Everything Else Tech

Just a year ago I wanted a Palm Pre. This was quite some time after the launch in June 2009, but this happens cause I’m not moving too fast when I get the new gadgets – I don’t like to Beta-test on my own money. And because competition is fierce, everybody is rushing the products out without too much fuss leaving us to pick-up the pieces behind. But that’s another story.

At that point I was buying into the “totally diff’rent, revolutionary gadget” hype! I wanted to test the wonderful, new webOS, with promises of full integration and fluid U.I. I wasn’t even considering an Android device yet; I was rocking a BlackBerry (my 2nd actually) and I thought Android is not yet mature enough. So I chose the Pre instead. It wasn’t meant to be: my smartphone got lost in the mailing process (my friend Mark had to work to get the insurance money – hope you got it all back, man!) and I ended-up getting an…Android device.

And now because I had a good chance to get a cheap, 2nd hand, unlocked Pre, I just went ahead and got it! I wanted to like it, I wanted to love it and ditch my HTC Desire HD! This one had the latest OS build, the 1.4.5. I was resting assure that by now, two years after the initial launch I would have a nicer, richer, more rounded experience of this challenger in a tech world dominated by Google and Apple.

Hardware: I knew what I was getting: the phone feels plasticky, the glossy finish is a magnet to fingerprints, scratches and the screen doesn’t make any exception. I knew about the much commented sliding mechanism/wobbly upper-part, which in my hand made the Pre to feel like an unfinished product. I know, a slider has to have a certain lateral movement, in order to accommodate hasty openings/closing or maybe some accidental slips. But this one had a 2 millimeters lateral movement which actually at times  prevented me to slide-up the phone, in order to use it! I also know about the Palm’s advice to use both fingers to push it up! Yes, because otherwise you risk to damage the phone and to separate the two slides. Why? Because that damn wobble is too accentuated!

The “Mute” button was hard to switch, moving lateral the whole upper slider with it! Again, because of that wobble! The “Power” button was recessed a little bit, but in my books that’s a good thing! Nothing notable about the “Volume” buttons. The glossy back was hard to remove; I would’ve loved a Touchstone back cover!

The keyboard was tiny but usable. I liked the clicky feedback but made a lot of mistakes when I was using it, mainly because it has a learning curve like any other gadget. I’m sure in time I would’ve evolved.

The 3.1 inch screen was beautiful, I loved it. I loved its responsiveness. I loved its colors and its resolution. Even now, two years later, it’s up to par with the others and down-right usable. The size could be an issue for some people, especially when you come from a 4-incher.

Software: I’ve been holding my breath since 2009 when they announced webOS first! I realized the power of apps in 2004 when I got my first smartphone: a P990i by Sony-Ericsson. Wow! That was the future! Then in time I found out I’m using only a handful of apps, not too many special ones: calendar, email, browser, instant messenger, a call filter, a podcatcher, a RSS feeder and some games. I thought I didn’t need more. But I didn’t because at the time (and later with UIQ 3.0 – anybody remembers that one?) there weren’t as many apps as they are today. There were no App-Stores and the big players didn’t think too much about those – well, not until Apple came along and changed the game rules.

The U.I is awesome! Period. It rivals Android and iPhone (especially the iPhone, due to the same kind of limitations!) hands-down. It’s the only reason I’d get a webOS device again…see the spoiler here? It’s a pleasant experience but from my point of view it failed to take off to mass adoption due to lack of developers’ interest. Coming from an Android device, I was expecting hundreds of free and useful apps. Instead, the only free and usable app I got was Clock Sync and that in order to correct the clock drifting forward. By a lot! Anything else I needed to pay for. And because I’m not living in an “acceptable” country, no paid apps for me. Nice! Again, without any developer support there’s gonna be no webOS!

I don’t know the processor speed and/or RAM and I didn’t feel compelled to look them up; everything felt normal . Yes, I noticed a slowness when opening up a card (an application), but it moved naturally taking into account it uses a different OS. I run a 1 Gig processor on my Desire HD and I don’t find the lack of this awesome speed a deal-breaker in the Pre.

Bugs and SW mishaps? Whoa! The clock is drifting by hours, the alarm won’t ring, the Messenger section only allows AOL and/or GTalk, no connection is available thru WiFi when registering a new user (so if I don’t have a data subscription I’m stuck!), the Facebook application won’t log-out, the email client is not allowing you to delete multiple messages at once and the device is freezing: only charging will unfreeze it but only sometimes. I had to reinstall the O.S twice in two weeks. And that didn’t fix the issue. Officially, there is no problem with the O.S thus no support is offered.

The rest: Battery life was average. As in “it won’t last a working day, unless you make almost no calls, surf the net nor receive many emails”. And once you get a smartphone, you do that all too often. The calls quality was fine, the speaker is unusable as usual for conversations but very good when rendering your favorite ringtone. Can’t comment too much on the sub-par 2.0 MP camera – I guess it’s fine for everyday use when you’re not pretentious.

Bottom line: Reading all the other Pre Plus, Pre 2, Veer and Pre 3 news and reviews, I can see improvement. And I hope for HP’s sake they’re all the way behind webOS. The original Pre is a total disappointment for me in terms of “what it could’ve been and wasn’t!”. It shows great promise U.I-wise, but I expected much more from the 1.4.5 update. Palm wasn’t even able to fix the clock? In the end, it’s not over till it’s over – I look forward to using a Pre 3 and THEN I’ll make up my mind.