While the Palm Pre is certainly one of the best smartphones available – the question everyone wants to answer is: can it kill the iPhone?
Or, short of outright death and dismemberment, can it at least capture some iPhone glory?
The short answer is: not in a blue moon, but then the truth is Palm doesn't necessarily mean for the Pre to be a personal entertainment device.
As we'll see, the Pre has the makings of a truly powerful business communicator. In fact, peek under the hood, there's a Texas Instruments OMAP 3430 processor, 8GB of internal memory, 802.11g Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth with A2DP stereo.
Computer-like
What you'll discover is a capable mobile computer that supports multi-tasking, contact sync across multiple web services, and push email that could lead to swift adoption at companies both large and small, filling the void left by the popular Palm Treo from years ago.
The real challenge then is that Palm needs to revive its lagging developer community – which is almost non-existent.
While Apple continues to sell MacBooks and iPhones to the college kids and trendy/smart/cool-types, the reality with those who take computing more seriously is that the iPhone is a limited device – despite the fact that there are some 50,000 apps available for it.
It doesn't multi-task apps (at least, not yet), only barely supports enterprise-class email, and has a clunky soft keyboard for typing longer messages. The Palm Pre has a true hardware keyboard and is designed to keep pace with big business in very tangible ways.
It's a powerful smartphone that occasionally acts like a powerful computer – and shows amazing promise.
Chats and text messages are combined into one view, making it easy to track down conversations with both business and personal contacts.
CALENDAR: The calendar also syncs up web services nicely, adding both Gmail and Microsoft Outlook meetings in one view
GPS: Google Maps taps into the GPS on the Palm Pre, of course, but doesn't support turn-by-turn voice nav
FRIENDS: Contacts from Facebook and Gmail get nicely combined – which is great unless you do not manage your contacts well
EMAIL: Once you type an email into the Palm Pre, it recognises your Webmail service and starts syncing your mail.
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Your comments (5) Click to add a new comment
carlossantana
October 31st 2009
5. I got a Palm Pre in a O2 store in London. I was expecting a much better experience from a phone that have an average ownership cost of £700.-. Among an unstable/beta operating system and standard applications I would like to mention that:
- The phone’s plastic case is cheap and fragile. Even more, the entire phone looks (and is) fragile. I would like to see how many if these palm pre phone will be around in a year time.
- The standard microUSB port for both data transfer and charging needs you to open a plastic flap on the phone every time that you need to plug it to your PC. This flap is very cheap and it has the impression that it would last days attached to the phone. Therefore, think about adding a Touchstone Wireless Charger (another £40?)
- The phone stopped from working a day before I got it. When I slider closed the keyboard, the screen whet blank and the phone was not responding any longer.
Conclusion: I return it after 24hs and got another phone (not a palm pre this time). I have to say that the current Palm pre is a nice phone. But, there's no doubt that there's plenty of room for improvement in the webOS and its devices. My independent advice is: Wait for the next Palm Pre version.
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irwinhugh
October 29th 2009
4. Purchased the Palm Pre from O2 store after explaining my requirements but when I tried to sync with my MS Outlook it failed to connect. The sales person was absolutely convinced that it would but when I spoke to the O2 techie in Scotland, he eventually confessed that I needed to purchase another package from a 'carrier' who would decode the info and forward it to the phone from my ISP. This rendered the 'fantastic' (sic) Palm useless for me and I ended up buying a Blackbury instead. Sooooo much more efficient and user friendly. So, my view is that Palm need to sort our 1. the connectivity without people having to have/obtain MS exchange and the outlets need to train their staff, properly.
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