Palm Pre in Review
I’ve had the Palm Pre now for a couple of months and have a much more detailed review that I can give. First thing is that the software that runs the Palm Pre is awesome, its easy to use, and it looks great too with a well designed Graphic User Interface (GUI). I had to return my phone several times and am now on my 3rd phone do to lemons. But overall I like the phone, it just took a few times to get one that was not broken.
The problems that I have run into are the following:
- The charger port on the phone is hidden and impossible to open unless you first slide the phone in the ‘OPEN’ position (very annoying)
- The phone is VERY, VERY, VERY SLOW.. did I mention that its slow? This mus have something to do with the onboard memory because after doing a restart it will run at a great speed until about a week later.
- The phone is supposed to slide up and down, and that is great.. but I had issues with the phone wanting to rotate left and right during use. I felt like it was a rubik’s cube.
- The phone has an earphones Jack, but not a wired jack for a headset, or earpiece. This is annoying for me because I don’t like blue-tooth.
- The phone does not have a built in Video Camera… when I purchased the phone I didn’t even think to look, I suppose I just expected it to come with a video camera as an obvious included item, but not so.
P.S. if anyone ever releases an application for this feature please let me know, I would love to have video capability. - The phone has a keyboard, but it does not have a keypad for the touch-screen, I thought this was odd since most phone with a full screen give you a touch pad so you don’t have to slide it open every-time you want to type a message or number into the phone.
- The speakerphone is worthless on this phone. I have tried the speakerphone in my car, in my house, in my office… it doesnt matter, it is too hard to hear the person on the other end through the speaker. And the person on the other end of the line always complains whenever I switch it to speaker (I have tested this with dozens of different people)… so this means that the built in microphone thats used for speakerphone is not very good quality.
- Applications, this phone does have a good selections of applications that can be used (I wish all the companies would get together and make 1 common language for all the applications to run off of). As far as a phone to be used for business it is lacking a few applications that can make life easier. The main application that I would like to see developed is Skype (Instant Messenger).
- I have hung up on several people with this phone on accident. The phone will keep turning the screen on when you have it against your ear and if your ear touched the screen it has a high probability of hanging up on the call. I think the solution for this would be to make the screen turn off after a set time and not turn back on unless you press a button or the call ends.
- The screen seems to scratch very easily.
I cant just give you a list of all the bad things without listing some of the good qualities that this phone has. I am still pleased with this phone, and the above issues are things that I found annoying and would like to see rectified. But for most people I dont think the bulk of these issues will affect them.
- Multi-touch screen (great for zooming into photos).
- Great locking device built into the software to prevent mis-dials when the phone is in your pocket. Although one improvement that could be made to this device is to allow the phone to lock without needing a password to regain entry, but instead to just use the sliding unlock button located on the screen.
- Good selection of applications
- the online support for this device is widely available on the internet.
- The camera takes decent pictures
- The phone has a very nice design and looks very sleek and is thin
Lets face it, you didnt read this review to find out all the good things about the palm pre but instead you need to know whats wrong with it to find out if its something you can live with.
If you have anything to add to this review please leave a comment.
