Official Palm Pre User Review Thread

Everyone who have made the switch to the pre or used it for a considerable amount of time please post your general review of it here to keep it all the Pros/Cons/Bugs etc. in one thread

[nicandalf]

I don't have the time at the moment to go through a full review, but here are some of my gripes:

1. There are no arrow keys so when texting or emailing it is a bit cumbersome to do simple edits.

2. When emailing/texting there is no word completion. There are also very few words that it will auto-correct.

3. Copy (Cut) and Paste is a bit awkward. You also can't take a calendar entry and copy the whole entry to a new date. (Someone please tell me if you have figured it out).

4. The camera takes good pictures, but you can't change any features other than whether you want the flash on or off.

[Drybonz]

Originally Posted by nicandalf

1. There are no arrow keys so when texting or emailing it is a bit cumbersome to do simple edits.

Did anyone notice that if you hold the "orange" key it puts the cursor in a mode that lets you drag it around? It makes these text edits a bit easier.

[K & M Computers]

Originally Posted by K & M Computers in a different thread

As few of you might know, I work in tech support for Sprint. Today I got my training on the pre and got to spend about an hour playing with it. I must say, I am quite happy with it.

Things I liked

• One thing I was surprised by was how small it was. Its roughly the size of the HTC Touch and slighly smaller than the Treo Pro.That being said, it fit my hand perfectly.
  
• I liked how easy it was to launch applications. I loaded about 5 applications at once. They each took about 3 seconds to load(somewhat slower than other phones out there) but once they were loaded they worked flawlessly, since the pre uses a "card" feature for applications meaning each application is treated like a deck of cards that you can flip to it was easy to change between applications, a simple press of the button on the front of the phone and a flick left or right and it changed to the application.
  
• Closing apps were even easier, slide your finger from the bottom up and discard the card.
  
• I was also impressed with the 3 mega pixel camera included. It gave a nice full screen view when taking a picture. and it was easy to save on the phone.
  
• I especially loved the web browser on it, I had 3 sites open at one time and loved the fact i could zoom in and out using 2 fingers. in a pinch motion open and closed.
  
• I also loved the synergy concept(the phone incorporates all your contacts from facebook, gmail, aim, msn, yahoo, and other sources into one contact so that you can easily switch between methods of contact and keep it all organized) lets say you are talking to someone via aim, and they sign off, at that point you could continue your conversation with them by clicking the cell# next to the contact name and send them a text or email.
  
• The app store was very easy to use, however at the moment the apps are somewhat limited. Rumor is there should be over a thousand in the next month or so. I have also heard there will not be an app that is over 5.00.

Things I didn't like:
Well there were only 3 things i did not like about the phone.

• The slide for the qwerty keyboard was somewhat hard to open with one hand. I imagine over time it would open more easily as the spring is used and becomes less tight.
  
• Where the bottom of the keyboard slides out(bottom of phone) the edge is sharper than I would prefer. I think rounding over that edge would have made it perfect, if you use the keyboard too much I could only imagine your fingers being rubbed a little raw.
  
• No sd card slot. The phone has an onboard 8gig memory w/ aprox 7gigs available for the customer to use which acts as a usb mass storage. Me personally, I'd like to have the option to put a 16gb or larger card in it. Perhaps in future models they will add that functionality.

Thats all I have at the moment, As I get more time to play with it I might update some stuff on here.

[Drybonz]

Well, I found a non-working "demo" model at a local Wal-Mart tonight. My biggest concern about this phone was that the keyboard would suck. All the screenshots I had seen made the keyboard look like the Centro keyboards, which I really do not like at all.

I played with the keyboard for about 10 minutes and to my surprise I found it to be quite usable. The feel of the keys is a little weird... not necessarily bad, just different from most anything I have seen. They have a soft kind of, almost rubbery feel. Honestly, though... I think I could type pretty quickly on it.

I also found the phone to be not quite as small as it looks in the screenshots. I thought it might be a bit too small, but the size was really pleasant actually. I think the one I was playing with didn't have any actual stuff inside of it, so that made it feel a little light. I don't like the glossy finish, but I would be slapping a snap on case on it anyway so it doesn't really matter.

So... now to find an actual working model. I think I am getting baby steps closer to wanting one of these things.

*edit* What's the silver button on the face, btw? Is that like a "home" button, or "talk"?

[Zyphlin]

The silver button currently does nothing but takes you from full view to card view.

This is rather annoying because that gives you THREE ways to do this:

1. Swipe up from the gesture area.
2. Swipe back on the gesture area on the lowest level of the app
3. Hit the center button

It also lights up when you do a successful gesture.

My *hope* for it in the future is that as they continue to develop for the WebOS the center button expands its use. I'd like to see the LED in it used as an LED notification. It'd be great if you could map a double press or a long press to it eventually. Or just being able to turn on the phone through pressing it. As of now though, it just gives you card view.

[Drybonz]

Originally Posted by Zyphlin

The silver button currently does nothing but takes you from full view to card view.

Thanks for the info.

Card view allows you to switch from app to app, like a task manager?

In the most common screenshot I have seen, the dialer looks really small. Is this card view, and it gets larger when you select it?

Sorry for the base questions, I have not been able to locate a working demo model.

Originally Posted by Drybonz

Thanks for the info.

Card view allows you to switch from app to app, like a task manager?

In the most common screenshot I have seen, the dialer looks really small. Is this card view, and it gets larger when you select it?

Sorry for the base questions, I have not been able to locate a working demo model.

exactly, the apps are treated as cards and you just swipe up from card view to discart them (close the app) its the best task manager i have seen yet, and also the dialer is full screen also, you just saw the card of it. when you tap the card ti goes full screen

the cool thing about the card view is that the applications are actually active in the cards, like a PC window. youstill see the browser rendering the page if its still loading while minimized and also if you tilt the device for the accelerometer to kick in, all the apps in the cards switch orientation in front of your eyes

[Drybonz]

Originally Posted by mike20pr

the cool thing about the card view is that the applications are actually active in the cards, like a PC window. youstill see the browser rendering the page if its still loading while minimized and also if you tilt the device for the accelerometer to kick in, all the apps in the cards switch orientation in front of your eyes

That is really cool. Thanks for the info.

[nicandalf]

Originally Posted by Drybonz

Thanks for the info.

Card view allows you to switch from app to app, like a task manager?

In the most common screenshot I have seen, the dialer looks really small. Is this card view, and it gets larger when you select it?

Sorry for the base questions, I have not been able to locate a working demo model.

The dialer does go full screen. The view you have seen is the card view. Check out Scottcrsi's comment above, he posted images of both the card view and full screen view. It is in post #4.