Derek Bodner’s Blog

I got the Palm Pre this week. I’ve been a palm/handspring user for quite a long time, having a Treo 300, 600, 650 (briefly) and 700p (as well as an iPod Touch and Blackberry Curve, for work). I’ve become accustomed to the old PalmOS. and the Treo’s overall have treated me very well, but it’s been sorely in need of an update for the past 4 or so years, falling behind in many areas.

Being a sprint customer, my options for a good smartphone are limited. I’m also a huge Linux supporter, and love the fact that this phone is a linux-based device. Also, while from a technical perspective Palm has been behind for quite a few years, their attention to detail on user interfaces gave me reason to look forward to their next offering.

So, I’ve been looking forward to the Pre for quite some time. That being said, I’m not a big fan of being an early adopter. If I did decide the Pre was my next phone, I expected to wait for the 2nd generation (at least) devices. Every device (iPhone, Android, everyone) has problems with 1st gen devices, particularly with brand new OS’s. People forget how flimsy the Apple apps were at launch, or some of the weird design decisions. Mistakes are made, products aren’t finished, and they improve over time.

That being said, I’m a gadget geek, and after walking into a sprint store and (more or less) liking the device that I tried, I talked myself into it.

Dislikes
- No expandable memory. 8 gigs for me just isn’t enough. Can’t store either all the photos I want or all the music I want, much less both. Would have been nice to have some form of expandable memory, even if the device was slightly larger because of it.
- Keyboard. Keys are small, too close together, feel cheap, and the top of the slider is too close to the bottom of the top part of the phone. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not HORRIBLE. I can still type on it, better than I can on the virtual keyboard of my iPod touch. But it’s not as good of a keyboard as my blackberry, or even my old Treo’s.
- PIM functionality. One of the strengths of the old PalmOS have been almost forgotten here. The tasks are virtually worthless, memo’s barely functional, and calendar a step back (in terms of features) from the old PalmOS. And I miss my today screen.
- Lack of customization. You can’t change the ring tone on text messages. Seriously. The device is littered with stuff that you think “I should be able to customize this”, and yet you can’t. I expect some of this to be added with updates, others to be fixed when 3rd party apps start hitting the app store. In terms of “this feels like a 1.0 device”, this is the area that you see it the most. I hope this gets fixed relatively soon.
- WTF decisions. No ability to change text message ring tones? No ability to have a flashing LED when I missed a call/text? Hopefully this will be addressed (there is a backlit center button that can be used). These two missing options by themselves would have me returning the phone if it was my primary work phone, as I’d be missing text messages (which we use for alerting, and I’m on call) left and right. Luckily, this is my personal phone. Needs to be fixed. Also, texts aren’t timestamped (grouped solely by date), and you can’t forward texts. Really?
- No 5 way directional navigation. Sure, mostly tapping’s fine, but there are times (i.e. moving up a line) where a 5 way nav system like the old treo’s would be preferred. There are tricks (holding option and sliding across the screen) to accomplish this, but those aren’t all that intuitive, and would be much easier with a good 5-way nav button. And there’s some wasted space (button wise) that could be utilized.

But that, overall, is greatly outweighed by the good.
Likes:
- Love sync’ing everything with my google account rather than some clunky, old desktop software. Hated having to be at my desktop, remember my cable, and deal with all that. Hitting “sync now” from anywhere and shipping my calendar and contacts to my google apps account (that I setup for the sole purpose of backing up my Pre) is great.
- User interface. While I think it’s not all that customizable, the interface is beautiful, and intuitive. The screen is sharp with great contrast, and once you get used to the new interface, it’s very intuitive to use.
- Attaches as a USB Drive. Want to add a new MP3 ringtone? Copy/paste. Want to add photos? Music? Back up the contents on the Pre? Copy/paste. I hate going through apps, such as Palm Desktop or iTunes, to manage my libraries.
- Apps. Sure, it’s not the apple apps store, but then again, the apple apps store wasn’t what it is now on release. After coming from the stone age of the treo’s, just having these apps as a possibility is great. Easy to use, easy to install, and the ones available fill needs for the site.
- Email. Much better than the app palm used to ship with treo’s, this email app is actually functional. Could it be improved? Sure. But it’s at least on par with the iphone version.
- Size/form factor. Much smaller than my old treo’s (with a better screen). I need a real keyboard, and this one sliding out makes the phone much more manageable. And the phone feels good in my hands during a phone call.
- Bluetooth actually works. It might be something other users take for granted, but if you ever owned a Treo, this is a huge deal.
- Notifications. Non-abtrusive, but always reminding. I’ll try to post a screenshot to show what I mean. Really, really well done.
- Muiltitasking. Left this last one until the last for a reason. It works. Companies (*cough*apple*cough*) have claimed that staying away from multitasking is a good thing. Well, while I initially had some concerns on the Pre’s battery life, it’s more than usable now after a few days of letting it drain all the way down and re-charging. Some common sense needs to be applied (there’s no reason to have bluetooth on if you’re not pairing it with a device, no reason to have the weather app constantly running and updating, no reason to have the gps constantly running, etc), but the battery has more than enough to get me through the day on one charge. It’s not the battery life of the old Treo’s, but it’s at least comparable to the iPhone. Multitasking is not killing the battery life, nor is it slowing the phone down at a noticeable level. This is usable multitasking, and the ability to be checking email, drop over to my browser, fire off a text message, check movie times, then go back and finish my email without having to start over is priceless.

Overall, this is a great communication device, that does a great job of managing my online contacts, great phone, and an OK PDA. Once it improves as a PDA (which should be able to be done with a combination of updates to existing palm apps and through 3rd party apps), it will be almost complete. There are times I miss functionality I had in my old Treo, but overall there’s no way I could see myself going back.

If I had to give it a grade? A-. As I said, there are some definite “WTF” design decisions, some lacking features, and an overall polish that just isn’t quite there. Overall, it exceeded my expectations, and webOS is a great base for palm to rebuild their business on. Assuming the Pre sells enough to keep Palm a viable company, I think good things are to come for their new OS.