BlogADoodle.org

It has now been just over 48 hours since I’ve brought my new born Palm Pre home.  Whether it’s a new phone or a new job, there will always be things that you are thrilled about and others you are not to sure of.  In sitting with the Pre for hours now, I cannot say honestly that I am in love with it 100%.  If I was to give it a grade as of today, I would have to give it an 91.  I still love it, just not completely and unequivocally.

When I got my first Palm Treo 600P all those years ago, I was switching from a Samsung flip phone that I think was one of the first phones with a camera.  Other than that, it had nothing special going for it.  With the 655P, it took a while to get used to a phone the size of a pack of cigarettes.  But after all these years, and 4 generations later, using the Treo has become the norm.  So now comes this new platform.  It’s different, with different features, so there will obviously be a period of familiarization before it becomes second nature.  Still, I’m not quite ready to sell off my Treo just yet, just in case.

LOOKS

The Pre is sleek looking.  It has a shiny black plastic body.  It’s pretty, comfortably sized and nice in the hand, but considering how often I would crack my Treo’s, I’m a little worried about its durability.  With the Touchstone™ magnetic charging dock

you get a new back, which is still the same plastic, but is coated with the rubber like coating that was on the Treo.  I like the look of it and it might make it a little more resilient.  At a minimum, it’ll reduce the scratches.

The overall phone is about a half of an inch shorter than the Treo quite a bit thinner.  Even with its smaller dimensions, it feels just as heavy.

Also, because the phone is smaller, the previous Treo cases I’ve used will no longer be good enough.  This is actually not a bad thing, because the soft leather case has caused many a screen to crack when bumping into things (till I finally got a clue and started wearing the phone screen-to-body).  Palms new leather case is a harder material and quite form fitting.  It has a neat ribbon device to get the phone out.

It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes before the ribbon fails.  But still, the face of the case is a solid and thick piece of leather.  The inside has suede like material and this time the case came with instructions ‘requiring’ a screen-to-body insertion.  Good to know.

KEYBOARD

One of the major concerns I had when initially looking at early photos of the Pre was the QWERTY keyboard.  I am a huge fan of QWERTY keyboards being a hardware component, such as on the Treo and Blackberry’s; as opposed to software/ on screen keyboards, such as on the iphone.  There are many reasons for this, and one will be discussed later in screen functions/PIN entry.

I have huge fingers, and I don’t like keys that are very close together, ala Blackberry and Palm Centro.  I tend to hit multiple keys at the same time.  The Treo has nice keys that are spaced well and are thick and rounded which allows for a good touch experience.  It’s easy to feel the keys with my ham hock fingers and apply pressure in the right part of the finger to get an accurate key stroke a large portion of the time.  It did not take long for me to be able to text away on my Treo like a 14 year old girl.

Upon taking the Pre out and starting first typing experience, I was instantly panicked.  The Pre keyboard is spaced almost identical to the Treo, and the keys have the same width and height.

But the Pre keys are substantially thinner; they do not stick out as far.  So while they have the same ‘feel’ as the Treo keys, they don’t have as much movement in (upon being pressed) and gave me concern about improper and multiple key strokes.

Also, while the Treo keys are a smooth, hard plastic, the Pre has a sticky, rubbery coating on the keys.  It’s somewhat disconcerting at first, and being sticky it feels like it slows down your key hunting slightly.  In the beginning I felt the need to try fingernail typing, which is the hunt-and-peck version of telephone based dictation.  Also, with the keyboard being recessed there is a substantial lip around the outer perimeter of the keyboard that is totally in the way… At first.

After being on the keyboard for a whole day, I find that these keys don’t cause me any more errors then the Treo.  I’ve quickly become accustomed to the key depth and don’t seem to mind it anymore.   I’m also starting to get used to the key’s texture, though I still don’t like it.  The rim around the edge is not even an issue anymore.  I’ve read some reviews of people complaining about the edges being “so sharp they could cut.”  One reviewer even cut cheese with it;(but then again this parlor trick involved what was obviously warm, soft cheese, and you can cut that with a Quarter).  This is just silly.  While it has an edge, I’ve been running my meat hooks back and forth for hours and have not had a single problem.

One big negative that this keyboard layout has, come from one of the high tech features.  The phone has an orientation feature which allows the screen to display level no matter which way the phone is oriented.  When watching a video, you can turn it on its side for a bigger screen view.  This is nothing new; I believe that the iphone does this as well.  But with the Pre it doesn’t just orient North and East, but South and West as well.  So it doesn’t matter which way you flip it, the phone will orient correctly.

When working on-line, such as with your e-mail, the print is bigger and easier to see when held sideways.  This is easier to see, but because the Pre doesn’t have a software based keyboard option, it’s impossible to work this way.  I find that I have to turn it to read, turn it to type and then turn it again to verify and read further.

I would imagine that it’s only a matter of time before someone makes a keyboard app that we’ll be able to download from the Palm App Store.  But in the mean time, it’s a huge pain in the butt.

Also annoying, they’ve moved certain keys around.  I’ve become rather quick on the Treo, but now the layout has been modified slightly.  Every time I type, I’m ending every sentence with a comma instead of a period because they’ve moved my period.  Also, there is no menu key, which was a function key to get into options, so now you do those things through screen strokes.

The Treo had a D-ring, which was a sort of mouse-like feature that allowed you to move the cursor around.  The Pre doesn’t have a D-ring.  Also, the Center button doesn’t move the cursor like on the Blackberry Pearl.  Instead, to move the curse to a place in a sentence where you want to, say delete a word, you have to first depress and hold the Orange key.  Then you swipe your finger across the touch screen in the direction you want the cursor to move, and it does.  But it’s difficult to be absolutely precise.  It seems that even a slight touch moves the cursor 2 spaces.  so I’ve found that I have to move back and forth a few times to get the cursor where I want it.  You could always use the touch screen, but again your accuracy is down to the thickness of your finger.

EASE OF USE

One thing that I’ve found annoying is the assistance palm provides, or doesn’t provide to be exact.  When I bought my Treo, it came with a user manual that was the thickness of a phonebook.  This phone is substantially more complicated and came with a folded sheet about the size of a legal page cut in half and stuck end to end.

There are a substantial number of videos available and there is also a help application on the phone, but I prefer the ease of a real user guide.  It makes finding help faster and also makes it easier to learn functions.

With that in mind, I still have not been able to figure out some feature, or even if certain things are possible. For example, as of this moment I have no idea how (or IF) you can change the reminder tone on the calendar setting.  When an appointment is coming up there is a tone that sounds if you want.  With the Treo, you can use any ringtone as your reminder.  With the Pre, it only has this minuscule ‘ding’ tone.  It’s soft and almost inaudible.  For me, this is a HUGE problem because I didn’t just use my Treo as an alarm clock when traveling, but also at home.  I can barely hear the current tone while awake, forget about if I’m sleeping.  As of yet, I have not been able to find a way to change it and I have a feeling it can’t be change.  This is a BIG thumbs down, and may even be a deal breaker. Hopefully someone will create an Alarm Clock application soon.

**This just in: as of writing this, Palm sent an automatic update, WebOS version 1.0.2. This update supposedly updated certain glitches related to e-mail, calender and other issues.  But more importantly, It downloaded an ALARM CLOCK APP!!! One where you can set up your own ringtones.  Awesome,  It just bumped the satisfaction score up to a 94%.**

Another thing that I have read is where people were complaining about the way to open the keyboard.  Apparently some people have a problem with this.  When they press on the screen it causes applications to go off and/or come on.  Me personally, I have not had a problem opening the phone at all.  I’m right handed.  I hold the phone in my right hand, placing four finger across the bottom.  I put my thumb to the right of the center button, just below the gesture area.  Then I push up with thumb.  It opens every time, and I’ve never set off a single application.

mvi_3907

FUNCTION

Overall, the new Palm Web OS is fantastic.  Its multitasking ability is bar none the best in the industry.  I used to hate it when I would be writing a post on the internet and phone call would come in.  With the Treo, you had to choose one or the other.  If you answered the call, whatever you were writing would be lost.  With the Pre, simply answer the phone and the Web window minimizes and moves to the side. Once the phone call is done, minimize the phone interface, swipe the card up to close it if you wish, and maximize your internet card.  You can now pick up where you left off.  You can also minimize the open cards further so you can see 4 cards across, making it easier to reorganize them if needed.

The multitouch screen is crisp and functions well….usually.  As I mentioned before, I’ve had an issue with entering my PIN when trying to unlock the phone.  This only happened one time so far, but it was annoying.  While trying to put in the PIN I would push one number and it would show the press on the number above.  When you push on the screen, it shows a little ripple effect to indicate where the press was.  So as an example, if I pressed 8 it would show 5.  If I pressed 5 it would show 2.  No matter how many times I tried, I couldn’t enter the PIN correctly.   This was resolved by pushing ‘CANCEL” letting the phone lock and then doing it again.  But these precision issues is one reason I don’t like on screen keyboards, not to mention the fact that there is no tactile response to insure you are on the right key.  You have to look at your fingers constantly.

The miskey issue only has happened once so far, but still I have found the phone to be quite glitchy. The first night, while working on the contacts, the screen had gone blank and several occasions while speed scrolling.  This might have been because I was working with it for hours (more to come), but on a few occasions the data came up after a few seconds and on other occasions I had to close contacts and then reopen them to get the data back.  Either way, nothing was lost and I was able to pick up where I left off.

I have gotten a grey screen several times while using web and other apps and all times I had to close the card and start over.  Also, on 2 occasions already, I have not been able to revive the phone after it has gone into sleep mode.  Both those times, I had to remove the battery and reinstall it to get the phone to turn back on.

Going back to Contacts, When you set up your phone the Pre will download your contacts from the internet.  It’s part of the Pre’s Synergy.  The phone automatically updates your contact information as people change it in either Gmail or Facebook.  So when you set up the phone, it will automatically drag your contact list for your Gmail e-mail system and create a contact for each one.  This is a huge issue, but it’s more the fault of Gmail then the Pre.  Whenever you reply to an e-mail in Gmail, the system automatically enters ever email address you send to, into your contacts.  So if I want to ask a question about a product I see on the web, that company’s email is stored.  If I Reply All to an email, all those addresses are stored in my contacts.  I have to go in manually and remove them from Gmail after they’ve been added if I don’t want them there.  I had 258 contacts, of which I might have known 50.  So not knowing that this would happen, I had 258 contacts in my phones contact list, of which, I might have wanted 40 in my phone.  The Pre doesn’t let you select multiple listings; you can only delete one at a time.  Sooooo, I sat from 3:30pm to till almost 11 deleting contacts and merging them.  What a pain in the tush.

Connectivity

The cover for the Charger/Micro USB connector is a total pain.  You need to pry it open with your fingernail.  And it only attaches at the bottom, so you have to pry from the top.  But after doing it a few times, I think that it seems a bit looser and not as hard to open.  With the Touchstone™ magnetic charger, you don’t need to open this anyway.  Just lay the phone on the magnetic dock and the battery charges automatically.

When it’s time to download things such as songs, pictures and documents, the Pre is substantially easier then the Treo.  Gone is the Palm desktop and hot sync requirements.   Simply take the USB end out of the 110 power end and take the microUSB end out of the back of the Charging Dock

and plug it up to the Computer.  Then it’s just standard click and drag/ copy and paste data transfer. Easy and quick.

The Pre has easy to use Bluetooth connectivity.  I own the Motorola S9 wireless Bluetooth headphones.  With the Treo, I had to purchase and download a special app to get the music player to send the music to the headphones.  The Pre does it on it’s own.  Also, the Music player on the phone if very ipod-ish and easy and clean to use.

Overall, I like the Pre a lot and I am glad I’ve got it.  That I’ll still be happy with it when the honeymoon is over is still to be seen.  I think that as more and more apps become available I’ll be happier with the phone.  Now if only I knew how to make apps, cause I’ve got ideas for like, 10.