Palm Pre Plus in Laptop Magazine’s Mobile March Madness

While most people in America are looking at their brackets in Basketball’s March Madness, the dorknerds among us are having that teeth clenching experience while watching our own version of March Madness for Mobile Devices at LaptopMag.com. The fan favorite (and mine) and underdog seems to be Palm, with their Pixi and Pre Plus. But while they may be getting the votes, there are some problems showing in how LaptopMag is running the competition (that is, they are obviously against the “dying” company).

Before I explain some of what has been happening that I feel is unfair, let’s look at the numbers. Right now we are 5 1/2 hours away (9 AM EST) from having the votes for the Blackberry Bold and Pre Plus counted (currently 11,279 [Pre] to 10,989 [Bold]). Whichever phone wins this round will be up against the Blackberry Tour, and then another round to the winner’s circle. I’m really interested in seeing what happens, since these devices are paving the way into the future of mobile computing.

Leading up to this point

In the two previous rounds leading up to this point we saw some pretty surprising things happen. The Pre Plus started off against the Nexus One in a bout that was one of the highest voted upon opening rounds. The Pre, though, won out against the first ever Google phone at 4317 to 3397 – an almost 1000 vote difference. A note of discrepancy in this first competition, albeit minor – Palm Pre got its fair share of bashing from the editors in the breakdown, while the N1 only received praise (bias, much?). No matter, though, Pre Fans come through and won it for the team.

The Palm Pixi versus BB Bold round was quite different, though. Even with a 54 vote loss (409 to 355), the guys at LaptopMag still called the Bold victor. Besides the singular downing of the Palm device, the vote-to-winner decision is indeed a puzzle. The reason that the Mag gives us for this discrepency is strange, too, saying that there was a glitch in their poll that allowed Pixi voters to continue to vote, and more than once at that, after the voting was supposed to end. But obviously it wasn’t keeping Bold users from doing the same, so it seems to me this is either a straight out lie, or a fabrication of the truth.

Also, rather than just re-casting the vote, they took the numbers (that they guessed at) and used them to declare the winner; Bold. A final observation of this first match that was intriguing is that they put the original Pixi in the round, rather than the newer, faster, Pixi Plus. Granted, this may not have changed the votes at all, but it was still rather annoying.

What about the cannibalism?

This, too, is of minor concern when you look at how the bracket was setup. With several models of phones from each carrier and brand, there was bound to be one or two phones from the same company fighting it out at some point, but Palm was the only one that might have faced this challenge so early, giving them a striking disadvantage compared to others. If the Pixi had won (as it should have) it would have been against it’s older brother, which means that Palm’s chances at winning the competition were cut in half from the very beginning.

A solution would have been easy if caught early on, but now that we have actively been voting in the Pre versus Bold round, it’s no longer possible. Oh well…

Coming Up Next

Let’s say that the Pre wins this round and heads up against the BB Tour (which slaughtered the iPhone). Well, they’re going to be in for a tough match. Blackberry fans stick together, and there is no doubt in my mind that the 11,000+ voters for the Bold will go to vote for the Tour as well, just to make sure their ‘buddy’ wins.

After that win, though (no matter who it is), the championship round will be an easy win for the players on the top side of the court. The three challengers on the other side (soon to be cut down to two and then one) all have a much smaller percentage of the votes compared to either the Pre or the other two Blackberrys. If Pre wins this round and the next, they’ve got the crown in the bag.

But with the odds stacked so high (and hard) against them, chances are it’s a lost cause. That is’ unless the Palm fans can really pull through and win it all!

If you haven’t yet, you have just under 5 1/2 hours left to vote. I’ll be posting the results as they come, so be ready for whatever comes next!

UPDATE: The Palm Pre Plus has won the competition with several big upsets against the HTC HD2 and Motorola Droid. The last round was won by more than 10,000 votes! Just goes to show how great the community really is.