The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of the Palm Pre
Okay I have had the Pre over 72 hours now, time for my early impressions.
The Good
Small, light weight, fits well in the hand and pocket. It is about a 1/3 smaller and half the thickness of the old Palm Treo, which is great since I always thought the Treo were needlessly thick.
Being able to slide the keyboard open and shut keeps the size down but still easy to access and use when needed. Just hope it holds up to repeated opening and closing over the years.
Keyboard work very well, I have no problems typing with it, even with my big fingers. It can be awkward when you have a webpage in landscape mode, and try to use the keyboard at the same time.
WebOS is easy to get use to and operate. Very intuitive, simple in design, works well on the phone. Didn't take me long to adjust or learn new features. Loving flicking away open apps, lover being able to have several apps open at once.
E-mail and calenders work great, just load your profile and info in and the phone does most of the work. Links well with exchange and pulls allot of information like global address list, meeting location, etc.. Although you can't invite others to meetings or schedule resources from the Pre.
Comes with some nice apps and more are appearing everyday. It will probably never have as many as the iPhone, but being Linux based I am sure plenty of useful ones will make it to the phone. I am hoping for quality and usefulness over quantity.
Hooks up to iTunes when you hook in the USB and hit Media mode. For now it works, Apple may update iTunes to stop this.
Hooks up to the computer as a USB drive when you hit USB mode when you plug it into the computer. You can't get e-mails, phone calls, and SMS when it is in USB mode, but it is still a great feature. You can also drop MP3s into the Music folders manually this way as well.
The Bad
Battery life seems to be less then 24 hours. Still haven't had it that long and haven't given it a heavy work out. A heavy work out would be a full day with lots of e-mails and phone calls. I have a feeling I will be charging it up during the day anytime I plan to be out late at night. I will probably be getting an extended battery that will require a new backplate and make it thicker, when they come out with one.
Apps are all pretty much version 1.0 and lack many features you would expect them to have. Very little in the way of customizing the phone currently. Sure I can load my own MP3s as ringtones (also pretty much any standard audio format). But I can't change the tone for incoming SMS, E-mails, or calendar events. I am guessing these features will come when the software is updated.
Contacts are nice it loaded my Facebook, Mobile Me, and Outlook, also could have loaded Linkin, G-Mail, and others. Problem is that it is one looooooong contact list. With no way to filter other then search alphabetically. Hopefully future version will allow you to filer by category. I combined a bunch of contacts I had, and deleted allot of my older "Black Book" numbers to try and condense down my list.
Can't delete or organize certain apps to clear out stuff I will never use, I can't delete the NASCAR app or Sprint TV, etc... and can't filter which apps show up. Hopefully updates will change this.
Minor issue with e-mail, when I delete a message it goes back to the e-mail list not the next unread message. It makes going through a deleting long list of e-mails more of a task.
The Ugly
No SD card slot, it has 8GB of memory built in but no way to add any more. With the availability and size of SD and Micro SD cards it sucks that this phone can't use them.
Non standard micro-USB connection on the phone. I have seen this connection on a few digital cameras as well so it is not completely costume, but it is a flat micro-USB connection meaning the typical cable will not work. So if I want a spare I have to hunt one down and play top dollar.
Anntena seems to be average to poor, was downstairs in the server room and had barely 1 bar, old phone had issues down there as well but most of the time had like 3 bars. This is something I have to test over time, see how it works with the analog areas, etc...
Note: Do not have a touchstone yet for charging, will probably mail order one soon.
The Good
Small, light weight, fits well in the hand and pocket. It is about a 1/3 smaller and half the thickness of the old Palm Treo, which is great since I always thought the Treo were needlessly thick.
Being able to slide the keyboard open and shut keeps the size down but still easy to access and use when needed. Just hope it holds up to repeated opening and closing over the years.
Keyboard work very well, I have no problems typing with it, even with my big fingers. It can be awkward when you have a webpage in landscape mode, and try to use the keyboard at the same time.
WebOS is easy to get use to and operate. Very intuitive, simple in design, works well on the phone. Didn't take me long to adjust or learn new features. Loving flicking away open apps, lover being able to have several apps open at once.
E-mail and calenders work great, just load your profile and info in and the phone does most of the work. Links well with exchange and pulls allot of information like global address list, meeting location, etc.. Although you can't invite others to meetings or schedule resources from the Pre.
Comes with some nice apps and more are appearing everyday. It will probably never have as many as the iPhone, but being Linux based I am sure plenty of useful ones will make it to the phone. I am hoping for quality and usefulness over quantity.
Hooks up to iTunes when you hook in the USB and hit Media mode. For now it works, Apple may update iTunes to stop this.
Hooks up to the computer as a USB drive when you hit USB mode when you plug it into the computer. You can't get e-mails, phone calls, and SMS when it is in USB mode, but it is still a great feature. You can also drop MP3s into the Music folders manually this way as well.
The Bad
Battery life seems to be less then 24 hours. Still haven't had it that long and haven't given it a heavy work out. A heavy work out would be a full day with lots of e-mails and phone calls. I have a feeling I will be charging it up during the day anytime I plan to be out late at night. I will probably be getting an extended battery that will require a new backplate and make it thicker, when they come out with one.
Apps are all pretty much version 1.0 and lack many features you would expect them to have. Very little in the way of customizing the phone currently. Sure I can load my own MP3s as ringtones (also pretty much any standard audio format). But I can't change the tone for incoming SMS, E-mails, or calendar events. I am guessing these features will come when the software is updated.
Contacts are nice it loaded my Facebook, Mobile Me, and Outlook, also could have loaded Linkin, G-Mail, and others. Problem is that it is one looooooong contact list. With no way to filter other then search alphabetically. Hopefully future version will allow you to filer by category. I combined a bunch of contacts I had, and deleted allot of my older "Black Book" numbers to try and condense down my list.
Can't delete or organize certain apps to clear out stuff I will never use, I can't delete the NASCAR app or Sprint TV, etc... and can't filter which apps show up. Hopefully updates will change this.
Minor issue with e-mail, when I delete a message it goes back to the e-mail list not the next unread message. It makes going through a deleting long list of e-mails more of a task.
The Ugly
No SD card slot, it has 8GB of memory built in but no way to add any more. With the availability and size of SD and Micro SD cards it sucks that this phone can't use them.
Non standard micro-USB connection on the phone. I have seen this connection on a few digital cameras as well so it is not completely costume, but it is a flat micro-USB connection meaning the typical cable will not work. So if I want a spare I have to hunt one down and play top dollar.
Anntena seems to be average to poor, was downstairs in the server room and had barely 1 bar, old phone had issues down there as well but most of the time had like 3 bars. This is something I have to test over time, see how it works with the analog areas, etc...
Note: Do not have a touchstone yet for charging, will probably mail order one soon.