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.

I am going to make this rant short, but accurate.

The week the Palm Pre was announced, I did what many gadget geeks do, I visited the Sprint Store and asked ********, a girl I have known for a while who happens to work at the local Sprint store when it was coming out and whether they were putting together a waiting list. She assured me they were not and that I would be added to the list when it was created. I got excited.

After making a post about the Pre in February on Facebook, ******** messaged me and told me that the Pre was probably not coming until March but, “ill put ne on hold for you first shipment. rumor is it will launch the last week in march [sic]”

Over the next few months and as late as last week, I visited the Sprint Store and talked to *****, *** and ****** who I know from outside of our Sprint relationship. Each time asking to please put me on a waiting list if one formed. Each assured me that it would happen.

Tonight, I stopped in the Sprint store and when I asked, “What’s new?” I was treated like I was trying to make small talk. “With the Pre, I mean… Is it first come, first serve or invite only?” (****** told me last week it might be invite only and that I would be put on the list)

“We have a waiting list. Do you want to be added to it?” ***** asked. I asked if he was kidding. He assured me he wasn’t.

“How many people are on the list?”

Keep in mind that I have been told that our store may only get six or seven Pres – probably a made up number, but at least it’s a number.

“You’re number 12,” said *****.

I am guessing that the other 11 people must have been put on the list before the Palm Pre was announced.

Over the past six months I have been teased by all my “friends” on Twitter and Facebook about been a Pre fanatic. I have defended Sprint and Palm each on this very blog in addition to numerous threads on Palm and Pre website threads.

I have become the Pre promoter for Western Colorado. Several news sites, blogs and podcasts have asked me to provide my first impressions and reviews of the Pre on release day.

I will be providing those reviews, interviews and guest interviews whether I have the Pre or not. The question is, will I be talking about the Pre, or will I be talking about my experiences of trying to acquire a Pre?

Keep your eyes on PreCentral.net, HelpMeRick.com, DogHouseSystems.com and, of course, talkingDigital.org as well as my Facebook and Twitter feeds to find out.

My first smart phone

Adam Cochran here – I am anxiously waiting for the release and availability of the Palm Pre. I see those as two separate events. I hope too get one on release day, but who knows how the Sprint store in Grand Junction, CO will handle the distributing on release day.

I have been in the store three times in the past three weeks and each time I have been given a different story on how they would be distributed. First come – first serve, invites only, special Friday night event…

I am hoping for the first come – first serve scenario. I plan on being in line early Saturday morning. 

Gadgets are wonderful, but unlike the crew at CNET, I don’t have the opportunity to buy each new gadget that comes out. I must carefully wait until just the right gadget comes along. That is not to say that I am a stranger to gadgets, I read all the tech news, listen to the podcasts and encourage my friends to buy the gadgets I am unsure about so that I can gadget by proxy.

Smartphones have always been a favorite gadget of mine. My first smartphone was one of the first smartphones – the Kyocera QCP-6035. It was awesome! I kept it around and replaced it a couple times but didn’t replace it until the Palm Treo 600.

I debated switching to a Windows Mobile device but hated the Windows look and feel. I didn’t want to go through all the menu systems to get everywhere. I debated going with Blackberry, but it felt clunky. So, I stayed with my Palm devices. I loved them for their simplicity and their agility.

When the iPhone came out, I bought an iPod touch. I compared plans, data, text and decided that I had to stick with Sprint for my budget’s sake. Sprint is about 25 percent less than AT&T for my uses. I am also very happy with the Sprint data network in my area.

It is important to clarify that no carrier is superior in all areas of the country, but Sprint has always preformed well for me in every area I have lived or vacationed. With prepaid plans so easily accessible now, if I did vacation somewhere that Sprint’s coverage was shoddy, I could always just buy a temporary phone and number.

I have used my iPod Touch for surfing the web, listening to music, watching movies, and running a variety of apps and games. I love the iPod Touch and I can see the beauty of an iPhone. However, the iPhone has four major hangups that prevent me from even considering it…

1. No tactile keyboard – I can touch type with my Centro. I don’t care if the keyboard is cramped and difficult to use on the Pre – at least it has a keyboard. You can’t tell me that the iPhone keyboard is less annoying than the Pre keyboard. I have written rather lengthy emails on my iPod Touch. I make a mistake about every three words on average. I can type three or four sentences on my Centro keyboard without making an error.

2. Background processing – I want to be able to keep an IM program running while I check my email. I want to be able to look up a contact, then map it, then go back to the contact and make a call without having to go to home screens or restart apps in between. 

3. It’s on Sprint – I don’t get any deals from Sprint. I buy the plans at regular rates and with standard contracts. I pay $200 for 4 phones with unlimited data, text, picture mail, protection plans, and 1500 minutes shared between phones. Go ahead and compare – the next cheapest plan will likely be $30/month more. I have considered leaving Sprint at least three times until I did the math.

4. It’s not an iPhone – Last year we must have seen at least half a dozen “iPhone killers.” They all failed. Whether it was the Blackberry Storm, the HTC Touch Pro or the Samsung Instinct, they all failed. You can’t take on the iPhone by simply resembling the appearance of an iPhone. The Pre is not trying to be an iPhone, it is something much different. Anyone expecting the Pre to be an iPhone killer should write their negative reviews now.

The iPhone’s strengths are the apps (developer base), the sexiness, and the fact that it is made by Apple. Pre touches on these things, but it also is presented as an entirely different phone. I don’t want a Palm Pre because I want it  to be an iPhone or because I expect it to be better than an iPhone. I am buying the Pre because I expect it to be different than the iPhone.

I don’t need a device that will download 200 different tip calculators or run countless apps. I want a device that is small, versatile and capable of combining all of my means of communication. I communicate on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email, and a variety of Google services. The concept of the Pre fits my needs more than the iPhone. I plan on buying the Palm Pre because I want my money to go to the guys willing to take on Apple by creating a device that targets the weaknesses of the iPhone directly.

I don’t expect it to work perfectly at launch and the Pre 2.0 will certainly be a better device, but you have to admire Palm for making so many gutsy moves with the Pre launch. In many ways, the Pre is similar to OS X. Palm has reached a point where their product, both hardware and software, has become stale. They had two options, they could try to fancy up the existing product (the Microsoft approach) or they could reinvent themselves as Apple did with OS X.

Reinventing your image is always much more risky, but the payoff is much higher if successful. Palm has tossed backwards compatibility aside and told all old developers (whatever developers there are left) that their existing skills would no longer be useful. In what appears to be a dangerous move on the surface, is seens as a very necessary move to users, geeks and analysts who follow the smartphone market.