I've been testing the Pre for more than two weeks and like it a lot. Pre is easy on the eyes. I can't think of a more comfortable cellphone in my hand. It has a lovely screen for taking in
Palm, struggling in recent years, is looking to the Pre for salvation. Its iconic Palm Pilot personal digital assistant is a fond, long-faded memory. And Palm's Treo smartphone franchise has lost shine to iPhones and BlackBerrys. Sprint, too, is counting heavily on the Pre: The nation's third-largest wireless carrier has been bleeding customers.
But there's reason for optimism: The companies are teaming up at a time of ripe innovations in a still-burgeoning smartphone market.
Pre is built around the idea that your information should follow you, whether it lives on your phone, a computer at home or the office, or on the Internet. You can automatically bring in phone numbers, calendar entries and e-mail accounts from
Like the iPhone, the Pre has a "multitouch" screen built around clever finger navigation, or "gestures." You can pinch or spread your fingers to zoom in and out of Web pages or flick to rapidly scroll through lists. What sets Pre apart is the way it lets you keep multiple live applications open at once in small windows, or activity cards. You can switch among them with a swipe of your finger. When you're finished with an application, you can flick its card off the top of the screen to get rid of it.
Still, I encountered occasional sluggishness and bugs. At one point, the clock was out of whack. At another, I had to shut down the Pre because the onscreen icons kept dancing around. I also longed for the visual voice mail feature of the iPhone — Pre's unobtrusive "notifications" dashboard flagging incoming messages, system alerts and such is no substitute. And I wish Pre had more third-party applications at launch.
It isn't lost on Palm that the first of the two-year iPhone contracts will soon expire. Pre matches the iPhone's $200 price (for the 8-gigabyte model), after a rebate and a two-year wireless contract. Palm's exclusive partner, Sprint, has priced its voice and data plans aggressively. A monthly voice/data plan with 450 "anytime" minutes goes for $69.99. An unlimited voice and data plan fetches $99.99 a month. Plans include unlimited text, picture and video messaging, plus Sprint GPS navigation and Sprint TV.
Apple isn't exactly standing pat. Speculation abounds that it will unwrap a brand-new iPhone next week at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. That's just two days after the Pre starts selling at Sprint stores as well as
Sprint says it anticipates shortages and will collect names on a waiting list if its own stores sell out. Even so, it's hard to imagine a repeat of the frenzy surrounding the original iPhone launch in June 2007.
A storm of smartphones
These are interesting times for smartphones.
Google continues to push advances on its Android mobile operating system. Same goes for Microsoft and Windows Mobile.
"We've got a lot of work to do (in mobile)," Microsoft CEO
Palm and Sprint also had work to do. That was the prevailing wisdom in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, right before Palm CEO Ed Colligan and Executive Chairman
"This is the thing that will define us," Elevation Partners co-founder Roger McNamee said last week at D7. Elevation has pumped $425 million into Palm.
Based on my tests, Elevation's investment seems justified. With the Pre, Palm got a lot more right than it got wrong, and over time, you can expect to see WebOS on other devices.
A Pre-view:
Design
Pre is 3.9 inches high by 2.3 inches wide and two-thirds of an inch thick — shorter but thicker than the iPhone. The compact, slightly curvy design results in a screen that's a tad smaller than the iPhone's. It is by no means obvious that there is also a hidden, slide-out physical keyboard, a nod to consumers who don't fancy the iPhone's touch-screen keyboard. The Pre has a virtual dialing pad for tapping out phone calls, but there's no virtual keyboard to complement its physical equivalent. At times, I would have liked the option: You don't always want to slide out the keyboard.
You can search for people or applications on the Pre by typing just a few keystrokes. If it cannot find any matches on the phone through this "universal search" feature, it gives you the option to expand your search to Google, Google Maps, Wikipedia or
As with the iPhone, the Pre has sensors that change the orientation of the screen when you turn it to its side. Another sensor makes the screen go dark when you hold the phone to your ear during a call. That way your cheekbone won't inadvertently press keys.
Music and video
You can sync Pre with iTunes, just as if it were an iPhone or iPod. Well, there's at least one difference. You can't sync music or video saddled with digital copy restrictions. Nor can you buy iTunes music directly from the Pre. There's a nice alternative, at least for music: The Pre is integrated with the Amazon MP3 store, so you can sample and purchase songs on the fly. You need Wi-Fi to download music, though you can preview songs over Sprint's network.
Skipping songs during playback is as easy as flicking one album cover aside for another. While listening to music, you can search for related content through Amazon or YouTube. The Pre also supports Bluetooth stereo, if you happen to own those wireless headphones.
The Web
Like the iPhone, Pre has an excellent browser that displays Web pages in their real layouts. Sprint's 3G network was pretty snappy in decent coverage, though Wi-Fi when available is obviously faster. The browser doesn't support the Adobe Flash video standard. Palm and Adobe hope to deliver the capability in the future.
Camera
The Pre has a better camera than the iPhone, though that's not saying much. It's a 3-megapixel model with an automatic flash. You can share pictures via MMS picture messaging or upload them directly to Facebook or
Palm says talk time for the Pre is five hours, and standby time is 300 hours. Video will play for five hours, the company says, and you can browse the Web (via Wi-Fi) for about 5½ hours.
Doing a combination of those things, I got through most days without having to charge the Pre. And the Pre, unlike the iPhone, comes with an easily removable battery.
Though a splurge at $70, Palm has come up with a nifty accessory called Touchstone that lets you charge the Pre without a cable, by putting it on top of the dock.
The first Palm Pre will certainly give the iPhone and other rivals a run for their money. To be sure, there are areas where it could improve: Bring on the apps.
But Palm has delivered a device that will keep it in the game and give it a chance to star in it.
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