I need some updated opinions on the PRE

[jmelan]

my only two problems with the pre right now are epocrates and slingplayer not being available. otherwise the pre seems to be an ideal phone, and as long as palm keeps putting out updates at this pace, i think it will only get better

[jjday7]

Originally Posted by alan7467

I only got my Pre on Sunday (got in on the $99 best buy mistake), but am really enjoying it so far. Main thing I like is the multitasking abilities and overall speed of the device. I know WinMO can do this as well, but thanks to the Pre's fantastic hardware (processor) and WebOS's handling of the "cards" the user experience is far superior IMHO. I'm also absolutely loving the launcher and some of the apps like Pandora.

My main concern with this phone right now is the battery. Third day in my battery was pretty much dead after 10 hours off charger (an improvement over the day before, which took only 9 hours for the battery to hit below 10%). I texted a bit, browsed the web for less than an hour and made few phone calls. I'm really hoping that with a couple more charge cycles things improve. If not I'll try out a larger capacity battery and hope for the best. This is certainly one of those YMMV things though. I really think the radio software could use some updating here. Coming from a Sprint Touch Diamond running telus radio, I'm noticing some funky behavior in limited coverage areas. The phone likes to go into roaming or 1x mode way more often than my Diamond did. It also seems to take much longer to snap out of it. I've actually had to turn flight mode on and off a couple of times to get it to go back to 3G. I'm sure this has a negative impact on battery life, but for the most part I see the biggest drain when using data in any way. Again, I'll need to calibrate the battery a bit more to see how things shake out here.

What I do to conserve is turn off gps, and location settings. This will really help. Some will think well why is it on the phone if I can't use it.
Well, what this does is causes you to manually turn it on. When the app opens it will ask for confirmation that you want to turn on the service.

Second I have learned that if you type ##3836# you can change the phone to 1x mode. This will double your battery life and you can still get calls and text. This just turns off EVDO. I do a good amount of web surfing, but when I am going to really be using it long I will go to the mobile version of the site and I will just surf that way. Too bad ppcgeeks doesn't have a mobile site but there are some good ones out there. I don't know if I can't point them out though.

Originally Posted by tx_dbs_tx

Hey jjday7, You mentioned you mostly use your phone for multimedia and I wanted to throw in my 2 cents on the Palm Pre's video playing capabilities. The Pre has an awesome video player that will play converted MP4 DVD rips at 30fps @ 1024kpbs with absolutely NOOOO lag or frame skipping! Go ahead and give it a try and you will be veeeerry impressed. No other smartphone can play videos like the Palm Pre, not even the Touch Pro 2 when it comes out. Watching full length movies in the highest conversion quality with the Palm Pre is absolutely the BEST. I'm not missing my Touch Pro either, I may go ahead and sell it because I don't see myself going back to it.

thanks for the tip. I haven't had a chance to try the video player yet because I am still trying to get used to the phone and putting homebrews on it. I have it all figured out now though. Pandora is awesome on this too.