Palm Pre

It’s been quite a while since I wrote here, but you know, finals and regents and all those excuses. Palm Pre is out, but how well does it do compared to other competitors?First off, the Palm Pre is exclusive to Sprint at the moment. That means most people will have to switch carriers in order to get the Palm Pre. Sprint isn’t a very large wireless carrier, and in New York City it seems to be okay for cell phone reception, but out of it, there’s very little. Even in New York, carriers like Verizon, AT&T, and even T-Mobile are much better options. I would not switch to Sprint just to buy the Palm Pre. I would switch to AT&T for the iPhone, since AT&T is a very large company with money to back it up, but Sprint is different.

Now let’s get to the Pre itself. The Palm Pre definitely does not go for the slimmest possible body, which Apple usually goes with. Instead, it looks like a brick, and that would most certainly make it feel better in your hands. However, with the iPhone, Apple has made it the perfect size to hold in your hand, and with the iPhone 3G’s curved back, it feels even better in your hand. However, the Palm Pre feels more like a brick, so you can easily get a grip on it, especially since it’s screen is also a bit smaller.

The physical keyboard on the Palm Pre does not look like a good idea at all. I’m a big supporter of the iPhone’s software keyboard, and I definitely think that the iPhone has a better keyboard, although another competitor, the Blackberry Storm, loses to Palm Pre for the keyboard. However, that’s not because the Pre is good, it’s because the Storm’s screen is just bad for typing. Looking at other devices, the T-Mobile Sidekick and G1/soon to be G2 all have physical, QWERTY keyboards that feel very good. Typing is very easy and quick on all of these devices, and it feels almost as easy as on your laptop. However, a disadvantage to the physical keyboard is that you do not get a software keyboard, where the iPhone wins. With iPhone OS 3.0, you can have a landscape keyboard for easy typing, but you can also have, for example, a Chinese keyboard where you can actually draw the character. This means that the iPhone’s capabilities are only limited by the creativity of the developer, whilst the Palm Pre and other physical keyboard devices are limited by their hardware.

The Palm Pre’s screen does look very nice, and being smaller than the iPhone’s by 0.2 inches makes it have a higher PPI, so better images as well. Some users have said that the Pre has a more responsive screen than the iPhone’s, and that switching between landscape and portrait modes is much faster on the Pre. However, comparing this to the iPhone 3G is a rather bad comparison; the iPhone 3G is, after all, hardware from a year ago. However, once the iPhone 3GS comes out, we’ll know whether the iPhone can beat the Pre using modern specs.

The OS of the Pre is rather annoying to use based on looks. It seems to require a lot more flicks and presses than the iPhone’s does, especially with things like closing apps and opening apps. On the iPhone, you have your apps out in front of you and you just press your app’s icon to open it. In OS 3.0, you’ll also get the search feature right next to your home screen so that you can easily launch an app several pages away. On the other hand, on the Palm Pre, you can either launch an app from your shortcuts bar, or you have to open a menu with all your apps and then go to the correct app. Somewhat similar to the Windows start menu, the Palm Pre requires a lot more flicks to open an app, since it has no search feature.

Closing an app on the Palm Pre requires pressing the home button, and then flicking the app’s “card” out of the screen. On the iPhone, press the home button and you’re out of the app. There’s also the fact that Palm Pre’s apps are web apps, meaning they require the internet to run, and they also take longer to open because they’re loading through the internet. However well the apps run, they’re web apps and aren’t very optimized for more intensive tasks. On the other hand, with the iPhone 3GS’s new hardware capabilties, video is going to be rendered better, and 3D graphics will also be better. Since apps aren’t web based, developers can focus on delivering powerful features, instead of compromising on them in order to make them web apps.

The touchstone dock that sells for the Palm Pre for 70 dollars is quite outrageous. According to outside sources, the touchstone dock is worth 5 dollars of materials. So it’s just crazy to sell it for 70 bucks, even 30 is quite high.

The Palm Pre is, ultimately, a first generation product. However, it’s OS is smooth and everything, and the overal design is very nice, but it needs to get a software keyboard and have a better OS. Compared to even the original iPhone, I would rather get the iPhone than the Pre. And please, don’t pick Sprint as your wireless carrier. Pick someone big like Verizon or AT&T.