Palm Pre: A Non-Pundit’s Review
I tend to speak in hyperbole. Either something is the most incredible
thing ever, or it must be eradicated from the face of the earth! While
I try to be analytical, I find myself often gushing or ranting,
depending on the circumstance. Now that you know that about me, I will
endeavor to be as objective as I can in this review.
Overall – The Palm Pre is THE MOST INCREDIBLE DEVICE EVER PRODUCED BY
MAN!!! Ok, hyperbole’s out of the way, now on to the meat and potatoes.
The Pre largely succeeds at what it attempts to be for its audience; a
worthy and occasionally brilliant alternative to the iPhone. While I
don’t think any of us believe it to be the proverbial Coke to Apple’s
Pepsi, it could very well find a large following in the smartphone
digi-world.
Pros
Design – At first glance, the Pre resembles an iPhone; black, sleek,
austere in its buttons. Yet it’s shorter (almost an inch), and is
several millimeters thicker. It’s rounded corners and shiny surfaces
throughout make it pretty to look at. It feels quite light in the hand
and comfortably in the palm in its closed mode. A simple push upward
reveals the hidden QWERTY keyboard below, black rubberized buttons with
orange numbers and ALT key. The cool thing is when you slide it up, the
main section actually bevels toward you, making a more ergonomic design
when using the phone. It features a volume rocker on the left side, a
mini USB port on the right for syncing and recharging. The top has the
standard ringer/vibrate toggle, a 3.5 mm headset jack (normal size), and
the power on/off button. The back contains the speaker for speakerphone
calls, the 3 mega-pixel camera, and flash. All of these are set well
into the unit to provide as sleek a look as possible. However, when in
your hand, you can easily find these buttons and locations by feel. The
screen surface features a small horizontal ear speaker at the top, a
VERY small microphone hole at the bottom, joined by a single silver
navigator button. It’s simple design is…well, cool.
The edge around the keyboard when the unit is slid upward is the only
real anomaly to the design. It’s sharp. And I mean SHARP. In fact,
there’s a video up on the internet of the Pre slicing through cheese.
Now, it’s not sharp enough to actually cut you (I tried to with a
sadomasochistic fury), but it is very noticeable in a unit that seemed
to set on being smooth and rounded. It’s almost like they forgot to
sand down that part. Still, it’s nothing to detract from the overall
slick design.
Rating – 9/10
The Screen – The screen is fantastically clear and well-lit. It
responds incredibly well to touch commands. Palm has ditched the stylus
in favor of an all touch screen. It borrows from the iPhone with its
pinch-zoom in/out capablility. Its size is maybe 10% less than an
iPhone, but the picture quality and brightness makes up for that, and
even exceeds Apple in this regard.
Rating – 9/10
User Interface and Navigation – The Pre really shines here. This is the
best UI I’ve ever come across with for a smartphone or other media
handheld device, for that matter. And yes, that includes the iPhone.
Navigation is very simple and incredibly intuitive. A card setup on the
screen shows you which applications (yes, you can have multiple apps
open at once), and you can navigate through them easily, not unlike
Apple’s Cover Flow. To end an application, a simple flick of the finger
upwards closes it down and removes it from the cards. But the Pre
doesn’t stop there. Below the screen is a gesture area. Using the
center button and flicking right or left, you can move forward or back
within an application with ease. The top of the screen to the right and
left can open up preferences menus within each application to change
things around. But why would you? The interface and navigation are so
simple to use. Palm scores a grand slam here.
Rating – 10/10
Messaging and calendar – Another great plus for the Pre. The messaging
app centralizes your IMs (Google Talk and AIM) in one place. It keeps
track of conversations and your buddy lists on its main screen. No lags
or problems to report, save one. At the moment, no other IM programs
are available (Yahoo, Microsoft, etc.). But I would think this would be
solved in future updates without much issue.
The calendar also strives to be as intuitive as possible. Easy to
navigate through, it incorporates all calendars you used before (Palm
Desktop, Google Calendar, Outlook, Microsoft Exchange), and puts them
all here. On the original data transfer (more on that later), I was
able to merge my original Palm Desktop (from my Treo) calendar with the
Google Calendar that contains our Podcast schedule, and without one
glitch. Applications that use dates (i.e. Fandango, Flixster, etc.) can
be automatically placed on your calendar with a simple touch. It would
be cool if the birthdays you entered in the contact section would
populate into the calendar, hopefully that update will come soon.
Rating – 9/10
Web Browser – The web browser is easy to use. Opening up the web
application takes you to your bookmarks screen. Facebook, Palm, Sprint,
ESPN, and others come preloaded, but you can easily add your own. Or,
you can simply type in a web address or search term, which Google will
locate for you. The web operates pretty darn fast for a smartphone.
Well done here.
The built-in accelerometer allows you to turn the phone sideways for a
widescreen view. It looks great, but typing is hindered as your
keyboard is now tilted 90 degrees, forcing you to turn it back. A small
complaint, but a complaint nonetheless.
Rating – 9/10
Wireless options – The Palm Pre has the EV-DO Rev. A network, and the
speed is just fine for a smartphone. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have
phone-as –modem capabilities just yet, but that should change soon.
Bluetooth capability is present as well, though that’s standard for cell
phones nowadays.
Rating – 9/10
Phone features and contacts – The Pre features a speakerphone, call
forwarding, conference calling. It would be brilliant if it had
included voice dialing, but later versions or perhaps a system update
may take care of that. Contacts were easily combined from my Gmail,
Palm Desktop, and Facebook accounts, giving me a one stop shop for
everyone I could ever hope to find. I originally had difficulties with
multiple entries of the same person (i.e. a phone number for Joe from my
Palm desktop, his email address from Google, IM info from Facebook), but
that didn’t last long. The Contacts app allowed me to link them under
one entry with no problem. And with all of that information under a
single contact, I can choose from any one of those methods to contact
them. Great synergy here.
Rating – 9/10
Multimedia – The Pre plays video extremely well. The Youtube app
(standard on the Pre) plays videos just as well as the iPhone. The mp3
player is about 80% the quality of the iPhone, which isn’t bad at all.
Music is easy to get, either through the Amazon mp3 store app, or
through iTunes. I was told that plugging your Pre into your computer
allows it to sync up with iTunes. Initially, I couldn’t get this to
work. But then I realized my iTunes was not updated (version 8.2 is
needed to get this functionality to work). Once that was done, I
connected my Pre to my laptop, and voila! iTunes booted up
automatically and recognized my Pre as a storage device (I’m curious as
to why Apple allowed a competitive mp3 player to be recognized like
this, but hey, I’m not complaining). I moved music over to it with no
problem, and it sounds great!
Sprint TV also comes standard on the Pre. Many networks (ABC, NBC, CBS,
FOX, BRAVO, USA, SCI-FI) offer full episodes to watch for free. This is
great in theory, but the video is occasionally quite choppy and under
average in quality. There are movies and other content available for a
fee, but with the quality and speed being what it is, I’m not sure if
it’s worth it right now. It does perform better when operating on a
wi-fi network than over the cell phone network, but not much. YouTube
did much better in that regard.
Rating – 8/10
Call Quality - Our chief editor Keith was my first phone call on the
Pre. And the quality was just fine. I have yet to experience a dropped
call, or even a bit of static. No complaints here at all. And with
Sprint eliminating all roaming charges as part of its “Everything Data”
plan, I can talk anywhere without worrying about racking up the fees.
Rating – 9/10
Applications – Applications are a snap to use on the Pre. Aside from
the occasional lag time when starting, you can run them smoothly in the
background. Palm now also has an app store (a la iTunes), where you can
go and acquire apps to store (the 7GB space is pretty big provided you
don’t have too much music or videos on it). At the moment, the app
store is pretty bare (though the Fandango, Flixster, and Pandora apps
are nice…and free), however that will soon change as more apps come
online. Palm has also made SDK tools available for developers to post
apps. Should be pretty cool.
Rating - 9/10
General Performance – The great interface and Navigation aside, the Pre
does occasionally lag slightly when opening applications. Apps
sometimes get “stuck” when switching from one to another, though this
quickly corrects itself. The Pre has locked up on me once, and that was
the first day, forcing me to take off the back cover to remove and
replace the battery, a procedure that proved to be a bit tricky (I have
since learned how to perform a “soft reset” without taking the cover
off). All in all though, the Pre really excels in performance, juggling
multiple tasks with ease.
Rating - 9/10
So-so’s
Keyboard – The keyboard is just a tiny bit smaller than that of its Treo
ancestor, and the buttons have a hard, rubberized feel. But, you easily
get used to it and can type rather quickly
Rating – 7/10
GPS – Sprint Navigation comes standard with the everything data plan,
and includes turn-by-turn directions. It works pretty well, though
occasionally it will direct you to the wrong side of the street. Also
the search functionality is a bit restricted by what’s in the database
(should be fixed/expanded in updates)
Rating – 7/10
Getting Started and Data Transfer – The initial loading time for the Pre
was close to 20 minutes. Updates take place automatically when
available, but they are quite long as well. Also, you won’t be able to
use your phone while it’s updating. Fortunately, the Pre does give you
the option of holding off on an update, but only if you’re looking at it
when the notification comes over. Otherwise, you’re stuck.
The data transfer of contacts, dates, and such worked swimmingly.
Rating – 7/10
Camera – The 3 mega pixel camera is decent. It takes pretty nice
pictures, sends them, adds them, links them with ease. However, there
aren’t any adjustments you can make to the camera. No zooms, quality,
or color changes. Just snap and go. The flash is powerful enough to
take good night time close ups. Overall, it’s a good enough for what it
was meant to be, a camera on a smartphone. It’s only true negative is
that photos occasionally take a bit to fully render on your screen. But
you should feel confident taking the Pre out and about with you to snap
a few shots, just don’t expect the moon.
Rating – 7/10
Cons
Battery Life – My one real gripe with the Pre is its battery life. The
PR hacks say that it’s good for 5 hours talk time, 12 days standby. But
that’s a bit deceiving. They don’t tell you what it can do when you’re
using it for what it’s marketed to be: a smartphone. E-mails, text
messaging, calendar, Apps. The battery just oozes life as you use it.
Now, there are some remedies to this. First off, the screen is REALLY
bright. You can go into your Screen preferences menu and bump that down
(I turned mine all the way down and it was still plenty bright). Also,
I turned off the wi-fi (not really needed if not communicating with
another PC, the Sprint EV network works just fine). This has seemed to
slow the drain down a bit. Interestingly enough though, many websites
are claiming that the Pre’s battery life is just as good as the
iPhone’s. Good to know, but I’m hoping the next innovation in battery
life and size is just around the corner.
Rating – 5/10
Final Grade - 131/160 (82/100 or 8.2/10)
The Palm Pre is a VERY solid and exciting smartphone with a lot of
potential. The interface is a dream to work with, and its capabilities
rival even those of the great iPhone. It does have some issues to deal
with (battery life, GPS navigation and media functionality),and
hopefully future updates can fix those concerns. But all in all this is
a GREAT phone, one that I’m enjoying greatly.
Sprint currently has exclusive rights to the Pre for 6 months. It costs
$199 (after a $100 rebate). This price point is a good place to start
for this device. After 6 months, other carriers will undoubtedly pick
this up, making the Pre fairly decent dark horse competition to the
already iconic iPhone.
Viva la Pre!!!
—RebRob Science Editor
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