My Palm Real Reviewer stint, which lasts for about 6 months, started a couple weeks ago. The device they currently have me using is the Palm Pre, the first smartphone running Palm's all-new webOS handheld operating system.
As a long-time (since early 1996) veteran of Palm OS devices -- really, I can honestly say that I can count on two hands the number of days since May of 1996 that I've gone without relying on a Palm OS device for something -- adapting to an entirely new platform had me a bit apprehensive. But, as Palm OS is going the way of OS/2 and CP/M, I'm forced to move to something, and the Pre is pretty enticing. So, this is my first attempt at summarizing some of the highs and lows of the Palm Pre and webOS, especially as it compares to my previous phone, the Palm Centro.
1. Man, the Palm Pre is teensy! Coming from Treos weighing down my pants over the past several years, I thought the Centro was rather petite, but the Pre makes the Centro look downright beefy. Shorter, narrower, thinner, and lighter, the Pre is very compact and feels nice in the hand.
2. The slider is a bit of a hassle. Having been on Treos and a Centro since the Treo 300 first came out in late 2002, I've gotten used to having a physical QWERTY keyboard on my phone. In fact, that's reason #1 why I didn't consider getting an iPhone. Having used one (my sister's) a fair amount, plus hands-on time in the Apple store, I just didn't feel comfortable with the virtual keyboard. When it comes to typing speed and tactile feedback, there's no substitute for physical buttons. However, when closed, the Pre has only one button (which brings up the cards view) visible. To access the keyboard, it has to be slid out from underneath the display. Yes, that's reasonably easy to do and I'm getting increasingly used to doing it, but it's still not as convenient as having the keys accessible all the time. The trade-off, of course, is the extra height of the display that might have to be given up. Those extra 160 pixels are very handy, so I'm not sure this isn't a great trade-off. More time is needed for me to make up my mind on this aspect. I do like the keyboard, however...very easy and comfortable to type on, in my opinion.
3. Multitasking FTW! Seriously...I had no idea how much I'd come to love multitasking on the Palm Pre. The card view in webOS makes it incredibly easy to switch between tasks, something my old Palm OS devices never did. Opening a new app closed the previous one, sometimes losing state information, which made it less than convenient. For example, if I wanted to add a phone number for someone to a calendar entry, I'd have to stop editing the calendar item, open the addressbook, find the person, copy the phone number, open the calendar back up, navigate back to the day and event I was editing, open it for editing again, and paste the number in. With the Pre, when I use Universal Search to find the contact, I can open that entry and copy the phone number while keeping the calendar event open for editing. This is so much more efficient and convenient than non-multitasking Palm OS was. And, as I have used Windows Mobile devices off and on over the years, even though WinMo does multitask, it doesn't let the user switch among running tasks nearly as fluidly as webOS does.
4. Comparing the Pre to the Centro is interesting. There are loads of really cool things the Pre can do that the Centro cannot (e.g., GPS, multitasking, widescreen video, Synergy-based PIM syncing, etc.). However, there are several little things the Centro can do that the Pre cannot...yet. For example, here's a short list of functions that come to mind as missing on the Pre (although I'm entirely optimistic that all these minor issues will be resolved in due time, either by Palm or by a developer):
• Can't copy text or images from websites and emails (the browser and email app don't permit that).
• Controlling the email client with keyboard shortcuts (I was a dedicated Snappermail user, which has very powerful keyboard commands to facilitate rapid processing of one's Inbox...the Pre is missing all that and relies entirely on gestures and on-screen button presses, which are slower).
• Heavy customization via 3rd party apps/hacks (For example, one app I always used on my Treos and Centro was KeyCaps600, which let you capitalize a letter when typing by using a long key press and get the symbol for a key by hitting it twice quickly. That's an incredibly convenient function and one I still miss dearly on the Pre).
• Video recording. Why is that not enabled on the Pre? It has a much better camera and loads more storage space than my Centro...so why no video recording?
• Miscellaneous settings (e.g., font size) in most apps
• Emoticons in chat (my wife and I both thought the ones on Palm OS were cute...why'd they go away?)
• Universal search into email messages, calendar events, tasks, and memos (this seems like a pretty obvious "to be added" item on Palm's engineering checklist)
5. The camera is WONDERFUL. I use the camera on my phone a lot...over a thousand photos in my personal collection show up as having been taken on a Pre or Centro. The 3-megapixel camera (with LED flash, even) on the Pre is terrific. Here's a shot I took out my front door just now as an example:
6. So far, I miss my expansion storage slot much less than I thought I would. I always used the SD card in my Treos very heavily, such as for capturing photos and video, storing off-board apps, and keeping some media handy. One use case where I missed it so far was when I wanted to copy a bunch of photos I took with the Pre's camera to my PC. I had to break out the USB cable, which I don't always have with me. Before, I could just pop out the SD or MicroSD card and insert that into my PC's card reader. Maybe they're equally convenient, but my laptop has an SD card reader built in, yet I'd have to carry a microUSB cable with me to connect the Pre. One offsetting feature the Pre has is the ability to upload to photo-sharing websites, such as Photobucket and Facebook, directly from the photo viewer. My Centro could kinda-sorta do that with Facebook, but not as simply and elegantly as the Pre does.
7. It's a really FUN device to use. The UI is gorgeous and nearly everything is quite intuitive, so it's no problem getting the hang of operating the phone. I can hand it to people and most can do whatever they like with minimal intervention/instruction from me. Getting it back from them is usually the hardest part. :-)
8. Unified IM/SMS is quite nice. Being able to easily switch back and forth between IM (e.g., Google Talk or AIM) and texting/SMS is nifty, especially since it shows each of your contacts as a threaded "conversation" regardless of how each message was sent or received.
9. Battery life could be better. I've found some settings (e.g., set email polling to "as messages arrive" to rely on push rather than an "every 15 minutes" type pull) that give better performance for me and am now able to get through a full day with room to spare on the battery meter. I can't go 2 days like I did with the Centro, but I tend to charge nightly anyway. Given all the tech the Pre has that the Centro doesn't (e.g., Wi-Fi, 8GB of RAM, GPS, an HVGA screen, etc.), yet they use the same 1150mAh battery, it's not surprising that the Pre's battery life is a bit worse. But that just gives me an excuse to get one of those nifty Touchstone wireless chargers. And, hey, at least I can swap in a new battery in a pinch.
10. Included out-of-the-box is a pretty nice variety of apps. One I was especially surprised and pleased by is Sprint Navigation, which basically is all the best features of a GPS unit (e.g., real-time 3-D and 2-D mapping with street name pronunciation and multiple route calculation modes). But, there's so much potential here that I cannot WAIT for the flood of apps to hit once the webOS SDK is officially launched and Palm's App Catalog is opened to the public. Based on talking with some devs I know who have access to the SDK, it's really easy to get an app fleshed out and working, so I expect we'll see a small tidal wave of stuff come out in the latter parts of 2009. And that's about when Palm and Adobe should be bringing Flash support to the Pre, which will make some really interesting apps (especially games) possible.
Overall, based on about 2 weeks of having a Palm Pre in my pocket every day, I think it is a very, very promising piece of gear and webOS is poised to be a major platform for years to come. If you have specific questions about the user experience you'd like me to address in future posts, please leave a comment. And, if you're a Twitter user, you can catch some of my shorter comments about the Pre by following CRA1G. Thanks!
Hey, I used to live a few blocks from where this photo was taken, and my girlfriend lived only about a block away! It's a small world, after all! :o)
Good writeup. What I want to know is how the phone works with Google and can it sync email and calendars and docs and stuff.
Alex, that's a pretty complicated issue and one I'll have to address in a future post dedicated to the subject. In short, however, it works really well...much better than I'd expected. Google Docs does not sync to the Pre, though.
Like you, I am a palm forever user, my most recent being the Treo 755p. I also really like the pre. There are so many things I really miss from my old phone however.
I really thought that they would keep what made palm great and just add the new stuff. I did not realize I was giving up what made palm a really great organizer. I am hoping for some mighty updates really soon.
In the calendar (the site that frustrates me the most): too few colors available, month view has no colors, there is no year view & the alarm settings are too limited.
In the contacts: no groups setting available and most of the data that I had stored in the notes section transferred over as gibberish.
Speed dial is limited and dumb. You have to press a letter and hold it down for a really long time & you have to remember what letter you assigned each person. Give me back the sorted lists like on the treos.
Hardware: would really like a toggle for scrolling and moving the cursor around.
Text messaging: no character countdown to let you know when you're close to 160. No quick texts- I hate having to text the same message over and over again. No emoticons :-(
Also, on my treo, the main screen had a quick view of my upcoming appts. and of important calendar events like birthdays,etc without opening the calendar section at all.
I feel like I have taken a major step back in productivity. I'm truly hoping for some of these things to be added as updates. Then the already great phone would be spectacular.
I'm left handed and if you cradle the phone on your left side you cover the microphone. Could've put it in the middle or even better two...one on left and on on right.
The calendar app is slow slow slow in my opinion. I fired up my treo and went to the day I wanted in a couple of seconds. With the pre it's a SLOW scroll. I also miss the upcoming appointments.
THe phone scratches very easily.
The scrolling through previous calls is very mushy. I feels like I just spun a wheel of fortune at a carnival. And then sometimes it stops on a dime and sometime when you stop it it registers that you want to call that number.
Voice Dialing!!!!!!!!!!
I had voice signal with the Treo and miss it. I drive a lot and need something where I can hit the center button and call someone without looking at the screen. I greatly miss this feature.
KeyCaps is also something I had and miss it.
These things are directly related to my productivity.
What's important about this is that Palm had always been about productivity, like RIMM, and Apple about entertainment. I feel that the urge to compete with Apple was so great that they sacrificed productivity for flashy web browsing. I feel I've taken a giant step backward. I even miss my Treo. Sadly, my partner just got the iphone 3gs and it has everything I want...except the higher prices from ATT.
Some good things:
I love the texting. The previous message complained about the 160 char. countdown. THe pre splits them up and sends more than one message so I don't agree that it's a problem.
The browser is terrific and fast.
Email app is good enough for me.
Hopefully palm will address some of these issues otherwise, I may terminate my contract early.
To quickly add a phone number from your contact list to a calendar entry, note or task in Palm OS, just hit menu then the letter L. You can instantly paste in a contact name and phone number without leaving the PIM app you are in. Palm calls this Phone Lookup and has had this since very early on. One of the best kept secrets by far.
One way I have used this is to keep regularly attended meetings and appointment as contact entries, then hit menu, L and paste them into a time slot in my calendar.
ohh what a good place where you live!
Great write up. I am using a Centro and love the look of the Pre but haven't jumped there yet as I do so many custom things on my Centro. I am waiting for Pre V3.0 to come to Verizon Wireless and then I will jump all over that phone.
The thing to wrap your brain around with this device is that it's a fundamentally different device than your PalmOS device was. That device was built for personal organization that could do communication and web a little...this thing is built for web, communications, and media, and it has some organizer functions, too. If you get the Palm OS Classic emulator, you'll have all the Palm OS goodness that you loved about your Treo.
Also, I bet they will allow tethering on Verizon's network, because if you use this device the way it's meant to be used, you had better get unlimited data. A 4GB dataplan might end up as a huge overage bill waiting for you at the end of the month.
My biggest problem with it, and I've been using my Pre for about a month now, is the hardware quality. What I wouldn't give for an anodized aluminum case and a smoother slider for the keyboard. Other than that, this thing's screen is on par with the iPhone. The occasional "sluggishness", I believe, has everything to do with software/multitasking/OS than the screen like some have stated. You also have to realize that your UI is basically a web browser. When you really grasp that, you start feeling a lot more "at home" with using the device. Once I got used to the keyboard, I was fine with it. Not as nice as the Treo's, but still far better than having to poke at an onscreen keyboard. And it's remarkably compact, when you measure it up with other phone's keyboards, it's much smaller yet still usable.
What I love about it is that it's the first Linux device I have ever used where if I hadn't known it was a Linux device, I wouldn't have had a clue that it WAS running on Linux. The UI is just that good...the key to a great UI is to completely hide the guts, and webOS does that incredibly well.
As a developer, I like being able to write an app quickly. On the other hand, I'm hoping Palm beefs up Mojo and gives me more control over the internals, or ports Mono (.NET for Linux) to the platform, so I can write more sophisticated and powerful apps. Right now, I have to do some pretty hackish stuff to root the device and install things via the USB Sync, and that just isn't something you can get 99% of end users to do.
I can't argue with your review, but I find the PIM apps to be severly lacking. Not only can I not search the calendar, but the calendar itself is lacking functionality in a big way compared to Datebk 5 or 6. Until there are robust, business class calendar capabilities, I don't think I can switch to the Pre, as much as I might like to.
Bob, I agree. As these are all version 1.0 apps, my hope (nay, expectation) is that they will mature rather quickly and/or be replaced by more feature-laden alternatives from 3rd-party devs. Just like in the old days! :-)
I use "tasks" and "memo" on a Centro a lot. How did you convert them to the Pre? What's your experience syncing them to the cloud or even to the desktop?
Bob: The Pre comes with a data conversion tool that you're supposed to use if migrating from a Palm OS device (like a Centro). It's a one-time thing...it converts your 4 basic PIM app data to work on the Pre and then asks you where you want your calendar and contacts synced to (Google, Exchange, etc.). Tasks and Memos are kept only on the Pre and only synced to Palm's servers via the daily backup...as of yet, there aren't any cloud services that work with the Pre's tasks or memos, although I expect tasks to sync with Google soon.
Great review, thanks! I was on the sidelines whether to upgrade to PRE from my PRO, which I am happy with except for the small screen. But after reading this review I definitely want to switch. I have one question – can you install windows fonts like ARIAL Unicode MS or Sylfaen to PRE? This will allow reading web sites in different languages.
I too am a Palm user from 1996... I have so much personal-information-management stuff of my Centro! I'm in the last 2 days of my 30-day-takeback period of the HTC hero. And I'm still on the fence! What I miss most on the android phone: UNIVERSAL SEARCH!!!!!!!!! and a physical keyboard. And I fumble-pocket-dial people ....
If the Pre does not have Universal Search what's the point? If I want to find: my frequent flyer number, my gym locker combination (all pw protected BTW), my window dimensions, what I bought people for Christmas in 2002... all I have to do is a keyword search for anything INSIDE a calender or especially Memo item and the Centro finds it. It's the whole reason to carry a Palm around with you everywhere.
If the Pre can't do that... I don't know. I know I do NOT like having EVERYTING "in the cloud" instead of local on my phone. So I can get to my todo list while on a plane for example.
I'll go in the store today and play with the Pre. (Will Sprint get the Pre Pllus???) Maybe my gut feel will tell me what to do.