Expert’s Rating
Pros
Cons
Our Verdict
In the other to mid ’ 90 , when Palm was at the top of its game , the name “ PalmPilot ” was effectively synonymous with an entire class of devices : the Personal Digital Assistant . Into the later part of that decade , Palm even negociate to leverage its PalmOS into the early smartphone market place with the Treo business line , even while the fellowship was repeatedly bought and deal , changing hands more time than the Queen of Spades in a game of Old Maid . But at a sure level , the smartphone mart kept move on and Palm ’s innovation went dead .
Then , this past January at the Consumer Electronics Show , the troupe rolled out a brand new fresh sound with a stigma raw operating organization . And mass wentcrazy . knight the latest in a foresighted origin of “ iPhone killer , ” the Palm Pre and its webOS took some aspiration from the iPhone , but also attempted to make its own mark in the world with feature film like multitasking and unified contact . The equipment launched shortly before Apple ’s own instauration of the iPhone 3GS , and so it seemed clear that the two were destined to be pit in deadly battle against each other .
With sagging net profit and an acclivitous slog in front of it , Palm has had to play the farm on the Pre ’s success as well as that of its underlying ground - up technical revamp , the webOS . So can Palm do it ? Does the Pre survive up to its hype ? Let ’s take a look at what the equipment brings to the table .
With its keyboard retracted, the Pre is shorter and slightly narrower than the iPhone, though it is thicker.
Slip and slide
The Pre add up with a few add-on that most smartphone owners will recognize : there ’s an AC battery charger with flip out - out prongs , a USB charging / information cable , and a pair of earbuds . In addition , I get a fortune to try out the nifty Touchstone inducive battery charger — but more on that afterward .
With its keyboard retracted , the Pre is short and slimly narrower than the iPhone , though it is thicker .
In its retracted form , the Pre is a little narrow and short than the iPhone , measuring in at 3.9 inches marvelous , 2.3 inches wide ; it is , however , noticeably thick : 0.67 inch liken to the iPhone ’s 0.48 inch . The two are identical in weight unit however , each librate about 4.8 apothecaries' ounce ( or , if you prefer to vagabond metric - style , 135 Hans C. J. Gram ) . Despite that commonality , though , there ’s something about the Pre that justfeelslight . I assign that principally to its building materials , which bank more hard on charge plate than the iPhone .
With the keyboard extended, the Pre becomes much taller than the iPhone, and difficult to work with just one hand.
The Pre ’s silver screen is a 3.1 - column inch diagonal , smaller than the iPhone ’s 3.5 - inch showing , but the two parcel the same result : 320 by 480 pel . The screens have different smell , too : the iPhone ’s is made of glass while the Palm ’s feels more like hard plastic — in addition , if you catch the Pre ’s projection screen in the right luminousness , you may see a power system of “ dots ” which I make bold is related to the touch sensors . Both screen are touch - capable and , more to the item , both are equal to of multitouch , a feature previously unique to the iPhone .
On the top right quoin of the Pre , you ’ll find the power button and , next to it , a shift that toggle between ring and silent manner . In the center of the Pre ’s top side is a received 3.5 mm stereophonic system headphone jack . The left - hand side of the Pre has the bulk up and down clitoris ; the proper - hand side sports a small door behind which hides the Pre ’s microUSB interface , used for both data and business leader . Unfortunately , the threshold is confiscate with a fragile credit card leash that just implore to be torn off by accident .
The front of the Pre is largely featureless , apart from the earphone at the top ( which looks suspiciously like a button at first glance — several people to whom I showed the Pre tried to press it ) and the semitransparent Center button right below the screen . The pinhole - sized mike is also there , just to the left and below of the release . The back of the gadget has a 3 - megapixel tv camera with LED wink and the Pre ’s speaker .
The Pre’s keyboard is cramped and surrounded by sharp edges.
Of naturally , the Pre is more than suffer the eye , though it does n’t do anything as drastic as transform from a plane into a giant golem . But slue the screenland upwards and the Pre ’s QWERTY keyboard is revealed . While this is n’t absolutely obvious at first ( some the great unwashed tried to “ open ” the Pre as you might a book ) , it ’s natural enough once you ’ve fancy it out .
In universal , the Pre experience pretty just in the hand in this retracted fashion , though its use is limited , since any text entry requires you to slide out the keyboard . At that point , however , the chintzy build quality and poor hardware design really start to show .
With the keyboard reach out , the Pre becomes much taller than the iPhone , and difficult to work on with just one handwriting .
In the Pre’s multitasking system, each card usually represents an application.
Not that there are n’t other planetary house of that . For one matter , the power release , which you need to apply to wake the machine from sleep ( press out the Center clit wo n’t do it ) is on the back one-half of the unit . As a answer , when you slew the screen upwards , the powerfulness button is now obscured by the front half of the telephone , so you have to turn over around the unit to iron it . At that point it ’s also flush with the back of the display slider , which create it somewhat awkward to compress . In fact , it ’s often easier to slip the unit closed , impinge on the power button , and then slide it open again .
The phone jack is also stuck in back of the open Pseudemys scripta , so beware if you have an L - regulate quid — you’ll have to orientate it correctly before sliding the unit open , else the microscope slide action might knock the phone plug loose .
Since the Pre is slightly tapered at both ends , the compass point at which the display slider and the rearward gathering intersect when the unit of measurement is in its open form are not quite even . Unfortunately , this is also where the book controls shack while the unit ’s undefended , which make using those controls annoying — and the edge of the open unit are shrewd , too .
Notifications on the Pre can be hidden as small icons or expanded. Dismissing one is as easy as sliding it off the screen.
That aspect of the Pre ’s construction is worth point out on . While I didn’tslice any cheese with it , I did agree with the assessment that the edge around the keyboard find peculiarly tart . You ’re not going to cut yourself on them , to be certain , but should you end up with the border pressed against your skin , it ’s often uncomfortable . With the exception of the Center push , all of the other strong-arm controls — the power clitoris , mass controls , and ring / silent transposition — experience loose and chinchy . As a whole , the building block throw the impression of being a kidskin ’s toy . The slide action is all correct , but it miss the pleasingka - chunkfeeling of the T - Mobile G1 ’s skidder .
The phone is also distinctly not designed for one - handed cognitive process in its opened state of matter . Given the position your hand is likely in when you slip the unit open — with the pollex pressed on the middle of the display for fight it up — the screen exhibit slidesawayfrom your hand . This means that your thumb ca n’t reach the top of the touchscreen any more . That would n’t be so bad if it were n’t for the fact that the Pre places several controls in the top right field and left niche of the display . In the end , this means that every meter you slide the phone open you ’ll either have to change your grip so you may reach all part of the display — which means you ’ll have to change itbackwhen you want to type — or you ’ll have to use two hands .
And then there ’s the keyboard .
Dragging up from the gesture area summons the Pre’s Quick Launch bar.
Keys to the kingdom
The question of forcible versus practical keyboard is one of the Mac - versus - PC debate of the smartphone niche . To find out Palm tell it , users everywhere are demanding physical keyboards . It ’s true that physical keyboard hold some reward over the practical keyboard vulgarise by the iPhone : the tactile feedback of actually pressing a Florida key , for example . However , the more I used it , the more it became clear to me that the thumb keyboard will eventually be deal a kludge , a holdover , a rudimentary input method — an evolutionary road not take .
The Pre ’s keyboard is cramped and surrounded by sharp edges .
Part of this may be that the Pre ’s physical keyboard is specially bad . The earphone ’s intent mean that the keyboard is confined to portrait orientation . Thus , the keys are midget — each one modest than the tip of your average pencil eraser — and , because of the Pre ’s slide mechanism , the top row is cram up against the bottom of the sliding front instrument panel .
Synergy is Pre’s attempt to unify contact information. When it does work, it’s fantastic.
Here ’s the inwardness of the issue in the physical versus virtual keyboard public debate : they necessitate totally different styles of typing . On strong-arm keyboards , we ’re trained to affect Key precisely and deflect reach multiple key at the same time . This works great on a standard laptop - sized keyboard , where the size of it of the keys is appropriate for fingers .
However , the size of the smartphone physical keyboards confer a couple of particular challenges . For one thing , the orientation and ergonomics of the earphone mean that the thumbs — the thickest of your digit — are the only digit aright positioned for typing . And since your thumbs are much bigger than the keys , in purchase order to forfend hitting other Florida key by mistake , you need to minimize the amount of surface domain that makes physical contact with the tonality . Most people thus finish up typing with the very tips — or even the English — of their thumbs .
Even then , the hazard of making contact with other key fruit is still high , in part due to the other major challenge of forcible keyboards : your finger of necessity obscures the Francis Scott Key you ’re trying to press , so there ’s no way of knowing whether you ’ve press thecorrectkey until it ’s display on CRT screen . At which point , it ’s already too later to do anything about it other than delete and re - type it .
Then there ’s the thing of special character . Palm has a rather conflicted approach to type most non - letter fibre . Numbers , for model , are lay out in keypad way on several of the QWERTY name and rendered in orange — that take a leak sense , as you hit the orange button to shift into figure style ( or entreat it double to enable num - whorl ) . However , many of the other keys have special symbol display on them ( # , ? , : , ! , $ , just to name a few ) . These symbols arenotdisplayed in orange tree , so your initial feeling might be that you would have to hit the “ Sym ” key at the keyboard ’s bottom rightfulness . That ’s not correct , though : that alternatively found a software - based user interface for picking other , less frequently used character ( © , ™ , é , etc . ) .
Give up ? Turns out youstillhave to strike the orange button , even though those eccentric are n’t grade in orange . I understand the desire to make the numbers pop out , but the unintuitive nature of that conclusion is kind of emblematic of the problem face up the physical keyboard .
In general , I found myself far more frustrated with the Pre ’s forcible keyboard than with the iPhone ’s practical keyboard . To be fair , I have been using the iPhone for two years and the Pre only for around two weeks , but I found typewrite even short messages — texts , IMs , Twitter update — a slow and harrowing affair .
The optional Touchstone charger can power up the Pre using induction.
The iPhone has a very smart auto - correction function that helps make typing a band easy by correcting vernacular misspellings and oblation to make out your words . The Pre has a similar system , but it ’s far less fast-growing than the iPhone ’s , and there ’s no visual prompt or feedback to let you jazz it ’s work until it actually corrects a Son . There ’s also no car - completion . I tried in vain to get the Pre to fix my typewriting , but I discovered that pretty much the only reliable way to see it in natural process was by typing a uncouth contraction without the apostrophe — a move it would at once jump to fix . The rest period of the time , the Pre leaves you to the vagaries of your own spelling , for skilful or worse . On the upside , however , buff of typewrite certain expletives will detect that the Pre does n’t immediately insist on censor them .
Oh what a tangled webOS we weave
Of course , the design of the Pre is only the appetiser before the entrée that is Palm ’s webOS . It ’s not really the Pre on which Palm is betting its ship’s company , after all , it ’s the totally new , built - from - the - solid ground - up OS . The Pre is just the first phone to head for the hills the software program , and rumors are already rearing about the next models to use it . So , how does the webOS heap up ?
From my clip with it , amazingly well . While it may not have the attending to detail and design nuances that the iPhone ’s operating organisation does , it ’s still a friendly , eminently capable foundation on which to work up a smartphone .
The webOS gets its name from the fact that it ’s mostly built upon technologies unremarkably used in constructing vane sites : HTML , CSS , and JavaScript . That ’s not to say there is n’t some mystic sauce underlie it all , but the destination on Palm ’s part seems to have been to make the Pre very Web- and net - friendly .
The Pre’s mail client features an option for unified inbox and support for flagging messages.
Unlike with Android , Palm has put out to unfeignedly create a touchscreen - focused operating system . That ’s a good thing , since it gets away from the identity issues that the G1 ’s multitude of user - user interface options spawned . And Palm ’s done surprisingly well at it , thanks to the the very fact that they did n’t spend too much time holding on to the vestige of the outadated PalmOS on which the company made its name .
He tasks me! He tasks me!
The giving marquee feature of the webOS is , of row , multitasking . Palm ’s been stressing the capability in its advertising since it ’s one capability that the iPhone notably lack . There are different philosophies at work here : Apple argues that allow background apps slows down the telephone , feed up resource , kill battery life , and is an affront to freedom and our means of life . Palm , on the other hand , simply acknowledges that userswantto multitask , and permit them have at it , even if the fine mark on the side personal effects is a twain of pages long . essentially , Apple does n’t want to compromise the user experience while Palm ’s willing to give you enough rope to hang yourself .
In the Pre ’s multitasking system , each card usually represents an program .
For the most part , multitasking full treatment pretty swimmingly . The webOS operates on a “ visiting card ” metaphor . Any time you launch an practical software , it ’s represented as a card . To see your card , you weight-lift the Center button . you could use the touch screen to flick through them , then tap on one to bring it to the foreground . When an app is in the foreground , it ’s the only program program you’re able to see ( except for the small strip of notifications at the bottom of the CRT screen , but I ’ll get to that in a moment ) . If you ’re done with an covering , you may go into the card view and just flick it upward to cast aside it — that effectively cease the app . you could rearrange cards by tap and holding on them , then dragging them around .
Got some free time? The Pre compresses time periods where you have no events scheduled.
It ’s a dainty arrangement , and it sense utterly instinctive and nonrational to habituate . Switching between cards is normally pretty fluid , and I did n’t discover outrageous slowdowns in performance . While you’re able to have pretty much as many coating undetermined as you want , the Pre will warn you if you open so many that the phone begins to get overload .
Falling into that trap is n’t difficult . On the iPhone , the enforcement of the one - app limit keep this . For example , if you select a link in an e - post substance , it quits Mail , opens Safari , and display your page . On the Pre , if you come home on a link in an east - chain armour message , it opens the uniform resource locator in the Pre ’s WWW web browser app in a new card . If you get disorder from that link and end up resolve to check the latest sports score or interpret the word , you may forget that the original e - mail message is still subject . Because substance abuser are responsible for clearing out their own poster , it ’s pretty easy to get to a point in time where you abruptly agnize you have half a dozen or more cards loose .
And that forgetfulness can number at a monetary value . While the Pre usually handle multiple tasks pretty well , if you start lade it up with mainframe - intensive jobs ( media playback , GPS direction , etc . ) , then the whole system starts to take a smasher . More than once I found that using a number of other apps while wager music in the background would have the music to skim , a problem I ’ve encounter only infrequently on the iPhone . stamp battery life also require a hit , especially when using feature like the GPS , which consume a lot of power . Playing music and using the GPS on a not too farsighted car slip one Saturday see me hightail it out of battery well before I return home .
Look at me , attend at me
notification on the Pre can be hidden as small icons or expand . Dismissing one is as easy as sliding it off the screen . The ability to escape multiple apps brings with it an issue of how to deal all these multiple channels of entropy . What if you get an e - chain armour while possess an exigent content conversation , or what if you want to pause your medicine while browsing the World Wide Web ? Like the iPhone , the Pre allow for telling of what ’s happening in other apps , and I actually find myself liking its implementation better than the iPhone ’s .
When a notice comes in , the bottom of the card you ’re look at slides up , and an icon and subject matter look below it . For example , you might get a notice of an eastward - mail message you just obtain : the ikon displays an gasbag icon badge with the act of unread messages , along with the sender and dependent blood of the most recent message . If you need to look at the subject matter , solicit it and the Pre will take you to the Mail client and reset the notification . If you ’re playing euphony , a bar at the bottom tells you the name of the current track and the artist , along with previous track , play / intermission , and next rail controls .
If you do n’t tap the apprisal , then after a few present moment , it shrink down and just becomes a small picture in the bottom proper - hand corner of the sieve ; you could wiretap it to amplify the notification . In the expanded view , you could slue presentment off the screen to dismiss them . Overall , it ’s simple , efficient , and above all , non - disruptive . counterpoint that with the iPhone ’s pop - up notifications , which demand your quick and ended care .
You’ve got the touch
Touch interface are a attain - or - girl amour ; the Pre ’s is a substantial double . Many of the move the iPhone innovate to the existence — twitch to soar , swipe to cancel — are here , at least in some cast . Some might shout foul and accuse the Pre of stealing the iPhone ’s mojo , but without a legal court case to back that up , I ’d argue more that the iPhone ’s gestures have become conventional , part of a tactile “ language ” that the Pre has adopt .
savvy the touch syntax of the Pre is moderately straight because of those shared gestures , but the Pre does extend upon the mind in some odd way . For example , the black plastic “ mentum ” below the screen is actually a touch - sensitive “ gesture expanse ” in its own rightfield . When you first release on the phone , Palm walk you through making the “ back ” gesture , a horizontal rightfulness to left swipe performed on this section of the earpiece which is the equivalent of moving hierarchically “ up . ” It ’s a good thing Palm requires you to practice this before using the telephone set , since this characteristic is inherently undiscoverable and unintuitive .
puff up from the gesture domain summon the Pre ’s Quick Launch cake .
There are a few other motion that can be perform in this area . For example , touching the gesture area and flick up opens the Pre ’s Launcher ( its equivalent to the iPhone ’s Home cover ) . On the other hand , if you sweep up upwards — different from riff — starting from the motion area , you ’ll marshal the Quick Launch Browning automatic rifle , a floating ribbon of the apps that lodge in in the Pre ’s “ dock ” area . That ’s kind of neat , but it ’s more eye - candy than useful , peculiarly when you’re able to also easily get to the Quick Launch bar by hitting the Center button .
In plus , the Pre ’s shortcuts for cut , copy , and paste rely on using the gesture area . In most applications , you’re able to also access these functions by tapping on the app name , which is commonly in the top remaining corner of the screen , and then intercept on Edit . However , I noticed that each of these had a shortcut next to them : a bull’s - eye symbolic representation follow by the common alphabetic character for that mastery ( X , C , and cinque ) . It took me several experiments — for object lesson , I tried tapping the screen where I wanted to re-create followed by that letter — until I resorted to the manual of arms , which explained that you have to select some text , tap and holdin the motion areaand then compress the like keyboard key . There ’s no way of figuring this out without being distinguish .
I found the Pre ’s speck screen somewhat less sensitive than the iPhone’s — I often had to tap multiple times for an stimulation to show , and the lag sentence between tapping and getting a response was often slightly longer than I expect , leading to multiple presses . I did kind of like the “ ripple ” that the Pre establish you after you tap the CRT screen . Some of the motions are slightly different from the iPhone ’s , too . For model , when you want to dismiss a telling , the sideways swipe you make is less of a movie and more of a drag .
E pluribus unum
Besides its multitasking capability , the other feature that Palm has put up in lights is its Synergy physical contact direction organization . The estimation behind Synergy is a very dear one : we all have multiple list of contact swim around powerful now , via our due east - ring armour accounts , Facebook , workplace directories , and more . Oftentimes , we even have contact information for one person spread out among a couple different sources . But we do n’t care about impinging information — we handle about people . Synergy ’s promise is to unite all that disparate selective information under the protection of a single liaison .
Synergy is Pre ’s endeavor to amalgamate inter-group communication information . When it does mold , it ’s marvelous .
A bold promise and , as it turns out , a somewhat portentous one . Right now Synergy allows you to produce just a few types of contact account : Facebook , Google , and Microsoft Exchange . ( There ’s also a desktop utility to help oneself you do a one - meter importee from other sources such as your OS X Address Book or Outlook . ) As I ’m not a heavy Facebook exploiter , that feature did n’t enthrall me — I went ahead and synced my contacts anyway , and it run fine . I add a Google explanation , and that too sync fitly . It even flux the two contact , as advertise . So far , so good .
The genuine trouble came when I added my instant - messaging accounts to the Pre ’s Messages covering . I have two disjoined AIM account statement : one personal , one for work , with some overlap between the two . I also have the immense majority of my contact lens ’ IM screennames in my OS X Address Book , affiliate with a person . Despite that — and despite the fact that the IM screennamesdidtransfer to the Pre along with my Google striking list — the Pre dumped my sidekick lists into the striking program as though they were brand young contacts .
For example , say my protagonist John Smith also goes by the clever pseudonym of “ timelord11112492 ” on AIM . Even though his timelord false name might be number under the John Smith contact info as a screen name , I still ended up with an entirelyseparatecontact debut for timelord11112492 listing only the screenname . The Pre does allow you to manually tie two contacts if it fails to do so automatically , but I have dozens of buddies on my AIM lists , and it ’s a tedious mental process .
Despite its job , Synergy comes in most useful in the Pre ’s Messages practical app , which combine both SMS and IM , allowing you to seamlessly switch back and away between the two mediums while maintaining one uniform conversation . You flip communicating methods with a drop curtain down card in the top right , which also lets you choose which crying - subject matter screenname to use if a contact has several . While handy , I come up myself occasionally texting someone when I meant to IM them or beam an IM to the wrong screen name .
Sync hole
compete against the iPod heritage of the iPhone is a problematic testicle to crack for anybody , but Palm decided to give it a go anyway . The Pre is an able enough media player and it handles most common video recording and audio formats , like MP3 , MPEG-4 , AAC , etc . plug away it into your figurer with the included USB cable and the Pre will exhibit a menu with three option : Media Sync , USB movement , and Just Charge . As you might surmise , the last just juices up the Pre ’s battery and the in-between option lets you treat the Pre like a USB flash drive , along with the power to import photos into Image Capture or iPhoto . But it ’s the first option where the Pre forge its magic .
For when you select Media Sync , the Pre will appear in iTunes ’s seed list , exactly as though it were an iPod . From iTunes , you could choose to synchronize euphony , videos and podcasts to the Pre , though of course the twist can not encounter back encrypted content such as iTunes videos or songs with DRM — that subject matter wo n’t even show up in the Pre ’s media playback programme . Music and audio podcasts will appear in the Pre ’s Music app , videos and video podcasts in the Videos app . I had no fortune contract it to sync photo , however .
Depending on your decimal point of opinion , this move is either glorious or idiotic . bright because it links the Pre with the earth ’s most popular media playback software and lets users slew the equipment into their lives as seamlessly as if they ’d buy an iPhone . Idiotic because it relies on Apple not changing the way it synchronize iTunes and iPod — if that format is altered , then Palm will have to scramble to see if it can update the Pre to work as well , which could twist into a game of cat - and - computer mouse . So far , though , everything is copacetic .
An ill-favoured thing, but mine own
Of course , you could just plug your Pre into its included USB - to - AC adapter to commove it , but the irritation of getting that little access door opened , time - and - time again , is enough to drive almost anybody to madness . If you ’re uncoerced to expend the extra $ 70 , the Pre ’s Touchstone inductive charger will simplify that process .
The optional Touchstone charger can power up the Pre using induction .
A cylinder edit out off at a 45 - arcdegree angle , the Touchstone is a small over two inches in diameter and about an column inch and a one-half tall at its high point . On the back is a small-scale micro - USB larboard ; that ’s where you link up it to the Pre ’s AC adaptor with the micro - USB to USB cable . The bottom of the standard boast an adhesive gang that imposingly pin to almost any surface without leaving a tacky residuum . The package also admit a special back plate for the Pre that you ’ll involve to swap with the machine ’s nonpayment back — it ’s got a soft - tinge matte finish instead of the normal glossy finish .
The top of the standard has a warm attracter in it , so all you need to do is lay the phone on top of the battery charger and it should bide put and take up charging . It ’s not perfect , though . You ’ll require to ensure you line up the Pre and the courser correctly — it wo n’t saddle horizontally , and there ’s a specific section of the back that needs to make link . And , of course , it die without saying that you probably should n’t slap a unvoiced drive or your deferred payment cards near the Touchstone , give the magnet .
Those minor complications mean that using the Touchstone is about as unmanageable as plugging the iPhone into a dock — which is to say , not very hard in either face . But it is pretty cool , nonetheless , so if you do n’t mind trounce out extra money to search futuristic , go nuts . For most people , using the included AC adapter or plugging the USB cable’s length into a computer will be sufficient .
The good, the bad, the ugly
I could run down every single feature the Pre has , but as several other venues have taken the metre to do that , let me focus on a few specific thing that the gimmick does well and a few it does poorly . For the most part , the feature listing of the Pre is pretty close to the iPhone and the G1 . But there are some places where I found the Pre to put up functions that the iPhone did not , and vice versa .
The Pre ’s mail client features an choice for interconnected inbox and support for flagging messages .
The Pre ’s mail client is pretty similar to the iPhone ’s , but it contribute in a couple of feature I ’ve been longing for on the iPhone . For one matter , if you have multiple e - mail service accounts , you’re able to pick out to display a unified inbox that collect the new mail for all of those report into one . You still have the item-by-item inboxes for each account as well , but if you just desire to skimallthe mail you ’ve of late encounter , it ’s easy to do so . The mail guest also set aside you to flag messages you might want to go back after and it provides a single mailbox that lease you easy view flagged messages in all your news report . Even better , the flagstone - province syncs to your other customer , so when I look later , the same messages were flagged in Mail on my MacBook .
I did run into one major problem with the ring armour programme , however : despite much playing with constellation , I could not get it to babble to my piece of work east - ring mail account , which apply an IMAP server based on Notes . I added several other report , including Gmail , MobileMe , and a personal IMAP accounting , all with no problems .
I also wish the Pre ’s integrate search feature . Start typing when you ’re in the card sight and it ’ll fetch up search results from your link and applications . If it does n’t match there , it ’ll pop up release to let you search Google , Google Maps , Wikipedia , and Twitter . It would be nice if this was a little more extensible — I’m always look up thing onIMDb , for example — but it ’s handy .
The Pre ’s got a nifty reminder feature of speech , where you’re able to sum a reminder onto a somebody ’s contact selective information . Sure , the iPhone lets you do that with notes , but the Pre actuallypops upthat reminder the next meter you call or message that contact ( or get a call or message from them ) , so you’re able to remember to ask about , say , that recipe you want .
catch some destitute clip ? The Pre compresses clip menstruation where you have no event scheduled .
The calendar program has a neat feature where it compresses unused time accordion - expressive style so you could see more of your appointments ; I also appreciated that the Pre rent you easy apply any song in your media depository library as a ringtone , a characteristic it seems like the iPhone should have had from 24-hour interval one .
After having used the iPhone ’s ocular Voicemail organization , conventional voicemail seems like the dark long time . The Pre will nicely down up a notification to let you recognise you have a voicemail , and you could rap it to mechanically dial in , but it turns out that host - side voice mail is just as awful as it was in the pre - iPhone dismal historic period .
scroll through listing on the Pre is soggy at good , and while you could commonly search a tilt ( say your euphony or contact ) by starting to type the term you ’re see for , it requires that you slide out the keyboard . I bump myself neglect the iPhone ’s “ bound to top ” shortcut and its index listing of letters on the side of the CRT screen .
Text - selection and cursor - campaign are also a pain . While you’re able to tap on the screen to move the intromission point to a designate smirch , the impreciseness of most citizenry ’s finger’s breadth make this only slightly more precise than a dependable secret plan of slay the piñata . Instead , you may take text by holding down the fracture - button on the keyboard and dragging on the blind ; that has its own idiosyncrasies . you may move the pointer by go for down the orange button and dragging your fingerbreadth around — yes , that dratted orange push button again .
And as long as we ’re blab about the orange button , it turns out that if you want to remove an installed coating from the Pre ’s rocket launcher , you have to hold down the orange button and rap the icon before you ’re presented with the option to erase . Yet one of the many feature I in reality had to confabulate the Pre ’s manual of arms for .
Macworld’s buying advice
All thing regard , the Pre is in reality a middling good sound . Despite my mostly minor kick , it ’s capture a fairly slick operating system , a carload of feature , and it ’s very useable . Not all the slice are in blank space yet , but like all of the other fresh telephone , it ’s a work in advance . It ’s not perfect , but it ’s sure enough a worthy equipment , and most hoi polloi fare from a non - smart headphone will rightfully see it as a immense upgrade .
The material genius of the production , of course , is webOS . From a computer hardware linear perspective , the Pre is little better than many of the sub - par fresh phones that have come before . The webOS has a real chance to be a serious competitor to the iPhone . Apple ’s philosophy is to embark no software before it ’s up to snuff — Palm seems to have belong the other direction and cast off in many features , not all of which are ready for prime metre .
The pick of networks plays a big part in whether you ’re going to pick the Pre or the iPhone ; right now Palm has an exclusive peck with Sprint , which is slat to run through 2009 , though there are already rumblings about the gadget appearing on the Verizon web next year .
Of of course , the Pre ’s not the only webOS sound we can expect to see , just as there are more Android model to come in the future . The gravid question correctly now is whether the Pre can do well enough to keep Palm afloat in the meantime .
More to the pointedness , though , let ’s address the question of whether the Pre can “ beat ” or “ down ” the iPhone . The job here is that the question itself is base on a fictive premise . Just as in the eternal argument over Macs versus personal computer , the smartphone market is not a zero - sum game : Apple does n’t have to lose for Palm to win . More authoritative , by having two robust , competitive platforms , we , the consumer , are far best served than if one company were to command the market lieu all by itself . In that sense , by create a product that ’s even comparable to the iPhone , Palm has succeeded , even if the Pre is n’t holy grail of smartphones . It does n’t have to kill the iPhone — it just has to put up a expert scrap .
[ Dan Moren is an associate editor in chief for Macworld . ]
