Socialmedialand

I know that there are already tons of reviews on the new Palm Pre out there but

1. I stood in line for 2 hours to get one on the first day so I feel like that entitles me to my own review

2. This review is from the perspective of a normal user, not someone completely versed in geek speak (I can understand a little but I’m not completely fluent…)

3. Did I mention the line I stood in?

I’ll keep it short and sweet, I promise.

What I love:

The OS: Palm’s new WebOS is the major attraction. This is how an OS should be built. It  integrates my digital life into conveniently packaged segments. This phone thinks about my life the way I do. For example, I don’t think about each message from a person as one message, I think of it as a conversation. I don’t think of each calendar appointment as an individual thing – I think about everything I have to do today regardless of whether it’s at work or home.

The Inbox is a true inbox – it imports all my various email accounts into one place where I can view messages all together or sorted by inbox and folder.

Same with the calendar, every type of calendar I have just layers into one interface, but then I can control if I’d like to look at one specifically or exclude another.

Contacts are awesome – I imported my Facebook and it automatically linked them to the phone numbers I had in my phone (note: I used first and last names in my phone which made this easier, if you don’t you might have to spend some time linking accounts together.) I also imported my AIM and linked the screen names to my friends names. Now when I talk to them, via text or AIM or a combo of the two, all the messages appear in one threaded conversation.

The Apps: Ok so the apps really aren’t anything new – a lot of stuff that’s already available on iPhone and Blackberry has been adapted to the Pre. What’s cool about it is that I can have up to 15 open at once (the store rep told me after 8 it starts to slow down but still…that’s 7 more than other phones…) So I can bring up my email, bring up my FlightView app, copy and paste my flight number in, add that to my calendar, and done. (FlightView is also cool because you can actually watch flights’ progress in real time!) I can have several internet windows running at once as well which can make things a lot easier to navigate.

Copy/Paste: Speaking of copy/paste - I’m really glad I have that function. Makes life a TON easier.

The Look/Keyboard: I know there have been complaints about the keyboard but honestly – I can’t stand on screen keyboards so I’m glad it has one. I wish it had been done horizontal rather than vertical and I miss my Treo’s buttons compared to these gummies but all things considered I like it. Also, the phone itself was smaller than I expected it to be and I really like the shape of it.

What I don’t love so much:

Power/Battery: The battery life isn’t so great. I’m comparing it to the Treo and not the other “hot” phones that are out there so I don’t know how it stacks up to those. But my Treo could go 2 days or more on a charge and the Pre really needs to be plugged in every night at minimum. I do use the Pre more because it’s so fun so maybe that will pass, but I still think the battery life could be better.

Speaking of plugging it in, someone told me that Palm says they make the only chargers for it – not sure if that’s a true statement from Palm or not but I do know that iGo makes a tip for the Pre that works like a charm. I say they make “a tip” because their chargers are universal and you just switch the tip out for whatever device you’re charging. I know this one works on the Pre because they gave me a charger to test. You’ll notice on the site that the tip number doesn’t list the Pre as a device yet (they’re still testing it in their own lab) but it will soon – and for a lot cheaper than Palm chargers. The touchstone looks pretty cool, a magnetized stand that you just stick your phone on and it charges it, it’s just pretty spendy so I haven’t got my hands on one yet.

One last note about power. I was talking to a good friend who I hadn’t heard from in a while, and my phone was running out of battery, I plugged it in and we talked for another hour. Being plugged in and in-use caused it to heat up pretty bad. Then right after we got off the phone my boyfriend called and about 20 minutes into our conversation the phone just gave up. I can’t explain it any better than that. It wouldn’t place calls, it wouldn’t accept calls, it just sat there. It’s only happened the one time but it was pretty frustrating. Short battery life coupled with the inability to have extended conversations while it’s plugged in could be a real issue for me. Since then I’ve just tried to manage the battery better so hopefully it won’t happen again.

Email set up: Without getting too technical, if you have Microsoft Outlook Exchange and you want to set up an EAS account you have to have a third party certificate. If you have a self signed certificate you have to go through this whole circus of a process to make it work and sometimes, that’s still not enough. You can’t ignore the error and there’s no way around it. I created a work around by syncing my Outlook calendar with Gmail but that only works for the calendar. I just saw an app appear in the store called “Pocket Mirror” that claims to sync your Pre with Outlook via the WiFi, so you sync it when you’re in the office and then I’m assuming you can’t do much but view your items when you’re away. I haven’t tried it yet but that’s my next step. It’s frustrating because a lot of people seem to be having this problem, even back in the testing and beta periods, and there’s still no actual fix from Palm. You can choose from third party work arounds or nothing.

Slider: When I slide the phone open and closed it always feels a little precarious to me, like it would be super easy to break.

Final Conclusion:

I absolutely love it. The pros outweigh the cons no contest. The pros are really about the integral functioning of the device, while the cons are minor gripes and things that can be expected with a new release and may evolve as the WebOS is replicated on new devices in the future.

Any one else get one? Want to share your thoughts? Leave me a comment!

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