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Palm Pre

The last time I posted an article, I talked about my previous cell phone, the Palm Pre. At that point I hadn’t yet given up hope that Palm would get off their asses and transform the Pre from a so-so device to the truly ass kicking machine that it was meant to be; I knew the phone had its shortcomings but I was willing to overlook those because of the few things it’s actually good at (and it reeeeeally is good at them). Well, I’m here today to tell you fine folks that I finally got tired of waiting for Palm to make a move so I’ve just officially joined the hordes of other disgruntled ex-Pre owners that left Palm’s uber phone for greener (Android-ier) pastures. Even now, Palm still hasn’t done much to correct most of the glaring issues that have been obvious since webOS and the Pre were officially launched on Sprint about six months ago. To their credit, Palm has released several OS patches but each update so far has failed to take a corrective stab at what irks me about this platform.

Here are a few just of those issues off the top of my head:

- Inability to set custom ringtones / alert sounds for pretty much anything that isn’t a phone call (the latest software update, webOS 1.3.1, makes a very half assed attempt to address this but still fails miserably). A small but decidedly annoying deficiency.

- During an alert such as a freshly received text message, the phone will gently buzz one time and give off a chime. After that there’s no external indication whatsoever that you have a new message, unless you have installed the homebrew LED modification. You have to manually wake the phone up and check to see if any new alerts are present. This is very inconvenient if your phone is in your pocket at the time.

- The stock calendar app is a joke. Period.

- There is no onscreen keyboard unless you add one via homebrew modifcations, which means that any time you want to enter even a single letter or digit into a field on a webpage or app, you have to slide the fragile keyboard open. Not a huge deal, but it actually gets pretty tedious after a while.

- Battery life was pretty disappointing for me. I realize there are many factors such as signal quality and usage that have to be taken into account on this one, but I was lucky if I was able to get through a full 8.5 hour workday on a single charge with my Pre.  I purchased an extra Touchstone just for my desk at work so I wouldn’t have to worry about not being able to use my phone in the evenings.

- In six months, the Palm App Catalog has had less than 700 apps posted. I get it – a brand spanking new OS is going to take time to develop apps. The problem is that of those 700-ish apps, many are garbage that aren’t worth a second look ($20 translator apps that only do one language, etc.). There are a few good paid apps such as Tweed and PixelPipe, but the latter is priced more expensively than it is on Android and the webOS version doesn’t even have all the same features. An $8 app to track your FedEx or UPS packages… are these app developers really that dense?

– Poor handset build quality. It seems some units were built better than others; I was lucky in that my second Pre did not suffer from the same shoddy construction that many other Pre owners have been complaining about in the PreCentral forums and elsewhere.

- Absolutely AWFUL stock camera application. No zoom, no ability to crop? Just pitiful. Loads of people are also ticked at Palm simply because the Pre still doesn’t feature the video recording mode that it was supposed to come with. Recent software updates have at least laid the groundwork for that to be implemented.

- Overall disappointing performance. The Pre has the same very capable CPU as the iPhone 3GS along with an integrated GPU which could easily help rid the phone of the jerky menus and stuttering apps it currently suffers from, but Palm shipped it with the GPU deactivated because apparently they didn’t have time to devise a method of programming for it before they were forced to hand the phone over to Sprint. Rumor has it that an upcoming software update will finally unlock the GPU so some tasks can be offloaded onto the GPU from the CPU.

Like I said, that’s just a few complaints that I can think of off the top of my head. In all fairness, there are an assortment of things that Palm has managed to get right so far.

Of those, here is what readily comes to mind:

- Multitasking. Yes, other platforms like Android are capable of running several apps at once but no one can compete with the way webOS does it. Simply put, the “cards” system that webOS employs is as elegant as it is simplistic. Nothing else even comes close (yet?).

- Synergy. This is webOS’s fancy name for its integration with Facebook, Google, and other resources where you might have contacts. Synergy has its own set of flaws but it’s still a very nice first attempt at aggregating all your information into one easily accessible place.

- Browser. Easily as good as, if not better than, the iPhone’s browser. It’ll be interesting to see if it remains as robust after Flash support is finally added.

- On-screen notifications. I like how Android handles on-screen notifications, but the way webOS resizes your active card and displays your notification at the bottom is pretty nice too.

- You cannot brick the Pre. Okay, that’s not entirely true, but Palm has released software tools which make the likelihood of you killing your phone while trying to mod it very, very minimal. I guess this is their way of saying “Hey, we know the phone is missing many basic features that other phones have right out of the box, but if you want to try adding those features yourself by modding your phone, at least you won’t kill it.”

- Copy and Paste. I’ve played around with my friends’ and relatives’ iPhones before but I never tried cutting and pasting text with them. I may not be able to compare the iPhone and Pre in that category, but I can at least say that the Pre’s method of cut and paste puts Android’s to shame.

- Touchstone wireless chargers. They’re a total ripoff at $80 a pop for the kit, but that didn’t keep me from purchasing three.

I really wanted webOS and the Pre to succeed, which is why I was willing to give Palm another chance when I purchased my second Pre in September. Unfortunately, the Pre turned into a major letdown for me. Everyone knows the it was rushed out the door before development was complete because Palm was on the verge of going under, but since then, my perception has been that they aren’t terribly motivated to finish what they started. Also, from what I’ve read, the development kit they’re giving out only allows 3rd party app creators to build the most basic of apps. Programs that make use of the phone’s hardware like the mic and camera are not possible with the current SDK because it doesn’t grant developers access. Because of this the Pre is incapable of having rich graphical games like the ones rapidly becoming commonplace on the iPhone 3GS despite the fact that both have virtually the same hardware setup.

I could go on and on about why I feel the Pre is just a big ball of FAIL when compared to more feature-rich devices like HTC’s Hero but ultimately it’s a very subjective topic. What works for me may not work for you, and likewise. If you’ve stumbled across this rant because you’re considering jumping in bed with Palm though, keep reading what others are saying elsewhere on the Interwebs and try to stop in to a Sprint store to examine a Pre in person so you can make up your own mind.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go lovingly stroke my Android-powered Hero…