talkingDigital

Well I was the first person in all  of Grand Junction, CO to own a Palm Pre. I have had a crazy day and very little time to actually work with the Pre, but I didn’t want the day to go by without a summary of my first day’s impressions.

Keep in mind that I have not discovered all of the Palm Pre settings and features, so some of these things may already be addressed, I just haven’t discovered them yet.

As the day has gone by I have felt more and more like this is an iCentro. A very nice combination of iPhone and Palm Centro. Most of the advantages of each device are incorporated. It may pretend to be an iPhone, but it has the soul of a Palm.

It feels very first gen both in hardware and software. That doesn’t in any way mean that it is a poor device. As you use it, you just keep thinking, “I wonder what they will add with the next update or the next model.”

Let’s go down the line and I will discuss a few of the feelings I had about it today.

Unboxing: I was dead tired from only sleeping about 2 hours in 15 minute increments most of the night. When I got home, I was ready to just put the box on the desk and go to bed for a few hours. However, my wife and kids all met me at the door and begged to see it. So, we unboxed it as a family bonding experience.

Two words describe the unboxing… orange, Apple. It is so obvious that Palm wanted the unboxing to be as Apple-like as possible. Clear plastic dividers, instructions that were dogeared and wrapped with orange paper bands, corrugated inserts that separated all of the pieces. Layer after layer of packing, plastic trays, weird pieces of clear styrene… It felt just like I was opening a next-gen iPhone with orange and white packaging. I was impressed and felt as good as Palm wanted me to as I unboxed it.

Charging: I have heard that the battery life is pretty poor, I am anxious for Palm to release replacement batteries. I did not buy the touchstone or other accessories yet as I really want to spend some time with the phone. I got a little flustered and actually had to pull out the instructions to figure out how to charge the phone.

As it turns out, the USB port is concealed under a little door that will break off at some point. You can’t open the door without sliding out the keyboard. Not a big deal, but a little weird. It seemed pretty obvious that Palm is tired of dirt getting up inside the charging port of the Centro and Treos and this must be to address that issue.

Keyboard: I will talk more about the interface, gesturing, OS, etc. once I get to know it more. For now, I will address the keyboard. Most reviews have reported that the keyboard is a little jammed. I am used to the Centro keyboard and, to me, the spacing of the keys actually made the keyboard feel larger than the Centro. Many reviews have pointed out that your thumbs hit the bottom of the screen as you type. That is a good observation, but it is still much faster than typing on an iPhone keyboard.

Pros: I love the screen. I really love it. Sometimes the transition hangs between opening apps, but nothing worse than any other phone out there. The hangs last only about a second at most and I don’t complain about one second hangs when my Centro and iPod Touch often take longer than that when they hang between apps.

The camera is really good. Some people will pick on me for saying this. Perhaps I should say, the camera is not as good as that of most point and shoots, but this is a phone – with a flash! I think that the complaints about the phone come from a simple formula that Apple lovers use when they review devices… If it is a feature not offered by the iPhone, find something negative to point out about it. 3MP and flash, beautiful colors, better than average low light exposure, I can’t complain.

I love the calendar and notification system. It will take some getting used to, but I really like it so far. I use two separate Google calendars and two Gmail addresses. No problem, they are all managed in a way that keeps them separate, yet easy to manage in one email home screen. It even brings across my Gmail filters and settings.

SMS, alarms, IM and other notifications are all done in a very small sliver at the bottom of the screen. Tap on the area that tells you that you have messages and it opens up to a cool area dividing all of the forms of alerts where you can tap on the alerts you want to give attention to first.

Cons: The contact system is weird. There are three ways that the Pre is setup to sync contacts, Outlook Exchange, Gmail contacts, or Facebook. If you just want to sync contacts off your standard outlook or old Palm desktop, you must first import them into your Gmail address book if you want them to sync. Rumor has it that there are apps in the works that will fix this, but they may not be free.

If you do sync with your Gmail contacts, make sure that Gmail isn’t adding every person you reply or send an email to into your contacts automatically.

I am disappointed that Palm went to so much work to integrate with Facebook, but there is no Facebook app available. I communicate heavily via Facebook. I make comments, upload pictures and video and send direct messages. Currently the Pre is setup so that I can recieve notifications from my Facebook contacts, but I have to interact with them from within the Pre. I would prefer a standalone Facebook app.

The Twitter app is good, but far more limited than most of the offerings for the iPhone. The app store is pretty disappointing by all accounts but that is a problem that the Pre is designed to address. It may be frustrating to think that there are only a handful of apps available for the Pre at launch, but the fact that it supports any apps makes it superior to the first generation iPhone at launch.

So far, I think that the Pre is a major win for Palm. I think that it ensures their presence in the smartphone market for at least another five years, even if iPhone comes to all major carriers within that time. It feels like a Palm with iPhone features and, as a 10-year Palm user, that is a very good thing. I think this phone will be less than impressive to most iPhone users, but Blackberry users may wet their pants when they see the Pre in action.