Robert's Blog

June 27, 2009 8:50 PM

So I finally got my Palm Pre, and here are my thoughts around this new device. I had a preview of one a week before it went public through a person who had a pilot version. So when I finally got mine, I wasn’t surprised by the feel of it like many other people were. I’m ok with the lightness of the product, but I can see how someone with an iPhone or Blackberry can say that it feels fragile and plasticky. I personally think that it feels like a river stone, smooth and curvy. The slide-out keyboard is a great feature. It is easy to open, and for my fingers, I was able to type fairly quickly (faster than on an iPhone). I do wish that Palm will add the auto-correct feature that the iPhone has implemented for basic typing mistakes. It did take me a while to get the micro-USB door open. This is probably because I didn’t want to break it, but when I finally got it open, it’s been an easy thing to do since.

Setup was a breeze. I was able to create my Palm account and get going right away. I had already imported my address book to my gmail account in preparation to getting the Pre. At that point, I linked my Gmail, AOL IM, and Facebook profiles to the Pre, and Synergy worked perfectly!!! Within 5 minutes, my Pre was loaded with all my contacts with no hassles, a need for a PC, or any other type of syncing. A majority of my accounts were properly linked. I did run into small issues here and there, but that was mostly due to people’s last names being different between Facebook and my Gmail address book.

My work email works perfectly on the device. Push IMAP is fully supported, and I get my messages as they arrive. Google calendar works great also. We have a family calendar to keep track of the kids schedules, and that sync’d as well. The calendar app is so much better than iCal on the iPhone. The Pre doesn’t support my work calendar yet though, so I’ll have to wait until a solution for that.

I downloaded several apps, and it was just as easy as using the iPhone app store, minus the need to login. All the apps are still in Beta, but they work with no problems that I’ve seen so far. I installed almost all of them, from weather, to Twitter, to the New York Times.

I’m enjoying the ability to multitask on this phone. The interface is so intuitive, and the gestures makes using the device such a joy. I got so used to the back gesture, which is a swipe of the finger across the bottom of the screen, that I was doing it on my wife’s iPhone…

The GPS works well also. I was able to use the Sprint Navigation a few times while I was in Salt Lake City. The location was off a little, but for a free service (unlike my old Motorola Q or the iPhone, where you have to pay a monthly fee for turn-by-turn directions) it’s great.

The accessories are awesome too. I bought 2 Touchstone chargers, one for home and one for work. This was my first experience with magnetic induction charging, and I’m hooked! I hope that this comes to all my gadgets sometime soon.

So here is the bad. Like every other blogger and reviewer, the battery life is terrible. This is mainly due to the ability to multi-task and the background applications. If I run Tweed (the Twitter client), have pushmail on, have IM on, and have Bluetooth on I’m down to 50% power within 4 to 5 hours. This is what I do when I’m in the office or at home since I have my Touchstones nearby. The phone will last a day as long as you shutdown your background apps, turn off bluetooth, and follow some of the other power saving instructions. Even though this is a pain, I’d still rather have this flexibility and govern myself to save battery, than be provided with a crippled device and treated like a child on how I use my phone (like what Apple has done with the iPhone).

Some other items that I’m not happy with is just the lack of applications. The Pre SDK was leaked today. I think the delay with apps isn’t necessarily that the SDK isn’t ready, as the leaked SDK shows that there is one out there. I think Palm is slow on releasing apps because their App Catalog service isn’t ready yet. Palm still has to work out billing/paying for apps, as well as ensure that their infrastructure can support a growing App Catalog. So far though, my app downloads have been fast.

The ability to not be able to sync to my laptop was bugging me. I’ve been trying to get the beta version of MarkSpace’s Missing Sync working for the last week. But, after not being able to do it, I started to ask myself “why do I need local sync?”. The whole goal of the Pre is to not be tethered/chained to a physical device and use the “Cloud”, vis-à-vis the WebOS. So once I adjusted myself to that philosophy, I’m not so upset with this lack of local sync. My next blog will explain my thought process on how I came to this change.

As far as device reliability, my first Pre just died on me on Friday after 5 days… That was bad, but Sprint was able to replace my Pre within 2 hours at the local store. So while the Pre failing is a bad thing, I’m hoping that it’s just a lemon and I was unlucky. On the bright side, the quick replacement of my Pre shows that Sprint’s customer service was ready for those situations. Also, the Pre backup service through Palm works just as advertised. Once I received my replacement Pre, I just signed into Palm, and my new Pre was restored to a very usable state. I did have to make some changes here and there, but overall, I was at over 95% functionality via that restoration.

So there is my first review. As I play with the device more, I’ll keep you posted, but so far, I’m really happy with my new Palm Pre. We plan on getting Annie an iPhone 3GS sometime soon to replace her 1st Gen iPhone. I plan on doing my own head-to-head.

Stay tuned to my blog as I will be writing about my view of anonymity on today’s Internet.

~rb