Palm Pre Review

Tried the Pre at the Sprint Store. The touch screen wasn't very responsive. The UI seemed real nice, again the lack of consistent response on the touch screen made it hard to fall in love with it.

Then I tried the keyboard. Man is it small and poorly designed. Not only are the keys too small and too close together, I feel like the keyboard is laying in a bowl. How did anyone approve this design.

Too bad. iPhone 3G S, here I come.

My name is Brian, and I just got my Pre on Saturday by a stroke of sheer luck... They "Found" 10 extra units in the back room when everywhere else was sold out.

I LOVE this phone, but I'm getting a little tired of hearing about how much better the iPhone is by Apple fans who haven't even touched the Pre.

Yes, the iPhone is nice and all that, but come on.. let us enjoy our phones in peace. There's no need to tell us that our phone sucks when we just laid 3-400 bucks down on the counter for it.

I hang out at http://www.PalmPreForum.org a site made for all Palm Pre owners.

My overall experience is that I like the Pre. I HATE the fact tht you can't turn off the "show notifications" option without silencing the phone. Thata pi$$es me off. This fone cld also use a "settings" menu so that the user can taylor the fone to his/her comfort. I LOVE the fact that it works like an Ipod but without an expandable memory I'm scared to indulge in that. Well I'm sure all of these issues will be handled via updates in the future (aside frm expandable memory).

Have to agree with Roy about Sprint's poor marketing... or Palm's poor marketing... or perhaps just a general lack of interest in the Pre for some reason. I visited a dedicated Sprint store in a major shopping mall after work on Monday June 8 (two days after the launch) because I wanted to check out the Pre. They had two demo Pres set up about 2/3 back in the store, in a dark and unattractive display. None of the 5 or so other customers in the store seemed to be giving a second look to the Pres -- not surprising given the lousy presentation.

The UI of the phone is very visually attractive -- nice colors and fonts and such. The screen is crisp, though small, and the form factor of the device is pleasant in the hand. (I forgot to test its cheese slicing ability. ;) The keyboard is small, smaller than my Treo 650, but serviceable.

However, I found the user experience of the device to be slow, SLOW, S-L-O-W! Everything seemed to take several seconds to respond. I was appalled when I went into the Notes app and created a new two sentence note (I wanted to try the keyboard), when I exited the note itself it took about 5 seconds for my note to appear on the "corkboard". That would've been acceptable in 1982 but not today (especially compared to the super snappiness of my aging Treo 650!). What's really scary is that this was on a brand new device, no background apps, no populated databases, basically stock config -- how slow does it get when you've loaded it up with a bunch of data and apps? (Of course, one hopes that Palm will optimize the software down the road...)

I have no intention of switching to Sprint; hopefully once a GSM version of the device comes available, the "v1.0" kinks will have been worked out.

I still wanna know how Andrew is using this phone in Europe.

I'd love to upgrade to the Pre, but I will have to wait until the 'tethered as modem' becomes available. Maybe JuneFabric.com is working on it as we type...

In the past couple of years I've progressed from a Palm Treo 755p to an HTC Mogul to an HTC Touch Pro to a Palm Treo Pro. Like a lot of people, I was eagerly awaiting the Pre release. I got there way early and stood in line the first morning to get two Pres, one for myself and one for my fiancee. I also got 3 of the Touchstones to use at home, in the car, and at the office. After 3 weeks of use, I was very underwhelmed. So underwhelmed that I just returned my 3 week old Pre and went back to the Palm Treo Pro. The Pre has SO MUCH potential! In a year I think it will be a great device, but as it is, there are so many "little" inconveniences that it got more frustrating to use than enjoyable.

Things I loved:
1. Camera is AWESOME, pics are on par with an actual digital camera, and it even has a well designed and usable flash!
2. Internet seems faster, webpage and web navigation is easy and intuitive.
3. Web-updated contacts, calendar, etc....I was used to my Windows-based (and locally contained)information. At first I was offended that to easily use it's full potential, users are strongly encouraged to set up an igoogle/gmail account. That said, I loved the web-based information idea once I did it! To put my existing data on my Pre, I opened Outlook on my desktop PC and used the IMPORT/EXPORT function to create windows-based CSV files for my contact and calendar information. I then got went to my newly created gmail account and imported these two files right into the gmail contacts and calendar. Within 3 minutes they were synched to the phone. Any changes I made via the Pre were autosaved to my online g-mail account, or I could sit at my PC and make changes and they were autoloaded to the Pre. Cool! If the phone ever gets lost or stolen, your information is still there and will autoload right into your new phone. And as an added bonus there is a remote device reset function that you can use to erase all information on the Pre in the event it falls into unwanted hands. I'm still not sure I like all my information sitting out there on the web, but it's a sacrifice I can live with for the convenience it provides.
4. During calls, proximity sensor turns screen off when it's beside your head and back on when you pull it away. Cool.
5. Multitasks very well, keeping multiple windows open in an i-phone-esque desktop display. Easy to switch between apps or close unused ones.
6. For a Palm, relatively large screen. They hit the bullseye between the slab-sided "too big" i-phone and the Treo Pro which I now use, a smaller bare-minimum screen for applications like internet or GPS.

Things I DON'T like:
1. No voice command...didn't realize how much I relied on it til I didn't have it anymore. This phone makes hands-free driving impossible, and you have to take your eyes off the road quite a bit just to initiate a call, even if you're using the phone dial pad. Forget using your contact list, you'll have a wreck trying. I added my most-used contacts to my program icon screen, but even using them requires multiple button pushes and looking away from the road.
2. No soft keyboard. When I got the phone I knew this, and thought it wouldn't be a big deal...WRONG. I didn't realize how frustrating it would be to have to open the slide every time I wanted to enter information, look up a contact, or do anything that required text input (which turns out to be almost everything).
3. Bluetooth autoanswer is always on, if you can get it to consistently pair at all. I use a Jawbone Prime and had lots of problems. Also, if you want to screen or ignore a call you have to be quick and do it through your headset. There is no option on the phone to manually let you choose which calls to accept.
4. No arrow keys to navigate text you have entered. FRUSTRATING! If you make a mistake or want to add characters/words in the middle of text or even worse a typed paragraph, it's a painstakingly inaccurate jab at the screen followed by backspacing and retyping.
5. No way to forward a text message you've received.
6. Cut/Copy/Paste are listed on the "edit" menu, but they are totally unusable. There is no way to highlight/select text to edit!
7. Sometimes the ignore button is there, sometimes it's not. So you can use the volume button to silence the ringer and let your phone vibrate a few seconds, but more often than not the call is inadvertently answered as you go to look at the screen.
8. VERY LIMITED user preference settings, in everything from texting to fonts to sounds to desktop to...you get the picture. Where Windows Mobile users have seemingly endless customization options, you will be very disappointed when you see the lack of user options.
9. Sahara-barren software choices and updates. I waited three weeks, hoping for software updates to resolve some problems or a new selection of apps in the app catalog. In that time there was one game added to the catalog, and only one update.
10. Sprint car chargers will fit the phone slot but won't fit Touchstone micro-USB slot. If you want to use a mobile Touchstone, be prepared to get out your pocketknife and start whittling plastic off of the micro-USB end of the charge cord.
11. Antenna SUCKS. I live in a "marginal coverage" section of my metropolitan area, I accept that :-) Where my previous phones had at least 1 or 2 bars, the Pre frequently drops calls or forces me to walk upstairs to avoid cutting out.
12. Ridiculously long power-up time. Almost 3 minutes for me, I've heard of longer for others.

Again, the frustrating thing is this phone has SO MUCH potential to cut into i-phone sales! I've heard that AT&T and Verizon will begin carrying the Pre in 2010, but in it's current form it won't stand an in-store comparison chance against the veteran i-phone. Unless Palm engineers address some of these glaring concerns SOON I see the Pre being relegated to Sprint users like me who are happy campers and don't want to switch but want the closest thing to an i-phone they can find.

Open letter to Palm Pre product manager:

I have been a palm user since its inception.

I think you did a huge mistake by not including
Palm Desktop and local sync. for Palm Pre.

As a hardcore fan I suggest changing your plan and commit to support
a desktop sync. mechanism for Pre (ideally with Palm Desktop).

Then announce the plan and quickly allocation resources
to get that done as soon as possible.

It will cost you losing the battle to rivals if you don’t act quickly.

- A disappointed fan!