I haven't posted in while for several reasons but hopefully I'll get back into the swing of regular writing. Most of my post before my blogging hiatus were related to cell phones: specifically the Palm Pre. After now owning the Pre for about 3 months I have somethings to report.
I think a big point of note is that I am on my third Pre. My first Pre developed a crack around the charging port identical to the one pictured (not sure if you can see it in the picture).
I also had a fairly severe "oreo" twist on the slider keyboard when closed and several dead pixels on the screen. I took the phone to a Sprint store to get a new battery to fix the random shut downs (the phone also had a problem where sometimes if you slid it shut, it would turn off completely). I told them about the "cosmetic" defects which they didn't even bother writing on the support ticket. They did give me a new battery which fixed the problem and told me that in the event that the problem continued, to wedge a some paper in between the battery and housing to keep it tight. Needless to say I wasn't impressed.
If I pay $350 + for anything, I expect it to be worth it. The next step was to call Palm and was pleased to have them send a replacement phone to me. The replacement was great with one exception - the ringer volume at full blast was barely audible. This time the Sprint store techs decided this was worthy of a replacement.
I received my third phone and everything was great. Before I left the store I checked it for bad pixels, ringer volume, "oreo" twist etc. and everything checked out ok. A week later the phone is still fine but I now have one or two dead pixels which I find rather annoying.
Another thing I don't like is the fact that I feel like I have to be super careful because of the poor construction quality. I usually get a silicone case for my phones but they don't have anything that I have been happy with yet. I bought one of those snap on cases for slider phones but the tabs that hold the case on all broke after 2 weeks.
All that said, the phone has been kind of cool to own. I have owned a WM phone on Verizon (with no data plan) and the Samsung Instinct S30 on Sprint so this is the first full featured smart phone I have owned in conjunction with a data plan. I really enjoy being able to surf the web and read/respond to emails efficiently. WebOS is a decent OS but I have my phone seriously tweaked so my experience may be different that most. It's not as fast as I wish it was but I do remind myself that it's a phone not a laptop.
The card multi tasking feature is cool but it should work differently where there was as a bar you could bring up at the top with small icons of open programs. That way you could have several home/widget screens. The wallpaper is pretty but kind of wasted space since I can't put anything on top of it.
This leads me to my title "WebOS or Android?". After owning the Pre for a while and being both frustrated and pleased with different elements of the phone and OS, it has made me consider the possibility of switching to an Android phone. There are several companies making Android phones so you aren't limited to one company doling out sub par hardware. I have used the Sprint Hero and honestly I would probably switch to it if the Samsung Moment wasn't coming out so soon. While both WebOS and Android are customizable, Android has a larger developer base and community - probably partially due to the fact that Google is it's creator.
I would love to have your feedback on WebOS vs. Android. I can't afford to switch phones at the moment but I am going to be keeping my eye on the various Android phones coming out. I am even excited about the Motorola Droid on Verizon which is saying a lot because I hate Verizon with a passion. If the Droid is as amazing as they act like it is, there is a very slim chance that I will cancel my Sprint contract and renew with the numbskulls at VZW.
2 comments:
In the same boat. Best Buy is running a deal this weekend for Reward Zone members for an additional $50 off the Hero with contract renewal, so I am thinking about the Hero, but the Moment is released on Sunday. I like the physical keyboard but the moment reviews have been consistently low. It would be nice to know if the Moment will be getting an upgrade to Android 2.0.
You know, I bought a pre to bring to VZW, reprogrammed the radio and setup ready to go. VZW were such jerks about it adding the MEID with horrid customer service to boot, I took my business to sprint.
The pre is really nice, hardware fits great in my hand, but is both buggy software and hardware wise. I've had nothing but problems with usability problems and hardware flaw (like your oreo-twist, both mine and my wife's have it). Palm has been slow to issue fixes to major critical system issues (email causes a memory leak that causes the radio to power down every few minutes?), and doesn't seem to know how to support a new platform. Android at least has Google behind it, and being seem to be with keeping it current, fresh, and fixed.
I haven't canceled my account with vzw yet for a reason, and I'm debating if the phone is really worth it now, especially with the droid on verizon. I still save about $80 a month on service with sprint, but their service is pretty crappy. I have decent signal at home, but my work is a complete dead spot, so this is a big issue. VZW pissed me off enough I might just deal with sprint still.
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