So we've been doing this whole gadget blogging thing for a while now, and we've noticed a timeline trend with these major, buzz-filled launches. They tend to go something like this:

• T minus 2 hours: lines reach critical mass across the country; odds are you'll find some of us in those lines. Camaraderie amongst line-waiters is at a high, but it's a guarded emotion -- the scene'll turn ugly the second inventory runs out.
• T minus 30 minutes: for morning lines (particularly those where folks have waited overnight), store managers come out and offer coffee and pastries. Anything less is uncivilized -- don't hesitate to complain.
• T minus 0 minutes: the gizmo goes on sale.
• T plus 1 hour: the first teardowns and cost estimates hit the web.
• T plus 4 hours: mass (or at least loud) complaints of manufacturing defects, bugs, and shortcomings start cropping up.

It's still too early to tell whether the Pre is more, less, or equally as defective as any other blockbuster product in recent memory, but as you might expect, there are plenty of issues being sporadically reported in the first weekend of availability and it'll be interesting to see how Palm spins and handles them. Here are a few we're tracking:

• A good number of early adopters are reporting "splotchy," distorted, or discolored displays (we've seen reports of dead pixels, too, though we'd actually be more weirded out if there weren't). See examples here, here, and here.
• We've also heard reports of unexpected system shutdowns (like those reported in the LAPTOP piece above) that require a battery pull to resolve. We're hearing that you can also patch this up by holding down the power button and toggling the ringer switch three times, but your mileage may vary. If we had to guess, this'll be fixed up with a firmware update at some point, which really drives home the value of OTA capability.
• Text fields in the web browser don't seem to support symbols that aren't on the keyboard (that is, symbols you need to hold down "Sym" to access). We've independently verified this one, and it's nasty -- it'll be particularly bad once the phone launches internationally, so we'd also expect this to be patched sooner rather than later.

If you've noticed anything else, drop us a line in comments -- we think Palm and Sprint are both motivated to make this launch a smooth one, and something tells us their ears are firmly planted to the ground right now.

[Thanks to everyone who sent these in]

Where's the fail whale when you need it, right? Early yesterday morning, Nokia flipped the switch on its Ovi Store, claiming that it's app market would potentially reach some 50 million users around the world. Unfortunately for Nokia, it seems as if all 50 million attempted to check things out at the same time. Web-wide, users were griping that things just weren't working out, and we're not talking about small packets of flustered users. In fact, Nokia was forced to admit that "shortly after launching, it began experiencing extraordinarily high spikes of traffic that resulted in some performance issues," and judging by reactions, we'd say "some" is now a front-runner for understatement of the year. Have things smoothed over for you today? Are you even bothering to check?

Update: Nokia has apologized for the gaff and has reportedly added server capacity to handle the demand. Question is: is the fix working?

If you're wondering why you don't have an AT&T-branded BlackBerry Bold in your hand at this very second, the answer might lie a couple thousand miles away where Orange has allegedly pulled all units off the shelves to hammer out some "software issues" that have plagued early devices in subscribers' hands. The whole situation leaves us to wonder whether carriers jumped the gun on validating early builds of the Bold's firmware in an effort to get it out into the market in a non-ridiculous amount of time, while AT&T may have chosen to play it safe with a longer, more excruciating battery of tests -- leading to RIM's swipe that the October 2 miss was all AT&T's fault. It's just a theory, and probably a pretty meaningless one since this Orange fiasco should apparently take a couple weeks to clear up at most, and we're still hearing occasional whispers out of the AT&T camp that they're still pushing for an October release over there. Chop chop, guys.

[Via Mobile Tech Addicts]

As smartphones become ever more complex and powerful, simple math dictates that the incidence of severe software issues is going to go up. Sad as it is, that's to be expected, and we can't really recall the last time we extensively used a smartphone -- regardless of brand or platform -- that didn't exhibit some bugs. That being said, when a phone won't frickin' come out of standby, you'd think they'd be able to catch that before shipping. Many owners of Toshiba's ultra-powerful G900 Windows Mobile 6 Professional handset seem to be reporting a hodgepodge of problems that are necessitating returns, chief among them being that once the phone goes to sleep, it doesn't want to wake up until a reset is performed. Toshiba's apparently promising a fix in the next few weeks, but for folks trying to make this beauty their primary mobile, that's little consolation for the moment.

[Thanks, Gudmundur]