Players? The only other player is the iPhone. Android tried, and it may do something yet, but it's simply not there. (We may find that WebOS is in the same category, but we just don't know yet.) Blackberry is still in the 20th century. (I have a Blackberry, an 8820, assigned by work, and I'd far rather have a Treo 650. In a vein similar to yours, Bruno, I don't understand why anyone would want a Blackberry. The difference being that I've actually used one, and for a year or so.)

The big deal about the Pre is that it is, after two and a half years and three iterations, the first real competition for the iPhone. No one is saying (nonhyperbolically, anyway) that the iPhone sucks. Some may have problems with the soft keyboard, or with the lack of copy-and-paste, or the lack of multitasking, but I think we all agree that it was, if nothing else, the first of a new generation of the smartphone, and we're all happy that there's simply finally another product of the same generation, and has some distinguishing features, like a hard keyboard, for example. Especially one that doesn't use AT&T's spotty and spied-on network. Not that Sprint's network is that much better. At least all our communications aren't being forwarded to the NSA.