talkingDigital

Palm Pre JPG Creative Commons License photo credit: renaissancechambara

UPDATE: Since posting this article here and linking to in on PreCentral, a lot of people have complained that I was not fair in my analysis. In fact, the guys at PreCentral are such fanboys that they deleted the post from their forums. Today Palm released the WebOS 1.2 update. The device seems much snappier and there are a few other positives too. I will check on battery life, responsiveness and other issues over the next few weeks then write a new review.

I will certainly do a short podcast on this topic later, but I wanted to get this review written sooner rather than later.

On June 6, I was the first person in Grand Junction to buy a Palm Pre. I waited over night for the Sprint store to open – not because I was extremely determined to get the phone – rather, I was tired of the games Sprint had played with their employees and customers in releasing the phone and I was determined to beat their little game.

Now, almost 4 months later, I have decided to take an honest look at the phone and write a real world review.

I am not going to write about many of the positives. The Pre does have a lot of positives, but you can read about those on Palm’s site as well as any Pre fanboy site, such as PreCentral.

Don’t mistake this article as a hater article either. I just don’t want to make the article longer by writing about all of the positive aspects of the phone that most readers are already aware of. I am sure that there will be folks who read this who have not had the same experiences, but these are my experiences.

SETUP: I use my Pre primarily as a phone, but I have added many applications from the regular App Catalog and through the homebrew store. I only use an app or two every day. The main app I use is Twee. I do have the Pre set to check email in the background – only because I don’t know how to turn that feature off. Other than that, I keep my screen brightness set as low as it will go and I turn off WiFi when I am not using any Internet apps. I probably send 4-5 texts per day and about the same for Twitter posts using Twee. I only go onto the Internet about 2-3 times per week on the Pre. The pre is using the latest official OS firmware (WebOS 1.1.0).

BATTERY LIFE: The Pre’s battery life has to be the worst of any smartphone on the market. If there is any phone has worse battery life than the Pre, the company should issue full refunds and allow users to switch phones with all possible rebates and price cuts without a new contract.

Just a couple days ago I went on a long car ride. My wife had her cell phone and I didn’t want to take any calls, so I put my Pre in Airplane mode. I didn’t touch the phone for eight hours. When I turned the phone on again, the battery level was in the yellow (less than 10 percent battery left). What’s draining the juice? On a number of occasions, I have attempted to use the GPS. In a short 20 minute trip, as much as half my battery will drain. After so many bad experiences, I believe that Palm should include the car charging attachment for free. If I want to get any good out of my phone, I have to keep it charging in the car if I plan on using the phone, apps, GPS, Internet or even texting for more than a couple of minute.

RECEPTION: It’s pretty bad. I typically have one or two bars in many areas that my wife and kids will have four bars.

SEARCH: I have a huge addressbook – over 1000 people. Most of the people in my addressbook are former clients who I may have only met a couple of times. I switched from a Palm Centro to the Pre. On my Centro, I could search for anything in any app. When I met one of my clients at the mall and they would say, “Hi Adam!” I could nicely pretend that I remembered their names – even tough all I could remember was that they lived on Maple St. I would pull out my phone and casually search “Maple St.” and it would bring up a list of contacts, appointments, phone calls, and memos I which included “Maple St.”

Using the Palm Pre – searching only brings up two things – contacts and the card with Google, Google Maps, Twitter, etc. My biggest complaint about this is that the Pre was marketed as having universal search. Since search has always been so perfect with Palm devices, I expected that it would only improve. Not so. I guess I don’t want universal search, I want ubiquitous search. Search everything. I don’t expect search within third party apps, but I do expect the OS to search all of the standard PIM data.

CONSTRUCTION: The Pre build is certainly flimsy, but not shoddy. It has held together great. However, the two halves do twist and I hate the USB port in the side. Then again, I don’t hate the USB connector enough to pay $70 for a Touchstone.

My biggest complaint on build is the stupid loose battery issue. For the first month or so, everything was fine, but as the Pre loosened up, I began having the problem. Even when trying to carefully slide the Pre shut with one hand, the final little snap would knock the battery loose and the Pre would shut off (my rant about the boot-up time is coming). At first, I fixed this problem by changing the Pre battery for an older Centro battery I had laying around. That worked for a month or two. When it started occurring again, I inserted a piece of paper as demonstrated in the earlier link.

I have only had the Pre shut off a couple of times since adding the piece of paper a month or so ago. I try to carry an extra charged battery, but that is difficult to do with the short battery life of the Pre. Removing the battery is a horrible process as well. I have to pull so hard on the plastic strip that I feel like I am going to break the phone.

BOOT-UP TIME: Why does it take so long to boot up? My Pre is not unusual with its roughly 2.5 minute boot-up time.

SPEED/PERFORMANCE: Ya, the Pre is sluggish. Don’t expect anything with smooth frame rates. Tetris, Breakout, Google Maps, they all have weird little hang-ups. Opening any app takes about 4-5 seconds – just to get to the point where you see the app on the screen.

GPS: The GPS only works if you are in a data service area. No maps are pre-loaded and they don’t stay in the cache. If you aren’t in a data coverage area, the driving GPS app just comes up with a screen telling you that it won’t work until you are in a data coverage area. The Pre is not a replacement for a TomTom by any stretch. The interface is clunky, there is no reliable way to lookup a contact and have the navigator take you there – if you try, it takes you to Google Maps – which is almost better.

CUT & PASTE: Sure, it has cut, copy & paste, but not in any Internet-based apps. When it does work – it still doesn’t work. You must use just the right amount of pressure and drag your finger at just the right speed to highlight text. Usually it takes me longer to highlight the text than it does to actually retype whatever I am trying to copy.

MISSING SHORTCUTS: CTRL+C and CTRL+V work great – but why no CTRL+Z – I need an undo for when my copy and paste shortcuts don’t work right. Often I end up having to retype the content I was trying to copy because I press C and it types a C over whatever I had highlighted instead of copying the phrase.

NO VIDEO: If I would have realized how often I would miss even the crappy video feature in my Centro, I probably would have waited for a better phone to come out.

In the end, I think the Pre is a great introductory smartphone. It does some amazing stuff. You still can’t beat the wonders of background processing. I find a need to keep two or three apps open at the same time almost every time I use it. Often it is only for a few seconds as I look up a phone number on the web or using GOOG-411 while I have my contacts open. Or I start an email and then want to look up a scheduled appointment in my calendar to include in the email. I think that the ability to run multiple apps at the same time IS the Pre’s killer app.

The problem is, there comes a point when you stop overlooking all of the little annoyances and begin to realize that your usage is handicapped because every action requires that you overlook or workaround.

I would still recommend the Pre to teens, busy parents, email-centric business users and others. However, if you are looking for a versatile device that you can depend on to get you through all aspects of your day (email, appointments, GPS, web searching, digital camera, toilet computing, etc.), you will likely be happier with an Android device. Of course, you could go iPhone, but most of us that are left have our reasons for not taking things in that direction (AT&T).

Today, I put the Palm Pre through its heaviest use yet. I downloaded more apps, surfed the web, added a few contacts, sent some texts, did some twitter, took some pictures, and played with the interface. I had several clients with computers that needed Norton Antivirus removed, so there was a lot of sitting and waiting.

Palm has done a wonderful job at offering some the the best aspects of the iPhone. A wonderful GPS, easy to install apps, and exciting user experience. It is simply fun to use and play with.

That said, there are a variety of practical aspects that I miss. I have been a heavy Palm user for nearly 10 years. I shortcuts and menu options to get around more than I use the actually icons and stylus. I am happy to say that the Pre keeps a lot of these aspects intact. There are shortcuts, for example, if you want to go to the web app, you just type “web” and the web app icon shows up on the screen. Press the return key and you are taken to the web app. That is very nice. It enables you to use the device with one hand and you don’t have to hunt through menu screens to find what you want.

That said, there are several traditional Palm features I would have liked to see.

Themed launcher screens –

The Palm Pre is modeled after the iPhone launcher, you can arrange the order of the icons, but you may have to gesture through several screens before you find the icon that you want. Searching for the app is easy, as long as you remember what it’s called.

It would have been nice, if Palm would have kept the old interface concept here. Rather than having page after page of apps in that must be dragged to a screen or location on the screen, it would have been nice, if Palm created screens with names such as games, entertainment, utilities, etc. In my opinion, Palm has taken a step backward with its launcher app. It works, but it is too much like the iPhone and ignores one of the slicker features of the Palm OS.

Keyboard shortcuts –

The traditional Palm OS supported them all, copy (C), paste (V), cut (X), undo (Z), all (A). Now WebOS only offers cut, copy and paste. The selection feature is so horrible. Selecting text on the Palm was easier than selecting text with a mouse on the computer, this is a giant step backwards for Palm as the OS goes.

Not enough customization –

The old Palm OS allowed you to customize almost everything. Fonts, colors, themes, keyboard shortcuts, default programs, etc. And that was just the OS. Nearly every program offered many customization options as well. The more time I spend with the Pre, the more I realize how amazing the original Palm OS was. It may have been simple and plain, but it really offered some amazing customization options. The pre much of that. There are certain theme elements and features that can be changed, such as the wallpaper, but Palm has gone to great lengths to make sure you don’t mess up the Pre look and feel. Palm is at least as protective of the Pre aesthetic as Apple is about the iPhone’s.

Get anywhere in 3 taps or less – Palm OS was simple. I could get nearly anywhere with less that three taps of the stylus. the Pre is a little more complex than that. While it isnot difficult to use by any stretch of the imagination, I do miss the uniform nature of the Palm OS. Compare the simplicity of Windows 3.1 (if you remember it) with the complexity of Windows 7. One is very pretty and powerful on features, but the other does what it needs to do quickly and efficiently.

In many ways, Windows 98 was my favorite version of Windows. The most recent version of the Palm OS (non-webOS) had this feel to it. It may hot have supported multimedia, pretty web pages, multi-touch or accelerometer and GPS, but it did a wonderful job at getting work done as a PDA/phone.

I have mentioned in almost all of the previous reviews that my complaints are almost all about the software. Not that WebOS isn’t amazing – it is. I am in love with the Pre, but I also am keenly aware of its faults as I have been a heavy smartphone user since 2001 I know what I expect in a smartphone. I hope that Palm will release at least a couple major OS updates over the next year that will add some of these features.

In the end, I still believe that the Pre leaps and bounds better than iPhone was at its launch. Its advertised features are also more ready for primetime than any version of the iPhone has been at its launch. Remember MobileMe? Remember that iPhone 1.0 didn’t even support third party apps? Remember how bad the GPS was? Considering that Apple had very little negative press between the original iPod launch and the release of the iPhone, some may consider the iPhone to not only be one of Apples greatest successes, but also one of its biggest black marks.

The Pre is not an iPhone killer, I am glad it’s not because I don’t want an iPhone. I want a Palm that will work in the modern age of cloud computing, multimedia, social networking, GPS, digital photography and Google. I am hoping that the Pre will be the Blackberry killer or the Windows Mobile killer. Keep the iPhone out there and doing all the things it does best. Competition is healthy.

The title of this review is a little misleading. While I am celebrating my second full day of Pre ownership, I have not used the Pre exclusively for those two days. I am using both my Centro and the Pre. I am in the process of selling my business and the buyer is going to continue using the Centro and Agendus setup that I have been using for the past eight years until he gets a grasp of how the business runs, at which point he will likely change phones and scheduling systems.

So, I  am using the Centro for business but the Pre for personal, church and other professional projects I continue to work on.

While I haven’t used the Pre exclusively, I have had a lot of time to play with it and try to understand how to use it as a tool which is what I bought it for.

I believe that I made it clear all along that I did not expect the Pre to be an iPhone, nor did I want it to be an iPhone. I wanted a smartphone that had a practical edge and a slick interface. I have played with the Storm, the Instinct and the HTC Touch models and they all are very good at trying to look like iPhones in the marketing but failing miserably in reality. I would almost consider them bait and switch phones.

The Pre had attracted me from the beginning because it pays homage to the iPhone. But it also pays homage to the Blackberry and Palm.

Today I noticed the Pres imperfections but I also realized what may be its greatest strength.

Let’s discuss the Cons first…

CONS:

Web browsing is a little quirky -Pages do load fast and render very nicely. However, I do miss the iPhone’s ability to automatically zoom in on a given portion of a website. You do a lot of multi-touch pinching and sliding to get navigate through the page. It seems that you either zoom in or out too far. I think this is partly due to the smaller screen size.

The rendering of iGoogle and talkingDigital is pretty much horrible. The page is rendered into tall, thin columns. They can be read, but the pages are not pretty at all.

Copy and Paste exists on the Pre, but it needs a lot of fine tuning. It does not work at all in web browsing and holding the shift key while dragging feels odd. Remember the first time you tried to drag your mouse across text to select it and it seemed like you just couldn’t get it right? Remember that frustration? I feel that way when I try to copy and paste on the Pre.

That said, there is a lot to be said about having a tactile keyboard. Copy and pasting long URLs is one thing, but the main reason people needed copy and paste on the iPhone was because typing even a short sentence on the horid onscreen keyboard is a five minute task. With the Pre, retyping a few words is no big deal. I can type entire sentences without looking at the keyboard.

I miss the D-Pad – The touchscreen is great but how much harder would it have been to add a small trackball or D-pad to move the cursor around? Correcting typing mistakes is a little annoying when you can’t move the cursor back one character at a time. Even if it could be done using gestures, it would be better than trying to drag your finger to the exact spot. Typically, I drag the cursor within a couple spaces of where I make the mistake, then backspace a few characters and retype.

I would also like an undo option in the edit system. I don’t remember the exact reasons, but I have run into two situations where a CTRL+Z would be helpful.

The Pre powers off after the allotted amount of time to save power. The only way to wake it up is to tap the power button in the upper right corner, or tap the space bar on the keyboard. It would be nice if tapping twice on the “center button” would wake the device.

Now for my biggest gripe – the app catalog. Actually, the catalog itself is very nice. It shows a lot of promise as it is arranged nicely and every app offers the ability to try before you buy. Installing the apps also happens seamlessly and quickly. I think that the app catalog is a easy to use as the iTunes app store. BUT!!!! There are no prices listed anywhere. You have no idea whether an app is free or $1000. Currently the app catalog is in beta, but the lack of prices makes me extremely nervous to tap the download button.

The first thing you do when you setup the Pre is create a Palm account. Does this account tie you to a place where any apps will be billed to your Sprint account? There isn’t anywhere on the Palm or Sprint website or on the Pre itself to log into your Palm account to see what the Palm account settings are all about. It is very mysterious.

It may seem like I have nothing but gripes, but remember, that was the CONS.

Now for the pros…

PROS:

Background processes are beautiful – Go ahead, play halfway through a game, log into the forums on a website, create half a memo, Google how to spell something before you send it in a text message. You can keep as many apps open and running as you want. Today, I was monitoring Twitter via an app called Spaz, looking for answers on the absence of prices on the app catalog in the forums at Precentral.net and watching my Facebook. I think at one point, I noticed that I had five apps open and I was using them in the exact manner that I use the taskbar in Windows.

At this point I sent out a mini review on twitter, “The Pre’s ability to run background processes makes the iPhone feel like a palm.”

I had to laugh when I watched the video on Apple’s website about the new iPhone 3Gs. After just a day of enjoying the background apps, the iPhone video actually looked clunky as the demonstration showed that you had to hit the home key (button) in between each step. Background processing itself really is the Pre’s killer app.

My daughter beth with her new baby cousin - taken with Palm Pre and flash. Click on the image for full resolution shot.

The camera is also better than average – There are a lot of complaints about the quality of the camera. True, the camera is not that great, however the flash makes all the difference. Some people pick on it, but anyone who is expecting Speedlite performance from an LED flash will always be disappointed. I feel that, when compared to the iPhone 3Gs, I would rather have a flash than auto focus.

Over the next few days, I hope to learn a few more tips and tricks. I have read the manuals and watched the training videos on the features. So far, it is such a simple device to use, it appears that there isn’t much more to learn.

I will try to add some media files. We did watch some YouTube yesterday and that worked as well as it does on the iPhone.

I did have a problem reading a PDF attachment someone sent me, so I will try a few more similar tasks to see what the Pre’s current limits are, but overall it is better than I expected for a first generation phone.

When compared to the iPhone 1.o or the G1, the Pre shows that Palm has learned from their competitors’ mistakes. The Pre generally feels like a 1.7 device. It has its limitations, but every major problem I have (such as navigation,  the app catalog prices and selecting text) can easily be addressed with future software and firmware updates.

I expect big things from the Pre. Not just because I want Palm to succeed, but because the Pre is proving itself to be serious smartphone sweetness right out of the gate. I consider it equally as revolutionary to the future of smartphones as the Treo 600 was at its launch.