My new Palm Pre
jewel September 6th, 2009
I’ve had my new Palm Pre for almost a week so I thought I would write up my thoughts on this phone. My last phone was a Samsung Instinct, which I liked well enough, but as soon as I heard about the Palm Pre, I wanted one. And, I love it! Love it! Love it!
In my internet meanderings, I’ve often seen rabid Mac fanboys and fangirls bashing the Pre as an iPhone wannabe. I doubt most of them have even seen a Pre, much less used one. I’ve got one thing to say to them — get over it. The iPhone, while a cool device, isn’t the only game in town anymore. And frankly, I’m glad – competition does everyone good. I don’t have anything against the iPhone, it’s actually a very cool device and was an innovative gadget. But, unfortunately, it’s exclusive to AT&T, I’m really not fond of them. Honestly, though, after spending 5 minutes with an iPhone and then 5 minutes with the Pre, I like the look, the feel and the usability of the Pre better anyway. You may not and that’s fine with me. It all comes down to what you like.
The Pre does everything I need for a phone to do and it looks fabulous and has a great feel in my hands. The keyboard, though small, is very workable and I have had no problems at all using it. It’s much easier to use than the onscreen keyboard that my Instinct had (which I liked better than the iPhone onscreen keyboard). I love that the WebOS is Linux, too. There are already quite a few applications out for it, although only about 50 in the Palm App Store at the moment. I’ve found another site – Pre Central – that has boatloads of Pre info, and they also host a Homebrew Apps Catalog. Does Pre have even close to the number of apps available as the iPhone? No, it doesn’t, but I have no doubt that the number will grow.
The Pre was very simple to set up and syncing my regular phone contacts with my Gmail contacts was seamless. Part of the Synergy feature is that you can sync contact lists and calendars with many different applications and websites so that you have one contact list and one calendar. It’s a cool feature, actually, though I don’t think I will be adding my Facebook account to it, just because 300+ contacts would be a little much to wade through.
The Touchstone accessory is a must with this phone. Ok, you don’t really need it, but it is a super cool accessory and you’ll want at least one. I have one for home and I really want one for work, too. The Touchstone is the best way ever to charge a phone. You either need to buy the Touchstone phone back and Touchstone separately or buy them as a kit. Now they also have a dual location kit that comes with the phone back, 2 Touchstones and an extra power cable (the Touchstones don’t come with a power cable, unfortunately, so if you get an additional Touchstone, you also need another power cable). Anyway, once it is all together, you just place the phone on the Touchstone to charge. The screen turns to a clock and any notifications you get will pop up at the bottom of the screen. If the phone rings, it automatically answers if you pick it up. If you are talking on the phone and place it on the Touchstone during the conversation, it automatically switches to speakerphone. And, if you pick it up again it will automatically switch back to phone.
The battery life on the Pre looks to be a bit so-so. While I have not run it out completely, the battery drain from surfing the web, watching videos, emailing, texting, etc is considerable. Power management is very important with the Pre. At least they made the Touchstones so damn cool. Makes you want more than one anyway. Hmm…. I wonder if Palm did that on purpose.
Suffice it to say that the Pre won me over without even trying. It’s an excellent device.
Things I absolutely love about this phone are:
- I can have several applications and/or webpages open at a time and switch back and forth between them easily
- The touchscreen is very responsive and bright.
- Websurfing is fast and it is the real internet
- The Touchstone accessory
- The camera has a flash.
Things I would like for Palm to change or add:
- They really need to come out with a Touchstone car charger/mount.
- Create a setting to actually turn off the screen when the phone is on the Touchstone. Presently, the clock screen is the only setting. Unfortunately, as I have my Touchstone on my nightstand, any light is too much, and since I can’t actually turn the screen off I cover it with a cloth. It’s an easy workaround, but I would like to not need to do that. **
- I’d also like to be able to remove “system” applications that aren’t necessary for the phone to work. For instance, there’s an NFL app and a Nascar app that I’d really love to get rid of, but since they are part of the system apps, I can’t. ***
- I’d like to be able to have for than 5 items in the quicklaunch. I think there may be a homebrew app that takes care of this one, though.
Edited 30 Sep 2009 to add the following notes:
** There is a Homebrew app at PreCentral called Brightness Unlinked that will allow the screen to sleep while on the Touchstone. W00t!!
*** Also at PreCentral, there is a WebOS Quick Installer that allows you to tweak the OS and although you cannot uninstall the NFL and Nascar apps, you can hide the icons. It’s the next best thing! (The quick installer also allows you to get the fileCoaster app onto the Pre so that you can connect to the Homebrew app database from your Pre)
