We've got this image burned in our brains of the
Pre as this slick, black, streamlined, ultra-glossy pebble of a phone, and by and large, that's an accurate image -- unless you spring for the
Touchstone. The inductive charging accessory -- which seems like an almost automatic purchase for any Pre buyer with a single geeky bone in their body -- needs magnets in the Pre to hold it in place when it's attached, but it turns out that the standard glossy battery cover doesn't have those magnets. Instead, the Touchstone will include a replacement cover that has the magnets and loses the gloss for a stickier matte soft-touch surface, ostensibly to help secure the phone against the charger's slanted top. For some, the soft-touch is going to be perceived as an upgrade -- but others are undoubtedly going to be bummed that they won't be able to see their own reflection against the shiny Palm logo dead center. What's more, if you want the matte without the Touchstone, you're out of luck (at launch, anyway) -- it won't be available separately. Whatever; it's not like you weren't planning on getting this thing
Colorwared anyway.
posted Feb 19th 2009 6:16AM
I'll take matte soft touch rubberized grippy ANY day over the slippery drop prone finger print smudge magnet gloss.
I was hoping there would be a grip option.
Oh, the gloss will probably start cracking too...
I'm more concerned about whether, if I drop my touchstone enabled Pre into my pocket with my wallet, all my bank cards will get wiped. Magnets inside of your phone just don't seem like a good idea to me.
Or next to an ipod on my desk.
The only time credit cards stop working is if you nick them up, you would have to have a godly magnet to erase anything. Mythbusters tried some rare earth magnets and it was a no go.
Also I wouldn't be worried about iPods and such, if they are worth their salt they won't be effected. Not to mention most iPods and any small storage device is flash now anyways.
@ncsustash:
Don't worry, the magnets in this thing wont be CLOSE to strong enough to harm an HDD. Any modern hard drive is very very well shielded and it takes a very strong magnet to harm the data on it. I've actually TRIED to erase hard drives with an old tape degaussing machine (strong electro magnet) and was unsuccessful every time.
I wouldn't worry about CC's either actually. But I don't really know as much about them, or how much magnet it takes to harm them. I have to imagine this was taken into consideration by Palm though.
DELICIOUS.
Love the matte finish, I bought a euro-version matte battery cover for my Touch Pro because I hated the gloss so much. Matte soft touch is better in EVERY way functionally, and in my opinion it looks better too, but of course that part is an opinion. But functionally, i challenge anyone to come up with a reason gloss is better.
well i do prefer a glossy look as far as cosmetics go but the matte finish will almost certainly be more functional. i would probably want a glossy but would actually buy a matte back just to have that much more protection against me dropping the phone.
I'm confused.
Are you as a buyer going to be given the option to either select the matte or the glossy from the scratch?
Or would you be forced to get the phone with glossy cover as the default, and then having to get the matte cover as an optional accesory that you have to purchase separately?
I wouldn't worry about the lack of reflection.. when you slide the Pre open, there appears to be a mirror on the top rear. See it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai6OM8ikeo0&fmt=22#t=2m04s