Samuel346
06-08-2009, 11:37 PM
So I decided to buy a Palm-Pre when it was released Saturday, which is something I've never done. [That being purchasing a product on it's release date, many reasons why]
So I'm going to review it, yay.
I'll start by saying that I generally put the kind of "miles" on a phone in a month that a normal person would in the phones' lifetime.
First thing I'll say is I'll never understand why a company competing with others don't try for the 1, 2 knock out.
The Pre has potential. It is much like Rock Band was at release.
The Pre doesn't have a memory card slot, this is the dumbest move I could [I]EVER think of when trying to compete with a new phone as your product. This is 2009, not 2002. SD Memory cards are making huge advances, they're going to have 2 TB cards very very very soon! But if you get a Pre, you'll miss out on that space.
The "Desktop" screen has a lot of wasted space. You can only fit four quick launch icons, which seems very limited for a phone that's suppose to be pretty open source.
It's way too basic and easy.
I know that sounds stupid, but the amount of setting choices are so few that it's annoying. Simplification is a good thing, but only to a point.
You need to be able to control sensitivity.
Deleting texts is the hardest thing in the world to do. You have to take the text and flick your hand ridiculously to get to the delete function. I don't understand this since hand gestures for moving between apps is easy. /bad idea, for sure.
Very few bugs exist that I have found, so far. There is a bug that if you are texting too much the "notification bar" will stop replying... but I have had the same issue with my Palm Centro, and Palm Pro[850].
Once you excuse the text, there's no way to know if you have a new text unless you scroll through all your conversations. If you have a lot of conversations, and are receiving a lot of messages at the same time, this can be tedious.
However I will state I LOVE the AIM implimentation they used.
The gesture movement required to go back and forth [to the left and right of the center button, respectively] is annoying. They should have implemented touch buttons for easier use. Go ahead and try to correct a spelling mistake at the beginning of a sentence after you've typed a whole sentence. :(
The phone needs a way of recognizing that you clicked the link you've clicked on the browser. Such as a color change.
Also, the fact that Sprint talks about this being the first 4G phone and selling it as such, yet that doesn't exist yet and will require a firmware update is pretty shady.
The phone doesn't have "camcorder" capability, but it will soon with an update, so no big deal.
Why did Palm change the keyboard layout after keeping it the same for the last 10 years? [When the change seems pointless except to be "new"]
Seems asinine.
The battery doesn't last me very long, but I can't say I've ever had a phone with a battery last me any longer than this one has, so I'll rate that as a "no change".
This idea that every time you add an account, such as AIM or an Email account, and it adds those contacts to your contact list is annoying. There's no way to turn it off, but you can delete the ones from Google pretty easily. Eh.
The App store I don't expect much with since it just came out, but I'm surprised at the kinds of Apps already being released.
Overall I think the phone is pretty nice, especially for a mere $199. I just will never understand why we don't have a memory card slot, and how limited customization is for a phone that's suppose to be pretty open sourced.
9/10 based on potential.
5/10 based on what it has from the start.
Additions:
Delay in receiving texts, which I'm sorry to say has been a problem as of late for "Smartphones" in particular on the Sprint network, is almost completely gone. [And I'm hoping with the 4G upgrade to be completely fixed]
Also, I dislike the way the phone timestamps text messages.
It does it in 5 minute intervals.
If you send me a text at 5:01pm, It will say 5:01 and then if we continue our conversation... at 5:05pm it will time stamp it again.
There doesn't seem to be a way to select all of the text you just typed. This can make deleting what you just typed pretty annoying.
Sending attachments via text messaging is very easy and straight forward. It's also quite fast. I have yet to have ANY delay.
I will also add that the app store has almost doubled it's apps since Saturday, with some pretty useful tools.
So I'm going to review it, yay.
I'll start by saying that I generally put the kind of "miles" on a phone in a month that a normal person would in the phones' lifetime.
First thing I'll say is I'll never understand why a company competing with others don't try for the 1, 2 knock out.
The Pre has potential. It is much like Rock Band was at release.
The Pre doesn't have a memory card slot, this is the dumbest move I could [I]EVER think of when trying to compete with a new phone as your product. This is 2009, not 2002. SD Memory cards are making huge advances, they're going to have 2 TB cards very very very soon! But if you get a Pre, you'll miss out on that space.
The "Desktop" screen has a lot of wasted space. You can only fit four quick launch icons, which seems very limited for a phone that's suppose to be pretty open source.
It's way too basic and easy.
I know that sounds stupid, but the amount of setting choices are so few that it's annoying. Simplification is a good thing, but only to a point.
You need to be able to control sensitivity.
Deleting texts is the hardest thing in the world to do. You have to take the text and flick your hand ridiculously to get to the delete function. I don't understand this since hand gestures for moving between apps is easy. /bad idea, for sure.
Very few bugs exist that I have found, so far. There is a bug that if you are texting too much the "notification bar" will stop replying... but I have had the same issue with my Palm Centro, and Palm Pro[850].
Once you excuse the text, there's no way to know if you have a new text unless you scroll through all your conversations. If you have a lot of conversations, and are receiving a lot of messages at the same time, this can be tedious.
However I will state I LOVE the AIM implimentation they used.
The gesture movement required to go back and forth [to the left and right of the center button, respectively] is annoying. They should have implemented touch buttons for easier use. Go ahead and try to correct a spelling mistake at the beginning of a sentence after you've typed a whole sentence. :(
The phone needs a way of recognizing that you clicked the link you've clicked on the browser. Such as a color change.
Also, the fact that Sprint talks about this being the first 4G phone and selling it as such, yet that doesn't exist yet and will require a firmware update is pretty shady.
The phone doesn't have "camcorder" capability, but it will soon with an update, so no big deal.
Why did Palm change the keyboard layout after keeping it the same for the last 10 years? [When the change seems pointless except to be "new"]
Seems asinine.
The battery doesn't last me very long, but I can't say I've ever had a phone with a battery last me any longer than this one has, so I'll rate that as a "no change".
This idea that every time you add an account, such as AIM or an Email account, and it adds those contacts to your contact list is annoying. There's no way to turn it off, but you can delete the ones from Google pretty easily. Eh.
The App store I don't expect much with since it just came out, but I'm surprised at the kinds of Apps already being released.
Overall I think the phone is pretty nice, especially for a mere $199. I just will never understand why we don't have a memory card slot, and how limited customization is for a phone that's suppose to be pretty open sourced.
9/10 based on potential.
5/10 based on what it has from the start.
Additions:
Delay in receiving texts, which I'm sorry to say has been a problem as of late for "Smartphones" in particular on the Sprint network, is almost completely gone. [And I'm hoping with the 4G upgrade to be completely fixed]
Also, I dislike the way the phone timestamps text messages.
It does it in 5 minute intervals.
If you send me a text at 5:01pm, It will say 5:01 and then if we continue our conversation... at 5:05pm it will time stamp it again.
There doesn't seem to be a way to select all of the text you just typed. This can make deleting what you just typed pretty annoying.
Sending attachments via text messaging is very easy and straight forward. It's also quite fast. I have yet to have ANY delay.
I will also add that the app store has almost doubled it's apps since Saturday, with some pretty useful tools.
