Palm Pre Review

[Joel]

The complete review is now out. [details (http://www.1src.com/?m=show&id=2178)]

[Joel]

From the review:

screen: you will most definitely not be let down
keyboard: it's really not good
size: it's really crazy small
feel: really cheap
OS: off to a great start

[miles4000]

Of all those points I hope the feel of the Pre is better than what he mentioned. I dont think i'll have a problem with the keyboard.

[BaDZeD]

I have a Centro and I really like that keyboard set up, don't think there will be a problem there. If you read carefully, he got the "cheap" feeling of the phone because it was lighter than he expected.
Also, how old was the ROM on that Pre? Even the one at CTIA had a functional music player on it.
???

[miles4000]

Yeah I'm also using a Centro so the Pre's keyboard looks like an upgrade.

[millydog]

I am not really concerned about the keyboard either. I loved the keyboard on my Treo650. I switched from that to the iPhone and it felt odd at first to use an on screen keyboard, but now I am used to it and typing is very fast. Now, my Treo650 keyboard feels odd and slow, but it is only a matter of what I am used to. I will quite enjoy having a keyboard again. I might find it slower at first, but I am sure that my typing will be more accurate.
Of the points above....I hope that the Pre doesn't feel cheap. I like a solid feel.
Also, I am not necessarily a fan of small.....I prefer my devices to be on the larger size (for a larger screen, not necessarily for keyboard reasons).

Anyway, after all that....the biggest issue for me is when can I get my hands on one in Australia. I hope to buy it unlocked (or outright on Telstra).

[JavaJiveJump]

http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/04/technology/palm_pre_review.fortune/index.htm

( I hope this isn't a duplicate post. Interesting article on CNN ).

You're welcome, Harpgliss. I will just tack this one on as well:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/edwardbaig/2009-06-03-palm-pre-review_N.htm

[harpgliss]

Hi,

http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/04/technology/palm_pre_review.fortune/index.htm

( I hope this isn't a duplicate post. Interesting article on CNN ).


Thanks for the link, I had not read that one yet.

David

[DennisOS2]

Another from inside the tech world but outside the device world. Sprinkled with comments from Engadget and others.

http://www.dailytech.com/First+Official+Palm+Pre+Reviews+Hit+the+Net/article15333.htm

[DennisOS2]

My son's web designer traded in his v2.2 iPhone for the Pre yesterday. His plan cost went from $170 to $100/month. Loved the iPhone ........... really loves the Pre. His immediate comparison was to his iPhone: screen, gesturing, browser, screen orientation all much better. Does not feel as sturdy as the iPhone. The merging of all his contacts (4 accounts) was fast and without a hitch. Profile pictures from his Facebook account came over, as well. Without having learned the entire feature set at this point he considers it a significant step up from his iPhone.

Sorry this is second hand, but he is far more capable to review than I am. However, I am a bit surprised given how much (other than battery life) he like his iPhone.

[Reggie]

Alan's first impressions: http://preswitcher.com/articles/2009/06/first-impressions-of-the-palm-pre/

[harpgliss]

Hi,

Sounds like he is enjoying the Pre very much.

Good for him.

I am also glad he acknowledged, like any other phone, it has its flaws.

Very well written and an enjoyable read.

David

[LupeValenz]

Good review there Alan. I am so in love with the pre. I can't wait for my touchstone charger to arrive, they were sold out of it grrr. I want that nice matte back cover. This phone manages to make me stop using my ipod touch (except for audible though since pre can't play that yet).

[harpgliss]

Hi,

Good review there Alan. I am so in love with the pre. I can't wait for my touchstone charger to arrive, they were sold out of it grrr. I want that nice matte back cover. This phone manages to make me stop using my ipod touch (except for audible though since pre can't play that yet).


This is a pretty big endorsement of the Pre, considering I know how much you enjoy using the Ipod Touch.

Good for you.

I hope other who are moving to the Pre have as positive an experience as you are.

David

[LupeValenz]

Hi,




This is a pretty big endorsement of the Pre, considering I know how much you enjoy using the Ipod Touch.

Good for you.

I hope other who are moving to the Pre have as positive an experience as you are.

David

Good morning. Yeah, it is, I didn't think I would dump the iPod so fast but it really is incredible for me. I am surprised to see that my Griffin Smarttalk adapter work with the Pre that I have used for the iPod. I talked to some people on the line and they say I sound very good and loud with that mic. Even the remote control button can answer/end call, play/pause and advance next music track (can't go back though but I never used that anyway). It syncs up easily with iTunes so I have my videos and music on it. I'll have more to say. I think I'll post my review up later as well, just giving me some more play time with the Pre.

[harpgliss]

Hi,

I look forward to reading your review.

Will you be starting your own thread or just posting in this one?

David

[LupeValenz]

Good afternoon, I'll be posting in this thread. Don't really want to create duplicate threads. I'll probably be posting tomorrow, I believe I've played around with mostly everything already and just need to do a stress test on the battery.

[JAmerican]

Hey all,

http://web5.twitpic.com/img/11665117-ababac538e56d2591602f04d6eb1e872.4a2db944-scaled.png

http://twitpic.com/6y0v1

I like the Treo 800w's feel and keyboard. (BTW my brightness was low).

Here's the first of two videos I'm posting on Palm Pre...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNpcYkQH0RQ

[DennisOS2]

Hey all,

http://web5.twitpic.com/img/11665117-ababac538e56d2591602f04d6eb1e872.4a2db944-scaled.png

http://twitpic.com/6y0v1

I like the Treo 800w's feel and keyboard. (BTW my brightness was low).

Here's the first of two videos I'm posting on Palm Pre...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNpcYkQH0RQ
I have the Treo Pro. WM is an abomination. I will run towards WebOS as soon as I have an AT&T (unlocked) version. Please suggest how any multi-tasking OS wouldn't improve over WM.

[DennisOS2]

Good morning. Yeah, it is, I didn't think I would dump the iPod so fast but it really is incredible for me. I am surprised to see that my Griffin Smarttalk adapter work with the Pre that I have used for the iPod. I talked to some people on the line and they say I sound very good and loud with that mic. Even the remote control button can answer/end call, play/pause and advance next music track (can't go back though but I never used that anyway). It syncs up easily with iTunes so I have my videos and music on it. I'll have more to say. I think I'll post my review up later as well, just giving me some more play time with the Pre.
You need to write a comprehensive review of all aspects of this handset, plus and minus.. Very important to the rest of us.

[JAmerican]

I have the Treo Pro. WM is an abomination. I will run towards WebOS as soon as I have an AT&T (unlocked) version. Please suggest how any multi-tasking OS wouldn't improve over WM.

Windows Mobile works great for me. I have no problems with the OS. I have problems with the Treo 800w Hardware though. Too many faulty parts. The one thing that Palm included that was smart was a USB Host. I'm going to test out the Palm Pre when I get my cable to see if it supports USB host as well.

[LupeValenz]

You need to write a comprehensive review of all aspects of this handset, plus and minus.. Very important to the rest of us.

No problem, will do because even though I love the phone, there are some items that I hate. :mad:

[LupeValenz]

Good day everyone. Been playing with the Pre and have adjusted to it and feel its about a good time to put a review here. Going with the saying "Save the best for last" I'll start with some of the things that I hate.

Hardware hangups: :mad:
At first when I used the pre and had to charge the device, I saw the charging door and it was a struggle to open. Then I saw it was on the top half and if you slide it open, it is MUCH easier to open the mini usb door that way. Now its the USB door itself that seems like it could easily just break apart. It can come out a bit but it feels like it will just come out thus I only just take it out a little way just enough to get the mini USB to connect.
One thing that I'm missing is an SD card slot, 8GB is still more than what I had in my 755P with 2GB card but I just hate that it is omitted because palm has been applefied with Jon teams, it seems they want us to pay to get incremental upgrades like memory expansions.
The next thing is notifcations while the phone is off. Come on..you have a nice glowing ball...why can't it pulse while phone is off so you know something is there. I hope there is an update to make that happen. You have to turn on and check your lock screen to see if there is any notifications on.
Another bit of the hardware quirk that gets to me. On the Treo's I love the ringer switch, its just so good just to flip a switch to silent your phone and have it vibrate. The vibration is just a tad weaker than the 755P. I wish it was a little more powerful, but its just enough for me to feel it. Another thing about the ringer is that it doesn't turn off music. Maybe some people might like that but when I turn the ringer switch on, I want the whole phone to be silent.
Ohh, almost forgot. The Pre battery cover is a little pain to take off. You have to press down on the eject door and then jam a fingernail in the sides to take it off. Its not as easy as the 755P battery door removal. Thats it for the hardware and now onto the software.

Software sighs. :mad:
Even though WebOS is a beautiful OS, there are some things that just get to me. First is the launcher itself. 3 pages....3 pages for apps. WT...?! I guess can't complain too much about the 9 pages of apps for the iPod Touch. Sure you can scroll up and down instead of set icons on the page but still. Its just crazy. Thankfully though the universal search is a life saver here.
PIM's. Palm was good with PIM category but on the Pre...its beauty before functionality. It looks beaaaautiful but very limited. For example, Calendar, where is the categories? All you have is the Palm profile and whatever else you use for your calendar, IE: Google, EAS, etc. No business category, personal, bills, etc. I love that you can color code your events in calendar to give you a quick glance at whats going on, I see red I know I have a bill coming up, orange I know something bout work is coming up, blue is something personal to me. Now, its just color coded for your account sync and since I mostly use google calendar, everything is one color :(. Also for quick glance....today screen. Why...why why why remove that handy feature. I'm just speechless, no today screen. Nuff said :(.
All the PIM's pretty much don't have categories so no more getting an easy view of what you want to look at.
One other thing about the software is the Music and video app. There is no saved state of what you were listening to or watching. Say your listening to a podcast and you close the app, later you come back in and it doesn't start where you were on. You have to start back over, there is no scrubber as well to get where you where last time. If your listening to a long podcast, your going to have to hold down on the forward button for a while to get where you want. I don't know why they don't have a scrubber. If you go into list view you see that the blue fills up and I thought I could just tap and hold it then slide it. Nope, nothing :(...but it does have a scrubber, thats what get me. It has a scrubber when you stream mp3's. If you want to start and end a podcast, don't close the app, just let it run in the background.
One last thing for the software is the phone app, mostly with conference calls. We can't hang up any calls we have on conference individually, we have to hang up the whole team. Not big factor for me since I don't do conference calls but just a heads up about that. Sadly, no visual voicemail too which is just crazy since Sprint can do it since they have it on the instinct.
Thats pretty much it for the gripes, now onto the awesomeness of the phone. :D

Hardware Heaven:
The Pre feels GREAT in your hand! I love the curves of the phone, no sharp edges, it just feels great!. Its small and compact, perfect for one handed use. Use your thumb to flip up the screen and start typing away.
The screen is amazing! Even on the lowest brightness, its still bright enough to use. At lowest brightness it is equal to about 20% of the 755P and 40% of the iPod touch brightness. At 100%...its just too bright!! The screen is 320x480 but since its on such a tiny screen, the images are crisp! Watching video on this is such a pleasure.
The keyboard feels good with that jelly like buttons. It seems to be the same size and width of the 755P just from eyeing them together.
The 3.5mm headset jack which is compatible with my Griffin SmartTalk adapter that I used for my iPod touch. The mic and remote control button works letting me make phone calls and answer/end calls, even lets me control my music. I am happy to see that. The palm headphones are nice but I like my adapter and zune premium headphones.
I guess I should put call quality here as well. The call quality is great, I heard the voices good on the phone/speakerphone and earbuds and the people I was talking to said I sounded pretty good but while I was using the mic I was loud.
The slider feels solid. Takes a bit of effort to slide the screen open, and same for closing. I love the good solid feel of the phone snapping open and close.
There is that center button but honestly with the phone being all about gestures, I've hardly used the button. It feels more natural to me just swiping up to bring up the card view instead of hitting that button.
Wow, this is getting long, I'll try to make it brief now.

Software Saviors:
WebOS is just amazing. Its elegant the way it handles notifications, multi-tasking. iPhone standardized the touchscreen phone to the masses, the Pre with WebOS will standardize the Multi-tasking and notifications, the way a mobile device should handle multi-tasking. We know WM does it, but it does it with the Desktop windows version. This card experience is just incredible. Just a simple swipe or a press on the center button and your in the card view to see what all you have open. If your done with something just swipe it away. I like to keep things open that I am going to use and when I'm all done, just toss them all away. Its also handy to turn on the advanced gestures so you can swipe left or right to get to the next card you have open, no need to go into the card view.
Notifications. When I saw the Pre demo at CES, the thing that I love was the way it handled the notifications. That was the killer feature to me and using it, it confirmed my suspicions that this was the feature I love the most. I love how if your busy on something and you get some sort of notification, it won't stop you from working. It will either take up a quarter of the screen estate for your calendar appt/phone calls, or just a small line at the bottom stating email/messaging, next track playing. I also love the small ding-dong'ish sound it plays to alert you of something arrived for you. One nice touch Palm did with notifications is, if your watching a video and a notification arrives, it won't interrupt your viewing, it won't show you the notification, it will just make the sound of the notification has arrived.
Built-in screen capture. No need to install an app/hack like on the Treo to grab a screen capture. Palm gives you this to show off your customized Pre. You do this with hitting the Orange+Sym+P button. At first I thought I might have messed up because I was expecting a sound so I tried again 3 more times, then checked the photos and saw that it did in fact take a screen shot. Nice feature for those who like to display their screens.
Synergy. This is one handy feature. Just with a simple gMail account added into the email client, all my contacts/email/and calendar was up and running. I was so happy that I didn't have to do it each time for each app. I don't use facebook much so can't comment on that. I hear its a nightmare though because apparently facebook is a long list of people you don't really need to communicate much with.
Messaging. The messaging app is a great app, I love how you have one app to show all your conversations. It does text/IM/MMS and its cool to see the picture are saved in the messages.
Music app: Not much to say here, it nice and all, minus the few gripes stated earlier. I wanted to point out the nice feature of searching youtube for videos from the song that you have playing. Very nice :).
Browser: Its amazing. Just like the iPod touch browser but done better. I love the bookmark mini pages when you launch the browser. The 'awesome bar' that lets you search/enter a url in same bar. Very handy, anywhere your on the webpage, you just start typing away, hit enter and your off. No need to go scrolling back to the top to get where you where you want to be. I love the feature of saving shortcuts to the launcher. I have it set up a one page for apps, nother for customization with webpages/contacts, and 3rd page for prefs/settings. I go to card view and start typing in the name of a site, hit enter and it hit my shortcut.
App catalog. It looks pretty good. You have featured apps, Popular apps. The layout looks good. Like any one stop shop, I can see it being crowded and hard to find apps unless you know what your wanting. Thankfully though we can still side-load apps to the device. Downloading apps is pretty easy and when its done, it will give you an option to launch.
Aghh..tired I thin..oh wait no. One more thing, I love the back gesture, so handy and convenient.
One addition as well. Synery with the core apps, awesome! For example, used flickster to find out what movies are playing in the area, saw the time, added to calendar, and it filled out all the info, stating the name of the movie, where its located and clocked it in for the amount of time for the movie to play. I can't wait to see what other apps will work with the synergy function.
Well, thats about it for now. I hope that covered about everything. This took longer than expected. Overall the Pre is a great phone and can't wait to see further updates from Palm to see what they can provide (Audible playback in the music player gimme!) To all who read this, congrats and amazing! Thanks for reading it all :D Enjoy your day.

[JAmerican]

Here's the second video....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NKxGzA_QQQ

JA

[harpgliss]

Hi,

LupeValenz, very thorough review, and sounded pretty objective with a good acknowledgment of the strong points and as well as the weak points.

Sounds pretty much like you are echoing much the same issues I have seen posted elsewhere that Palm needs to work on.

Echoing also the many good points of the Pre too.

Hopefully they address the issues quickly.

Couple of points I wanted to ask of you, first, the build quality.

You mention it feels great but does it feel sturdy? there seems to be a real debate on the issue.

Second and third are, have you had issue of the Pre getting unusually warm or any kind of screen discoloration? Reading elsewher, this looks to be an issue Palm needs to look at also.

Thanks for the review and good luck with the Pre.

David

[LupeValenz]

Good afternoon Harpgliss, thanks for the questions. The build quality feels good to me. People say it feels like cheap plasticm while it is plastic it doesn't feel cheap. Feels good and sturdy to me here.
As for the Pre warming up, it does do that when I am charging but if I have the keyboard slid out the heat is not that bad.
I don't have any discoloration but I have heard of that as well. Overall the Pre is pretty much a beta phone since there appears to be many problems scattered throughout the batch.
I didn't do a battery stress test, had some family members stop by and they played with the pre so have to do a stress test later. Overall the battery when I first got it seem low but now it seems to be better.

[harpgliss]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply to my questions.

I hope no one thought my questions were trying to trash the Pre.

The questions were because of many posts elsewhere of issues and I was wanting a firsthand account of a Pre user for others thinking of buying A Pre.

More information out there, better informed the buyer is.

Thanks again for the information.

David

[DennisOS2]

Windows Mobile works great for me. I have no problems with the OS. I have problems with the Treo 800w Hardware though. Too many faulty parts. The one thing that Palm included that was smart was a USB Host. I'm going to test out the Palm Pre when I get my cable to see if it supports USB host as well.
Part of the rant was being forced to move to WM by the IT folks. I was perfectly happy with my Treo with PalmOS. Does my Pro work OK? Yes, it does. The issues are how slow it is and it needing a soft reset every couple of days. Not a problem with any of the PalmOS Treos I owned.

Also, for a smartphone the Windows interface just doesn't work well. Needless complexity without increased functionality ......... but there is bias being a long-time Palm user. The Pre, iPhone, or BB interfaces are just easier when you don't have a large monitor, keyboard, and mouse in front of you ;)

The Pro as a handset I love. Form factor, size, weight, screen ........ all great. A lot of similarities between the Pro and Pre.

[Aces]

Lupe, Thanks for the great, in-depth, review. I'm curious on how the addressbook handles Phone extensions. In POS, I could add characters after the phone number, but they are ignored. And the only way to see those characters is to go into where you edit the contact. Ideally, with this new WebOS I could enter a pause then the extension.

Another Q: with the screen shots, do they look different if you've rotated to landscape before taking the image? and then is the image right-side up or side-ways?

[Reggie]

Ouch, the Pre's screen is not scratch resistant: http://bit.ly/18ZB8u

[JavaJiveJump]

Ouch, the Pre's screen is not scratch resistant: http://bit.ly/18ZB8u
You gotta be kidding me... I don't think I have ever had one phone that didn't end up scratched. (hold my breath for that first scratch then)

[LupeValenz]

Lupe, Thanks for the great, in-depth, review. I'm curious on how the addressbook handles Phone extensions. In POS, I could add characters after the phone number, but they are ignored. And the only way to see those characters is to go into where you edit the contact. Ideally, with this new WebOS I could enter a pause then the extension.

Another Q: with the screen shots, do they look different if you've rotated to landscape before taking the image? and then is the image right-side up or side-ways?

Your welcome, and thanks for the read. I tried the extensions for the contacts and it doesn't seem to work. I tried it and it came up with the number you dialed was incorrect :(.
As for the screenshots...hmm let me see. Ok, well not much comes in landscape, took a screenshot of the browser in landscape. When I viewed the screenshot it will be in portrait view of the browser in landscape mode, none of that black space above or below the picture.

[LupeValenz]

Ouch, the Pre's screen is not scratch resistant: http://bit.ly/18ZB8u

I am sooo getting invisible shield for this, only for the front though, the matter finish of the touchstone charger just feels very nice in the hand.

[DennisOS2]

The slider feels solid. Takes a bit of effort to slide the screen open, and same for closing. I love the good solid feel of the phone snapping open and close.
Thorough review ........... as usual.

The app store, device apps and firmware will all get better down the road. Always does. What won't age gracefully is the slider. Can only get more troublesome.

A great service to those of us that must wait for an unlocked version would be just periodic updates on the slider. Other reports do cite the slider NOT operating as you report. As with any new device, build quality will vary. Your device seems like what they intended (related to the slider). So, watching yours over the next few months may be a good gauge for those of us looking to join you.

[scottl]

Ouch, the Pre's screen is not scratch resistant: http://bit.ly/18ZB8uThat's quite a picture (of serious abuse)! What did the guy do? Put it in a clothes dryer full of nails, knives, and hubcaps?! I don't even think if someone were dumb enough to put a naked Pre in the same pant pocket as a janitor size set of keys could cause that much damage in less than a week. Seriously, the guy killed that display intentionally.

[DennisOS2]

I'd be more afraid of potentially cracked screens (because of the form factor) than of the screen scratching.

Screens designed for a stylus were designed for that use but still scratched over time without protectors. One would hope that would not happen with the fingertip. But the screen material on the Pre & iPhone would not necessarily need to be as scratch resistant due to the intended fingertip use. Then that would open both up to easier scratching due to other factors.

[Greek]

The iPhone screen is incredibly resistant to scratches. I guess the Pre would be more easily scratched as the screen seems to be plastic and not glass or cristal as the one in the iPhone. Do you see it as hard as the one in the iPhone?

Regards,

[JAmerican]

Keyboard comparison Pre (Centro-like) and Treo 800w (Treo):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NKxGzA_QQQ#t=5m08s

This is going to be very funny but I like the candybar (non-slider Treo 800w :) better than the Pre's setup.

Although, I still like the TouchPro landscape slider setups still. The Treo 800w is just a faster device than any device HTC can offer (I believe).

JAmerican

[DennisOS2]

Can those having a Pre review the functions in Docs-to-Go. Or if someone knows of a review, could you point us to it.

Thanks in advance.

[JAmerican]

Can those having a Pre review the functions in Docs-to-Go. Or if someone knows of a review, could you point us to it.

Thanks in advance.

When I used the Pre, I only saw a Data-Viz Docs Viewer.

[DennisOS2]

When I used the Pre, I only saw a Data-Viz Docs Viewer.
That was the word, that it would only be a viewer. I was just wondering how good the rendering was, how it handled complex MS Office files, if it handled docx, pptx and xlsx files, as well. Will be important to the early business adopters.

[LupeValenz]

And the only way to see those characters is to go into where you edit the contact. Ideally, with this new WebOS I could enter a pause then the extension.


Good morning. I have to answer this again because I did it wrong. I put a space before and thought that would pause it but it seems you can do extensions. From the Palm forums itself, you can put a p for a pause or t for time, afterwards put in the extension number and your all set to go. The p will call the number and then give you the dialpad to put in the extension number. The t will give you a 1 sec pause and then input the extension number.

[Aces]

Lupe,
Thanks! The lack of handling extensions always amazed me in the Palm O/S. Having that fixed with WebOS is HUGE!

[LupeValenz]

Lupe,
Thanks! The lack of handling extensions always amazed me in the Palm O/S. Having that fixed with WebOS is HUGE!

Your Welcome Aces, always glad to help :D