Palm Pre - My Review

I have had the Samsung Instinct for about two months and really loved the phone other than the fact the it had a resistive touch screen instead of the capacitive touch technology that the iPhone and now the Palm Pre sport. When I first heard reports about the Pre it was supposed to have a resistive screen like the Instinct so I didn't pay any attention to it. Last week I happened to read an article that mentioned the phones capacitive touch screen. I did a double take and thought "what the hell?" After writing a post about the impossibility of an iPhone killer without a capacitive multi-touch screen, I had to check out the Pre.

In the following days I read many articles and watched several videos on youtube. I then went and waited for 45 minutes at my local Sprint store to check out one of the representatives Pre (someone broke the stores demo). After using the phone for a few minutes I knew I had to have one and searched craigslist for a good deal. I ended up getting one from a guy for $360 yesterday and have been playing with it a lot since. Here are my thoughts -

- Touch Screen -
The screen is very bright and I love the fact that it adjusts to the light conditions where you are. I could read the screen very easily outside in bright sunlight even with the brightness set almost as low as it goes. The Instinct was almost impossible to read in the sunlight without putting the brightness really high.

The touch sensitivity is really good and rivals the iPhone in my opinion. Occasionally I have to tap things twice but I had that problem when I owned an iPhone as well. The only thing I have trouble with is tapping the battery in the top right or the menu in the top left. They are a little small and it normally takes a couple taps. Not a big deal but can be a bit annoying.

- Gesture Area -
The gesture area is genius! I love how you can swipe back instead of tapping a virtual button. I also like how you can switch to the next open app with a swipe across the whole gesture area. You can also bring up all the apps with a swipe up starting in the gesture area. To make the menu disappear you just swipe it down. I don't find myself using the center button all that much which I kind of like.

- Call Quality -
Call quality is excellent. I have no complaints. I love the fact that you can hook up any headphones and use them as a phone headset (you still have to talk into the phone mic unless the headphones have one built in)

- Web Browser -
The browser is great. It renders pages quickly. The home screen is convenient with the bookmarks that you can immediately click on.

- Physical Design / Keyboard -
I'm not a huge fan or the design quality of the phone. I wish either the slider mechanism felt more solid or the keyboard was just always out like on a BlackBerry. The slider feels a little loose and I am slightly paranoid that it won't hold up but if it doesn't I'm sure there will be a class action lawsuit and Palm will fix every ones. The keyboard buttons are a little small but as my experience with the Verizon Blitz proved, you get used to it in very little time and can fly through messages. I hope they add the option for a virtual keyboard in a future software update to keep the slider action to a minimum.

- Battery Life -
OK - Battery life SUCKS!!! I turned off all GPS location services, IM clients and set my email to only check once per hour. Whoever creates a battery that will last for the whole day or longer will make have a lot of customers. With all the services turned off, the phone barely lasted from 9:45 am - 7 pm. I did make several phone calls, use the internet and listen to a podcast and some music so I can't say it's unusable. Just make sure you plug it in whenever you have an hour or two of time near a USB port or AC outlet.

- Camera -
The camera takes good pictures if you are outside. With the flash you can take a picture that is about on par with my Sony digital camera on flash.

- Misc. / Software -
The WebOS software is really cool. Palm really hit a home run with the OS. Being able to switch between applications has already proved very useful. Copy + Paste functionality is cool and the ability to do a screen cap from the internet is nice as well. Sprint TV is much better on the Pre than the Instinct and the GPS navigation is a bit better due to the touch screen technology. Google maps is also helpful as ever - a good alternative to firing up the Sprint GPS if you just need to quickly look at a map or search nearby.

PC World and other sites are dogging this phone like crazy for no good reason. I am a fairly harsh critic of almost anything and this phone only has a couple things I would change; however, none of them are deal breakers.

Changes:
Virtual keyboard option
Better organization of Podcasts
Marker to let you know if you listened to a podcast.
Playhead for music and podcasts instead of only a FF and RW button
Video Recording
Better slider mechanism or fixed keyboard - I think the best option would be to have a dock port that you could clip a keyboard onto if you wanted one.
Video out - Also need a dock for that.
Expandable memory.

Most of these changes can be made through software updates but some will have to be addressed on future models. I really hope that Palm doesn't release the Pre to other networks and that Sprint can get the boost they need. Sprint really is a decent network especially for the price. There is some kind of Apple fascist conspiracy to try and kill Palm and Sprint it seems like. Tech writers who should be objective have been trashing Palm and Sprint much to the outrage of most of the readers. I read one article by some PC World douchebag where over 700 readers gave the article a thumbs down and only like 50 gave it a thumbs up.

Go check out a Pre if you can find a store that even has one. They are flying off the shelves - a sign I hope of good things to come.