Pre vs WinMo and others....

DexterDawg · #1 (**permalink**) 07-27-2009, 03:50 PM

So I decided to grab a Pre last Friday. I've had Palm OS devices in the past and more recently had a 700wx by them. Also have had the 6700, 6800, 6900, and 6850 from HTC. There are a lot of things that are absolutely awesome on the Pre. The GUI is second to none, the web is handeled very well (-java), and the way it multitasks is pretty dang cool..

Here are some of the issues making me want to return it.

No video recording
no onscreen keyboard
the dialer doesn't recognize if you type a name into the numbers (like pulling up "al" should be able to push 2 and 5)
no tethering ability with USB
can't select multiple items in email to delete or mark as read
no forwarding ability with sms or mms
mms doesn't play video
can't change notification sounds (are you kidding me?)
battery life is bad, but better than any winmo device i've owned, except it is almost impossible to pull the battery door to do a swap.
no external stroage

Still a pretty neat device, but I think I may stick with my TP..

Dustin

alan7467 · #2 (**permalink**) 07-27-2009, 04:51 PM

Both tethering and custom notifications are available with some really nice homebrew apps.

Lack of searching with the onscreen dial pad bothers me as well. Though you can whip out the keyboard and search that way, just adds a step for no reason IMO. However, I can imagine most of your gripes being addressed with updates from palm. If not I'm sure the development community will step in. I see no reason why we can't get custom dialers, homescreens, email apps, etc. on this thing.

As of right now I can't really have a solid opinion on battery life. I just got mine yesterday afternoon. Drained it down and charged it up once. It'll need some more calibration before I know how well it's gonna treat me. So far today after my 1st cycle I'm down to 10% after 8 hours. I've played with the phone quite a bit, used web for over an hour, used tweed a few times, some SMS's and a few phone calls. If I don't get decent battery life I may pickup one of these as people on precentral.net have already had some success with it:

http://www.fommy.com/view-full-page....re&skuno=83629

**shaun0207** · #3 (**permalink**) 07-27-2009, 05:02 PM

When I start dialing it pulls up a list of choices from my contacts.

Video, Notifications and a virtual keyboard are coming from what I've read. You have to admit , the phone has been out for 6 weeks and they have already had what 3 or 4 updates?? I think Palm is on top of it, but they had to get to the phone to the market to meet their target date. No different than what Apple did with the first iPhone

**mlin** · #4 (**permalink**) 07-27-2009, 05:03 PM

I purchased a Pre last Thursday evening and like you am not completely sold. While there are many things I do like, the lack of smart dialing and an on-screen keyboard are rather annoying as well as the heavy dependance on an internet connection. I will give it a couple of weeks before making my final judgement, so we'll see what happens. On the otherhand, I have been incredibly impressed with battery life. I can get 1.5-2 solid days with moderately heavy use. I must've gotten lucky with some sort of super battery

Have you visited precentral.net? There is a lot of development happening there.