tkam Posted June 17, 2009 Report Posted June 17, 2009 So I picked up a Pre last Friday and I've been using it pretty heavily since then. The screen is very nice, on par with the iPhone's I'd say (the iphones being a glass touchscreen does get the edge in scratch resistance). The interface is really intuitive and done very well. The little "gesture" area below the screen fits in with the overall interface quite well and it works flawlessly. It's also hard to overstate how nice it is to finally have true multi-tasking on a smartphone. I often find myself having the Pandora app streaming in the background while texting or sending e-mails. Of course there is also the keyboard to talk about, I'm one of those people that really likes having a physical keyboard and the Pre's is pretty nice. Each key is raised and there's enough spacing between them that even someone with fat fingers like myself can use it without any problems. It's the best smartphone I've ever used, if you have Sprint I highly recommend getting one.
JBLoudG20 Posted June 17, 2009 Report Posted June 17, 2009 I held onto my Treo 700 way too long, waiting for a good replacement. I finally gave up and got a BB Curve. Maybe by the time Verizon gets it (if they ever do) I'll be ready to move back to a Palm.
tkam Posted June 17, 2009 Author Report Posted June 17, 2009 Verizon will get it sometime next year, I wouldn't be surprised if AT&T does as well.
Dusty Chalk Posted June 17, 2009 Report Posted June 17, 2009 Wait, it's multi-tasking?!?!? My interest in it just shot up a notch.
tkam Posted June 17, 2009 Author Report Posted June 17, 2009 Yes that's one of it's big advantages, it handles having 10-15 apps open at once really well and the system they have for switching between open apps is really slick.
Dusty Chalk Posted June 17, 2009 Report Posted June 17, 2009 What rock have I been under? Somehow I missed that tidbit. Until now, that is.
en480c4 Posted June 17, 2009 Report Posted June 17, 2009 Multi-tasking is one of the things I like about WM smart phones over the iPhone. Having Opera open checking an address, Google Maps finding it and my location via GPS, having my email up and WMP keeping my music going is very nice. It's nice to hear that the Pre has implemented this well, as the task switching for WM isn't always the easiest.
tkam Posted June 17, 2009 Author Report Posted June 17, 2009 Yeah WM isn't the most user friendly thing in the world, with the Pre to switch between open apps, pressing the center button brings up a view of all the open apps, then just cycle through them. It's sort of like coverflow.
Hopstretch Posted June 17, 2009 Report Posted June 17, 2009 I've seen some online whining about general lagginess. Does it start to bog down with a couple of apps running? Looks like a nice device overall and one that should probably be giving RIM the sweats as much (or more) than Apple. I would imagine multi-tasking will be the next major OS update for the iPhone, too, since the Pre and 3G S are both rocking the same ARM Cortex A8 processor. Wonder if Palm will have a long enough head start by then?
tkam Posted June 17, 2009 Author Report Posted June 17, 2009 I haven't noticed any lagginess really, even with several apps open it's still far more responsive than the iPhone is. I do agree that I think Palm is going to get more market share away from RIM than they will Apple.
en480c4 Posted June 17, 2009 Report Posted June 17, 2009 Yeah WM isn't the most user friendly thing in the world, I'll be curious to see what WM7 does for interface... WM6.5 is a huge improvement on previous versions, but you get a few levels in and it starts to look like 6.1 again, with tiny buttons
tkam Posted June 17, 2009 Author Report Posted June 17, 2009 Thats not surprising, 6.5 is just a bandaid so once you get past the top-level UI it pretty much is the same as 6.1. 7 on the other hand is supposed to be a complete re-write from the ground up.
riceboy Posted June 17, 2009 Report Posted June 17, 2009 i hope that the Pre is successful. competition between Apple and Palm would only create even better phones. I agree Reks. I really hope that the Pre does well in the marketplace. Thanks for the initial impressions Tkam and I'm glad you're liking it.
Dusty Chalk Posted June 17, 2009 Report Posted June 17, 2009 Multi-tasking is one of the things I like about WM smart phones over the iPhone. Having Opera open checking an address, Google Maps finding it and my location via GPS, having my email up and WMP keeping my music going is very nice. It's nice to hear that the Pre has implemented this well, as the task switching for WM isn't always the easiest.Well, a lot of those aren't true multi-tasking. The iPhone can transfer information from one app to another like that (GPS location in maps to a URL in the browser, for example). The "keeping music playing" however, is true multi-tasking. And technically, the iPhone should be able to do it, since I've had background processes run on my iPhone. I think it's just that they don't allow apps to run in the background.
tkam Posted June 17, 2009 Author Report Posted June 17, 2009 I think the Pre will be very successful, but the more interesting question is how well will Palm's WebOS work on future phones? There's already at least 2 or 3 more phones from Palm in the works and they all appear to run WebOS. While the Pre is important it's WebOS that's crucial.
Augsburger Posted June 17, 2009 Report Posted June 17, 2009 What type of service did you subscribe to? The BB Storm requires a data package starting at $29.95 per month on top of the phone service and unlimited texting charges, to realize all the benefits for surfing and email forwarding.
tkam Posted June 17, 2009 Author Report Posted June 17, 2009 I have the Everything 450 plan, it's 450 minutes + unlimited data (this includes texting) for $70 month.
tkam Posted June 17, 2009 Author Report Posted June 17, 2009 Almost forgot what will likely be pretty huge for the Pre's future as a gaming device, it'll have full Flash support by the end of year (confirmed by both Adobe and Palm).
GPH Posted June 17, 2009 Report Posted June 17, 2009 Is there a standard 1/8 headphone jack on the pre? Looks like a great device, thanks for the first-hand impressions.
tkam Posted June 17, 2009 Author Report Posted June 17, 2009 Yep it's on the top, right in the middle.
AlanY Posted June 17, 2009 Report Posted June 17, 2009 Looks like one heck of a phone. Does the Pre support read/write calendaring via CalDAV? (As in, can you edit a subscribed Google Calendar without having to sync to your desktop?) It's kind of disappointing that CalDAV on iPhone 3.0 seems to be read-only. (I'm not asking about Exchange or MobileMe calendars.)
JBLoudG20 Posted June 17, 2009 Report Posted June 17, 2009 Looks like one heck of a phone. Does the Pre support read/write calendaring via CalDAV? (As in, can you edit a subscribed Google Calendar without having to sync to your desktop?) It's kind of disappointing that CalDAV on iPhone 3.0 seems to be read-only. (I'm not asking about Exchange or MobileMe calendars.) I'm willing to bet if it doesn't support it out of the box, there will (eventually) be a google calendar plugin. That is one of my favorite parts of my BlackBerry: fully synced calendars on all my computers and handheld.
tkam Posted June 17, 2009 Author Report Posted June 17, 2009 Actually it does sync with Google Calendars straight out of the box.
JBLoudG20 Posted June 17, 2009 Report Posted June 17, 2009 Actually it does sync with Google Calendars straight out of the box. Well there you go! That's pretty sweet.
Dusty Chalk Posted June 17, 2009 Report Posted June 17, 2009 Yep it's on the top, right in the middle. What's the sound quality?
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