The Palm Pre has been the most hotly anticipated gadget for 2009. When it debuted back in January at CES it garnered a bunch of awards including “Best in Show.” It’s with these raving reviews that the Pre was released on June 6th 2009.

palm pre

Palm Pre Design:
The design of the Palm Pre is one that speaks class. It has a beautiful 3.2 inch screen that carries a 480×320 resolution. The screen supports multitouch just like the iPhone and also supports the pinch, double tap etc. to zoom and navigate photos, webpage’s, games etc. The device is very small and fits nicely in the hand. Although the screen is a little smaller then that of the iPhone it has the same resolution and things display crystal clear.

palm pre

As for the slide out keyboard, that is an added plus. One of the major contentions I have had with the iPhone is the lack of a physical keyboard. Thankfully Palm realized that not everyone is interested in the virtual keyboard and decided to include a Centro style model on it. Although it is as small as the Centro, it has more space between the keys so there is better accuracy. Also the keys are rubberized so there is hardly any slip. While the keyboard is a little cramped, trust me when I say it’s a lot easier to type on it then it looks. I have owned both the original MotoQ as well as the Blackberry Curve as personal Smartphones and while the Pre does have a smaller keyboard then the other devices I have been able to type at about the same speed. That said I will still say that the Curve’s keyboard is a little more refined then that of the Pre. But the Pre has a solid keyboard nonetheless.

Palm Pre Camera

Concerning the camera, the Pre has one that sports 3.2 megapixels. The picture quality is exceptional and unlike the iPhone it also carries flash as well as a metal back that can be used as a mirror for pictures.

Software:
This is the part of the phone that most people are concerned with. While there has been many phones that claim to be “iPhone killers” (namely the Instinct) and fail miserably the Palm Pre is different.
At the core of the UI is a Linux based OS called webOS. According to Palm they will have other phones that run the webOS so the software will be popping up on other devices around the world. That said I was very pleased with the UI. The gestures are smooth and navigating is pretty simple.

Unlike the iPhone the Palm Pre handles multitasking like a charm. Palm uses a system called “Cards” which allows you to open multiple programs at a time. According to Palm the system can handle a maximum of 12 Cards (programs) simultaneously. I was able to get it up to 16 and 20 but at other times when I only had 6 cards open, the phone would inform me that I had to close some Cards before attempting to open a another one. Basically put, the maximum amount of Cards that can be opened depends on its demands. While you can open up over 12 webpage cards without a problem, opening up the Pandora app, camera, YouTube, Music app and an email as well as SMS client will might overwhelm the system. The good thing about it is the device will not crash if you open too many cards. Before that happens, it will prevent any more from being opened.

palm pre

The device comes with dedicated YouTube, Facebook and MySpace apps. Although the YouTube app works pretty well, it is prone to a few glitches (software related). I wasn’t too fund of the Facebook app as it was not as intuitive as that of the Blackberry. Secondly it’s just a glorified webpage. I found it less stressful and more exciting to use the normal Facebook website VIA the browser. And since it handles JavaScript pretty well, most things are in place. As for the MySpace app, it was better then that of Facebook.

The phone also has Pandora radio, ever since I used it on my previous Blackberry Curve I fell in love with the app. It does a real good job of the Internet radio and allows you to save songs as well as artists for further viewing. While we are on the subject of music, the built in music application is also very intuitive. While it lacks the patented “Cover Flow” that you will find in the iPhone or iPod Touch it does allow you to scroll through songs, albums and artists based on album cover. You can also download music from the Amazon online music store via a built in app (similar one can be found on Google Android). There is a wide selection of songs available and at a 256 bit rate with most songs being only $.99 and all being DRM free it’s pretty awesome.

The browser is probably the single best designed app on the device though. It is very intuitive and supports every type of finger function that is found on the iPhone including double tap to zoom, pinch to zoom in and out and full accelerometer for orientation changing. In my tests it loaded webpage’s as fast as the iPhone and the scrolling and rendering was just as good. I am yet to find a phone that could compare with the iPhone in browsing experience, but I can honestly say that this is on par with the browser on the iPhone.

Email on the device is also very good and allows you to view full HTML mark-up. That said I wasn’t impressed that the phone only syncs with the mail servers every fifteen minutes. I am used to getting instant feedback on my emails VIA my Blackberry. While it is a minor detail I wish there was an option which would allow you to change this. The mail client does support Exchange so that is a plus. The included SMS application is also very good and allows you to view messages in conversation format.

The only major problem I had with webOS was there were a few times when the software would slow up. So far the OS is yet to crash on me, but I would like Palm to get an update out ASAP that would fix a few of the minor performance issues some of the users have been experiencing.

CONCLUSION:
So in conclusion would I recommend the phone? Yes I would. But if you are in a contract I would advise waiting a few more months as the current news says Sprint’s exclusivity deal ends in January of 2010. And while Palm is yet to confirm this Sprint has said that they have the device through the end of 2009 and Verizon has said they hope to pick up the Pre when Sprint’s deal ends in December of 2009.

You Should Also Check Out This Post:

More Active Posts: