Remote erase bricks Palm Pre

Well I no longer have a Palm Pre – until tomorrow, anyway…

Why? I was forced to activate my Pre after purchase while at the Sprint store, which robbed me from enjoying (and documenting) the “first run” experience. To remedy this and out of curiosity, I tried doing a remote erase instead of using the reset functionality on the phone.

Unfortunately, this bricked my Pre instead of resetting it!

A Palm representative kindly picked up my Pre, and is reflashing it overnight. As much as I’m impressed with Palm making a house call, perhaps the “Erase Device” button above should be relabeled “Disable Device”?

I’m pretty bummed to be without my Pre within 12 hours of picking it up :/

Update 1: I got my Pre back in working order! Just to clarify, the Palm representative that helped me was not a customer service person, but someone I networked with while waiting in line to purchase my Pre…

Update 2: Here’s a video of me telling Ewan MacLeod all about my crazy Palm Pre adventure.

Unboxing the Palm Pre

Here it is – the eagerly anticipated Palm Pre!

Check out my unboxing pictures and video…

More soon :)

Palm Pre launch

I have a Palm Pre :) Yes, I actually woke up at 5 AM this morning and headed to the Sprint store on Castro St. in San Francisco… When I arrived at 6 AM, coffee in hand, I was the first person in line!

The line eventually grew to about 50+ people, but with only 25 devices in stock (and 5 Touchstone inductive chargers, one of which I snagged), a lot of people went home empty handed.

Here are some videos and pictures of the Palm Pre launch – expect a full unboxing soon.

Update: I just added Matt’s awesome Palm Pre launch video, featuring yours truly :)