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:

1. I can have several applications and/or webpages open at a time and switch back and forth between them easily
2. The touchscreen is very responsive and bright.
3. Websurfing is fast and it is the real internet
4. The Touchstone accessory
5. The camera has a flash.

Things I would like for Palm to change or add:

1. They really need to come out with a Touchstone car charger/mount.
2. 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. **
3. 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. ***
4. 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)

We got tickets on the lawn so that we could bring our cooler and snacks and beer.  Took some camping chairs so we wouldn’t have to sit on the ground.  We got there about 90 minutes prior to the show and we had our picnic and a beer and then sat back to enjoy the show.  And good stuff it was.

For those that don’t what type of show this was, they basically showed clips and segments from video games from the last 4 decades on big screens and the orchestra played the themes or sound effects right along with the clip.  There were a couple vocal performances and several other side item performances, like Martin Leung who became popular on YouTube for playing video game themes on the piano while blindfolded.

The thing I really found cool and interesting was how they combined a few genre’s of music.  They had someone playing an electric guitar right along with the orchestra and at one point that guitarist was jamming with the standing bass player – nice touch.  There was also a choir, an opera singer and another vocalist.

There was also a Guitar Hero challenge for one person in the audience (who had won a skillz contest ahead of time) to complete Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” on hard with at least 200,000 points.  If he managed it, he won a $2500 Dell Laptop.  Not only did he win it, he did it on expert and only missed one note.  He had a streak of 609 notes, which looked pretty amazing to me.  Of course, the orchestra played along as well.

This was a show that celebrated the artistry and culture of video games.

The only thing we honestly didn’t enjoy had nothing at all to do with the show.  There was a small group of college age kids sitting next to us on our left that talked the whole time as if they were in their livingroom.  Everyone talked a little bit, which was part of the enjoyment; but these folks simply did not shut up.  The louder the music got, the louder they got.  Also, one of them had a camera and kept taking flash pictures.  It was an outdoor show at night.  That built in flash has a range of about 15 feet.  The only thing it accomplished was to blind everyone near her.  I did finally ask her to stop, which she did.  Sadly one of her companions took up the picture taking after she stopped.

Thankfully the group of 12 year old’s in front of us and the group of college age kids on the other side of us were really enjoying the show and were not making asses of themselves.  The group to our left really was in the minority in that regard.

If you enjoy video games you should really check out Video Games Live if they come to an area near you.  It was a lot of fun.

Here’s a YouTube clip to give you an idea of what it is like:

Well, I’ve had my new Instinct for 3 days now and so far I love it. The interface is really cool, it is all touch screen. You get a QWERTY keyboard that comes up on the touch screen whenever you click a field that requires input – and I like the Instinct’s keyboard better than the iPhone’s. Also, like the iPhone, the web on the Instinct looks like the web. The browser navigaton isn’t as cool as the iPhone’s, but you do get the images and layout and zoom in and scroll around the page and such.

I also really like the Navigation feature. It talks to you and tells you where to go and how to get there as well as shows you on a 3D style map. I’m told that while the iPhone also has Navigation, it doesn’t actually tell you the directions, only shows you. If that is the case, I’d say the Instinct wins there, too. It also comes with an extra battery, which is pretty cool, so even though the battery isn’t as long lived as the iPhone, the extra one does compensate for that and it comes with a charging case as well so the extra battery can always be charging while you’re using the phone. Oh and it’s stereo bluetooth too (I would imagine the iPhone is as well, but I don’t know), so I can listen to my tunes via bluetooth.

There are also a few things I’d like to see improved upon. For instance, I’d like the option to show my wallpaper all the time and just bring up the applications when I wanted to with the hot keys. Or, an option to get rid of the “Favorites” screen. Also, not everything has been intuitive, like actually answering a call took a couple of incoming calls for me to figure out. Maybe, just maybe, I should read the manual. I don’t usually do that. Also, the web browser could use a bit of improvement. Navigating a web page is much cooler on the iPhone. I don’t normally do a lot of web surfing on my phone anyway, but hopefully Samsung will improve it with the next generation phone.

All in all, I’m impressed with the Instinct. Hopefully I’ll continue to be.