
In short, I'm happy. No, it's not perfect, but overall I don't regret the decision at all (and my wife still wants one of her own!)
Now, as for the comparison to the Pre... let's start with the obvious: hardware-wise, the Pre just doesn't match up to the Epic, and in fact doesn't match up to many current smartphones. The Pre2 is a little better in some key ways, but since it's not available in the U.S., I don't count it (being a U.S. citizen and all!). Besides, it still falls short in some important areas, most importantly for me being screen size. It's just miniscule and is the one thing I can't believe I was ever OK with, especially after spending time with the Epic (I can only imagine how much more this would be true if I had the Evo). I had my Pre overclocked to 1GHz for a while, so performance overall was fine frankly... but that screen, ugh, I can't believe there was ever a time where it didn't seem like I was using an iPod Nano.
Palm, and now HP, has completely screwed up IMO in terms of hardware. I know everyone in the Pre community, which I still consider myself a part of given my writing (two articles for Palm Developer Network on top of the book by the way) and enthusiasm for webOS in general, is waiting with baited breath for CES. They expect some big announcements. I'm frankly not at all convinced they are forthcoming. I'll say this though: unless HP hits it out of the ballpark, as in not just catches up but surpasses the current crop of smartphones in terms of hardware, they're done in the smartphone market. Some would argue they already are, and there's a good case to be made for that, but if they were to come out with the right hardware and, more importantly perhaps, a great advertising campaign, I think there's a chance to turn it around. But, I'm more pessimistic about the chances of any of that happening than I've ever been.
But, the one thing they have going for them is that webOS really is a great mobile OS. It gets a great many things very right. Now, it's got its shortcomings like they all do... to me, the fact that there STILL is no voice recorder app for webOS is beyond words... how that didn't ship on day one is beyond me, but the fact that we're nearly two years later and it's STILL not there?!? WTF?!? That's inexcusable IMO, and that's just one thing.
But, where it gets it right it's actually fantastic. How anyone could play with webOS for a few minutes and not conclude that multitasking blows away EVERY other mobile OS I can't understand. UI-wise, it's second to none, that's almost not debatable IMO. The whole card metaphor is a stroke of genius and is the one thing I thoroughly miss being on Android. The Android model of multitasking just seems archaic in comparison.
It's better than iOS too, and yes, better than Android. Now, that's in terms of UI only... you could make the argument that because webOS offers TRUE multitasking, unlike iOS and even Android (as I understand things) that it's better, but what iOS and Android have learned is that there's a big trade-off there, namely battery life. If you take the quick application switching with state-saving approach, you get something that, for most users, is "multitasking" enough, without killing the battery. The battery life on my Pre was always horrific, plain and simple. I mean, the Epic isn't too good in this regard either, but considering it's clocked at twice what a stock Pre is, you'd expect the battery life to be something like half as good, but that's not the case... my Epic gives me pretty close to the same battery life my stock Pre gave me, even with the higher CPU speed, and I attribute that largely to Android's approach to multitasking. The webOS community likes to hold up the platform's "true multitasking" as a big advantage... while I tend to agree I'd prefer true multitasking, we've seen that the battery life you lose may not be worth it... iOS and Android's approach may be good enough.
The development model for webOS is something I as a developer love. To be clear, I'm a professional developer who works in Java all day, so the model Android offers is quite comfortable for me. I actually like Java, unlike many people these days... but using web technologies as I can in webOS I find to be the superior approach. Now, again, there's trade-offs... Java offers better performance generally (I'm ignoring the PDK on webOS, which is native code, because I did my share of that back in the Windows Mobile days and I'm in no rush to return to a C/C++ world). Of course, the development model doesn't really matter to everyday users, except to the extent it results, or doesn't result, in apps.
And that's one area where webOS hasn't done well. Now, to be clear, I think if you're on webOS you find that 98% of the apps you want are in fact available and are in fact quite good. But what you won't find is a whole lot of choice. Oh, there's plenty of Twitter clients to choose from, but not many office suites (err, that is to say, pretty much none). One place where webOS actually beats Android though is in games... there's quite a few big-name games for webOS, where as Android is lacking them. Usually that's a great thing: games tend to drive a platform. That really hasn't happened with webOS. I think the overall lack of apps (there's around 4,000 webOS apps, so really the number isn't bad, unless you start comparing it to other platforms) is simply a result of low market share and nothing more... I don't think developers are being held back by the platform, they just don't see there being much point to the time and effort to port or write a game for webOS.
I think the ability to mod the platform is pretty similar. I will say that "rooting" a Pre is nothing but entering a code, which for most users is considerably more palatable. Once you do that, and once you install Preware, you're off to the races with all the patches and such you want, and many of them really do make the platform a lot better. It's probably fair to say that there's more extensive modding going on in the Android community, but in terms of ease and even safety, webOS probably has an advantage. There's great work being done on both sides of the fence in this area though, that's for sure.
webOS as a platform isn't going to die, I feel very confident about that. If it does it'll be a huge shame because it's got a lot going for it. The UI really is pretty slick in most regards, and I'd say it's more cohesive and elegant than Android currently is (yes, even after installing Launcher Pro and some other tweaks as I've done... it's far better than stock now, but I think webOS still has more fit and finish). webOS is a somewhat more polished experience in terms of UX. That being said, if it doesn't get matched with the right hardware soon, it's not going to be anything but a bit player in the smartphone market (and if you said it's already too late, I'm not sure I'd argue all that strenuously against you). I think we'll see some good webOS tablets, certainly printers and all that crap (which I don't put much stock in myself), and if all the breaks went HP's way I think they still could do well with it in the smartphone market... but the hour is very late, to paraphrase Gandalf
Would I buy a Pre today? Definitely not. No way, no how. While I think it was a good choice a year ago when my wife bought hers, Android has come too far too fast since then and even the worst Android device today is significantly better than the Pre is in most ways that matter. The iPhone has pretty much always been ahead, it's been Android catching up to iOS as the real race to watch.
I still love webOS, and I'll tell you this: if they put webOS on the Epic hardware I'd have an extremely tough choice to make. The only thing that would keep me on Android is apps at that point. I like Android a lot more than I ever thought I would frankly, but I'm not going to fawn all over it and proclaim it perfect or anything like that. Factoring hardware out, and putting number of apps aside, I'd prefer to be using webOS right now. But, if HP doesn't have something big up their sleeve for CES, which I personally doubt they do, I think webOS on smartphones is done regardless. And it quite possibly may be already.
And I certainly wouldn't hesitate one bit to buy an Epic right now. If it isn't the best currently available Android device then it's right near the top. I think, like me, you won't be disappointed. On Sprint the Evo isn't bad either of course, but do what I did: hold the Epic and Evo next to each other and set the screens to full brightness. If you aren't blown away by the difference and want the Epic immediately I think you're probably stoned
Other than that factor, they're pretty close to equivalent (the Evo screen IS a bit bigger, and you WILL notice it, but you get the physical keyboard with the Epic, so it's a fair trade-off IMO)
Frank
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Frank W. Zammetti
Author of "Practical Palm Pre webOS Projects"
and "Practical Ext JS Projects with Gears"
and "Practical Dojo Projects"
and "Practical DWR 2 Projects"
and "Practical JavaScript, DOM Scripting and Ajax Projects"
and "Practical Ajax Projects with Java Technology"
(For info: apress.com/book/search?searchterm=zammetti&act=search)
All you could possibly want is here: zammetti.com
The gulf between the "buy it now" and the actual selling prices for Pre's on ebay is huge. When we looked to sell the Pre and Moment, the Moment (same retail price) was going for an average of $100 more. We ended up giving the Pre away to a family member and selling the Moment for $135.
