Palm Pre Review

I have had my Palm Pre for about a week and to say that I love it would be an understatement.

Unless you live under a rock you have heard about Sprint struggling to hold on to customers as millions have been jumping ship. Also Palm, a company once at the top of the smartphone heap, has been losing money by the boatloads in a market that had no love for its tried and true Palm OS. It is t shared struggle that makes the marriage between phone and service so perfect between Sprint and Palm.

At the heart of the phone is the WebOS operating system. Multitasking is at the apex of WebOS and it works very well. On other phones to move between applications requires you to exit one application and move to the next. With the Palm Pre, you can have multiple applications running and easily switch between them. For instance I can have up the App catalog, my calendar, contacts, and text messages all at the same time.

The screen on the Pre is the best I have seen on a mobile phone to date. It has the same resolution as the iPhone's screen but in a slightly smaller area which really gives it a wow effect. The capacitive touchscreen, recognizes electric signals from your fingers, is dead on accurate.

The hardware feels really good in your hand and it it easily slips in your pocket. Palm likens it to a "polished riverstone". Unfortunately the phone is not as sturdy feeling as other smartphones. I would hate to drop it more so than other phones but I guess that's what cases are for.

I also love the keyboard on the phone. If you are like me you have to have a physical keyboard on your phone. Virtual keyboards simply don't make the grade. It is on the smaller side but I previously had a Palm Centro so the transition was seamless. The buttons have good travel and feedback as well so you know when you have entered a letter or symbol.

Also included in this little gem is a 3.0 megapixel camera with flash. It takes excellent pictures and closeups are stellar. Unfortunately, there is no video recording, however I have head that this will become available via a software update in the future. There is also a 3.5 mm headphone jack so you can use standard headphones to listen to your mp3s or YouTube videos via the YouTube client included with the phone.

Data is handle via Sprint's exceptional evdo rev a network and wi-fi. The Evdo network has proven to be very fast in my area. So much so that it is sometimes faster than wi-fi. That can't be said for any other carriers that I have used.

The battery life is a subject that I wish I could skip because it is the hardest part for me to talk about. Simply put, it stinks. Even with wi-fi turned off, screen brightness at a minimum, location based services, instant messaging client turn off, and email pushing turned down to every 30 minutes the battery sucks. It's a must that I have my charger with me everywhere I go. Hopefully palm will address this with a not some distant future update.

This mini review is merely scratching the surface of this phone and its capabilities. I have attached a video review that I've found so that you can see what else there is to drool over about this phone. If you are a Sprint user that wants to do more than make or receive calls and texts, this is the phone for you.